engaged by it; but a most unfortunate attachment, which never could have contributed much to my honour, and has ended most unhappily, has estranged me from that and almost everything else, except a few friends, the recollection of whom is one of the last sentiments I shall part with.
I endeavour to employ my thoughts with books and writing, and when weary of them fly into company; and when disgusted with that return back to the other. But all will not do—there is little chance of getting over an attachment that has continued with unabated force for thirteen years; nor at my time of life, is the heart very easily captured by a new object.
You see how frankly I confess my weakness. But if I am not much mistaken you will make some allowance for the extravagance of this sort of sensation, which is allied, however remotely, to some of the best feelings of the heart. I am a very domestic kind of animal, and not at all adapted for solitude.
From the moment it became inexpedient, from whatever cause, to gratify this passion, his feelings became painfully depressed. Whether any objection arose from his family does not appear. They were strongly attached to him; and his father, who was at this period in ill-health, had always evinced the most affectionate regard. To divert the current of thought, he was recommended to travel. His brother had gone to Spa the preceding year, and he joined him there in the summer of 1769.
To a companion of his former excursions, Mr. Thomas Southwell, who continued at Avignon and ultimately became a convert to Romanism, he wrote in April in a desponding tone without specifying the cause. His friend suspected it, and in a strain of pious earnestness thus hints his suspicions in the following month:—
