The reader must give himself wholly up to me; he must prepare to go with me through the grave as through the gay, and unresistingly to thread the dark and subtle interest which alone I can impart to these memoirs, or--let him close the book at once.

I promise him novelty; but it is not, when duly scanned, a novelty of a light and frivolous cast.
But throughout that routine of dissipation in which he chased the phantom Forgetfulness, Godolphin sighed for the time he had fixed on for leaving the scenes in which it was pursued.

Of Constance's present existence he heard nothing; of her former triumphs and conquests he heard everywhere.

And when did he ever meet one face, however fair, which could awaken a single thought of admiration?
while hers was yet all faithfully glassed in his remembrance.

I know nothing that so utterly converts society into "the gallery of pictures," as the recollection of one loved and lost.