I felt at peace with all around me, myself included, and I found a sweet assurance of the wisdom of the step I had just taken in the expanding sentiment.

If such were my sensations now that every thought centred in Anna, what would they not become when these personal transports were cooled by habit, and nature was left to the action of the ordinary impulses! I began to doubt of the infallibility of that part of my system which had given me so much pain, and to incline to the new doctrine that by concentration on particular parts we come most to love the whole.

On examination there was reason to question whether it was not on this principle even that, as an especial landholder, I attained so great an interest in my native island; for while I certainly did not own the whole of Great Britain, I felt that I had a profound respect for everything in it that was in any, even the most remote manner, connected with my own particular possessions.
A week flew by in delightful anticipations.

The happiness of this short but heavenly period became so exciting, so exquisite, that I was on the point of giving birth to an improvement on my theory (or rather on the theory of the political economists and constitution-mongers, for it is in fact theirs and not mine), when the answer of Anna was received.

If anticipation be a state of so much happiness--happiness being the great pursuit of man--why not invent a purely probationary condition of society ?--why not change its elementary features from positive to anticipating interests, which would give more zest to life, and bestow felicity unimpaired by the dross of realities?
I had determined to carry out this principle in practice by an experiment, and left the hotel to order an agent to advertise, and to enter into a treaty or two, for some new investments (without the smallest intention of bringing them to a conclusion), when the porter delivered me the ardently expected letter.
I never knew what would be the effect of taking a stake in society by anticipation, therefore; the contents of Anna's missive driving every subject that was not immediately connected with the dear writer, and with sad realities, completely out of my head.