I longed to display my power over the celebrated and courted Lady Merton; and to put the last crown to my reputation and importance.

The envy of others is the food of our own self-love.

Oh, you know not, you dream not, of the galling mortifications to which a proud woman, whose love commands her pride, is subjected! I imposed upon Caroline the most humiliating, the most painful trials; I would allow her to see none but those I pleased; to go to no place where I withheld my consent; and I hesitated not to exert and testify my power over her affections, in proportion to the publicity of the opportunity.
Yet, with all this littleness, would you believe that I loved Caroline with the most ardent and engrossing passion?
I have paused behind her, in order to kiss the ground she trod on; I have stayed whole nights beneath her window, to catch one glimpse of her passing form, even though I had spent hours of the daytime in her society; and, though my love burned and consumed me like a fire, I would not breathe a single wish against her innocence, or take advantage of my power to accomplish what I knew from her virtue and pride no atonement could possibly repay.
Such are the inconsistencies of the heart, and such, while they prevent our perfection, redeem us from the utterness of vice! Never, even in my wildest days, was I blind to the glory of virtue, yet never, till my latest years, have I enjoyed the faculty to avail myself of my perception.

I resembled the mole, which by Boyle is supposed to possess the idea of light, but to be unable to comprehend the objects on which it shines.
Among the varieties of my prevailing sin, was a weakness common enough to worldly men.

While I ostentatiously played off the love I had excited I could not bear to show the love I felt.