As I had not married and showed no inclination to do so, their womenkind also, out of their intimate knowledge, proclaimed that I led an immoral life, though a little reflection would have shown them that there was no one in the neighbourhood which for a time I seldom left, who could possibly have tempted an educated creature to such courses.
Terrible is the lot of a man who, while still young and possessing the intellect necessary to achievement, is deprived of all ambition.

And I had none at all.

I did not even wish to purchase a peerage or a baronetcy in this fashion or in that, and, as in my father's case, my tastes were so many and so catholic that I could not lose myself in any one of them.

They never became more than diversions to me.

A hobby is only really amusing when it becomes an obsession.
At length my lonesome friendlessness oppressed me so much that I took steps to mitigate it.