Thus was I every day harassed with all the stratagems of well-bred
malignity; yet insolence was more tolerable than solitude, and I
therefore persisted to keep my time at the doors of my acquaintance,
without gratifying them with any appearance of resentment or depression.
I expected that their exultation would in time vapour away; that the joy
of their superiority would end with its novelty; and that I should be
suffered to glide along in my present form among the nameless multitude,
whom nature never intended to excite envy or admiration, nor enabled to
delight the eye or inflame the heart.
This was naturally to be expected, and this I began to experience. But
when I was no longer agitated by the perpetual ardour of resistance, and
effort of perseverance, I found more sensibly the want of those
entertainments which had formerly delighted me; the day rose upon me
without an engagement; and the evening closed in its natural gloom,
without summoning me to a concert or a ball. None had any care to find
amusements for me, and I had no power of amusing myself. Idleness
exposed me to melancholy, and life began to languish in motionless
indifference.
Misery and shame are nearly allied. It was not without many struggles
that I prevailed on myself to confess my uneasiness to Euphemia, the
only friend who had never pained me with comfort or with pity.
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