As I told Lady Lyndon in those days, with perfect sincerity, 'Calista' (I used to call her Calista in my correspondence)--' Calista, I swear to thee, by the spotlessness of thy own soul, by the brilliancy of thy immitigable eyes, by everything pure and chaste in heaven and in thy own heart, that I will never cease from following thee! Scorn I can bear, and have borne at thy hands.
Indifference I can surmount; 'tis a rock which my energy will climb over, a magnet which attracts the dauntless iron of my soul!' And it was true, I wouldn't have left her--no, though they had kicked me downstairs every day I presented myself at her door.
That is my way of fascinating women.

Let the man who has to make his fortune in life remember this maxim.

ATTACKING is his only secret.

Dare, and the world always yields: or, if it beat you sometimes, dare again, and it will succumb.

In those days my spirit was so great, that if I had set my heart upon marrying a princess of the blood, I would have had her! I told Calista my story, and altered very very little of the truth.
My object was to frighten her: to show her that what I wanted, that I dared; that what I dared, that I won; and there were striking passages enough in my history to convince her of my iron will and indomitable courage.