which I was madly delighted, and fully persuaded I should be enchanted
for ever;--now, again, in the beginning of the summer,--you find me,
already, in a new occupation!"

"I am sorry," said Cecilia, "but far indeed from surprised, that you
found yourself deceived by such sanguine expectations."

"Deceived!" cried he, with energy, "I was bewitched, I was infatuated!
common sense was estranged by the seduction of a chimera; my
understanding was in a ferment from the ebullition of my imagination!
But when this new way of life lost its novelty,--novelty! that short-
liv'd, but exquisite bliss! no sooner caught than it vanishes, no
sooner tasted than it is gone! which charms but to fly, and comes but
to destroy what it leaves behind!--when that was lost, reason, cool,
heartless reason, took its place, and teaching me to wonder at the
frenzy of my folly, brought me back to the tameness--the sadness of
reality!"

"I am sure," cried Mrs Belfield, "whatever it has brought you back to,
it has brought you back to no good! it's a hard case, you must needs
think, madam, to a mother, to see a son that might do whatever he
would, if he'd only set about it, contenting himself with doing nothing
but scribble and scribe one day, and when he gets tired of that,
thinking of nothing better than casting up two and two!"

"Why, madam," said Mr Hobson, "what I have seen of the world is this;
there's nothing methodizes a man but business. If he's never so much
upon the stilts, that's always a sure way to bring him down, by reason
he soon finds there's nothing to be got by rhodomontading. Let every
man be his own carver; but what I say is, them gentlemen that are what