I had fulfilled the essential condition of the political economists, the jurists, the constitution-mongers, and all the "talents and decency," and had stakes in half the societies of the world.

I was fit to govern, I was fit to advise, to dictate to most of the people of Christendom; for I had taken a direct interest in their welfares by making them my own.

Twenty times was I about to jump into a post-chaise, and to gallop down to the rectory in order to lay my newborn alliance with the species, and all its attendant felicity, at the feet of Anna, but the terrible thought of monogamy, and of its sympathy-withering consequences, as often stayed my course.

I wrote to her weekly, however, making her the participator of a portion of my happiness, though I never had the satisfaction of receiving a single line in reply.
Fairly emancipated from selfishness, and pledged to the species, I now quitted England on a tour of philanthropical inspection.

I shall not weary the reader with an account of my journeys over the beaten tracks of the continent, but transport him and myself at once to Paris, in which city I arrived on the 17th of May, Anno Domini 1819.