misty moonlight air see the woods that wave over the top of Winterslow,
my mind takes its flight through too long a series of years, supported only by the patience of thought and secret yearnings after truth and good, for me to be at a loss to understand the feeling I intend to write about; but I do not know that this will enable me to convey it more agreeably to the reader.
Lady G. in a letter to Miss Harriet Byron, assures her that “her brother Sir Charles lived to himself;” and Lady L. soon after (for Richardson was never tired of a good thing) repeats the same observation; to which Miss Byron frequently returns in her answers to both sisters—“For you know Sir Charles lives to himself” till at length it passes into a proverb among the fair correspondents. This is not, however, an example of what I understand by living to one's-self, for Sir Charles Grandison was indeed always thinking of himself; but by this phrase I mean never thinking at all about one's-self, any more than if there was no such person in existence. The character I speak of is as little of an egotist as possible: Richardson's great favourite was as much of one as possible. Some satirical critic
