world.

By a strange narrowness of ideas he viewed all the world in connexion
only as it was or was not related to his little society. He considered
queer and out of fashion all opinions that were exploded by his circle
of intimates, and he became at the same time dogmatic and yet fearful
of not coinciding with the only sentiments he could consider orthodox.
To the generality of spectators he appeared careless of censure, and
with high disdain to throw aside all dependance on public prejudices;
but at the same time that he strode with a triumphant stride over the
rest of the world, he cowered, with self disguised lowliness, to his
own party, and although its [chi]ef never dared express an opinion or
a feeling until he was assured that it would meet with the approbation
of his companions.

Yet he had one secret hidden from these dear friends; a secret he had
nurtured from his earliest years, and although he loved his fellow
collegiates he would not trust it to the delicacy or sympathy of any
one among them. He loved. He feared that the intensity of his passion
might become the subject of their ridicule; and he could not bear that
they should blaspheme it by considering that trivial and transitory
which he felt was the life of his life.

There was a gentleman of small fortune who lived near his family
mansion who had three lovely daughters. The eldest was far the most
beautiful, but her beauty was only an addition to her other
qualities--her understanding was clear & strong and her disposition
angelically gentle. She and my father had been playmates from infancy:
Diana, even in her childhood had been a favourite with his mother;
this partiality encreased with the years of this beautiful and lively
girl and thus during his school & college vacations[8] they were
perpetually together. Novels and all the various methods by which
youth in civilized life are led to a knowledge of the existence of
passions before they really feel them, had produced a strong effect on
him who was so peculiarly susceptible of every impression. At eleven
years of age Diana was his favourite playmate but he already talked
the language of love. Although she was elder than he by nearly two
years the nature of her education made her more childish at least in
the knowledge and expression of feeling; she received his warm
protestations with innocence, and returned them unknowing of what they
meant. She had read no novels and associated only with her