The world now wore a very different aspect.

I was deserted by all my gay associates; my most intimate companions passed me in the streets without recognition.

I knew that this would be the result of my altered fortunes, yet the reality cut me to the heart.
"These are mortifying lessons, which experience, wisdom's best counsellor, daily teaches us; and a man must either be very self-conceited, or very insensible, who cannot profit by her valuable instructions.

The hour which brought to me the humiliating conviction, that I was a person of no consequence; that the world could go on very well without me; that my merry companions would not be one jot less facetious, though I was absent from their jovial parties, was after all not the most miserable of my life.
"I woke as from a dream.

The scales had fallen from my eyes.