HAVING left the service of Madam de Vercellis nearly as I had entered it, I returned to my former hostess, and remained there five or six weeks; during which time health, youth, and laziness, frequently rendered my temperament importunate.I was restless, absent, and thoughtful: I wept and sighed for a happiness I had no idea of, though at the same time highly sensible of some deficiency.
This situation is indescribable, few men can even form any conception of it, because, in general, they have prevented that plenitude of life, at once tormenting and delicious.My thoughts were incessantly occupied with girls and women, but in a manner peculiar to myself: these ideas kept my senses in a perpetual and disagreeable activity, though, fortunately, they did not point out the means of deliverance.I would have given my life to have met with a Miss Goton, if only for a quarter of an hour, but the time was past in which the play of infancy predominated; increase of years had introduced shame, the inseparable companion of a conscious deviation from rectitude, which so confirmed my natural timidity as to render it invincible; and never, either at that time or since, could I prevail on myself to offer a proposition favorable to my wishes (unless in a manner constrained to it by previous advances) even with those whose scruples I had no cause to dread, and that I felt assured were ready to take me at my word.
My stay at Madam de Vercellis's had procured me some acquaintance, which I wished to retain.Among others, I sometimes visited a Savoyard abbe, M.Gaime, who was tutor to the Count of Melarede's children.
He was young, and not much known, but possessed an excellent cultivated understanding, with great probity, and was, altogether, one of the best men I ever knew.He was incapable of doing me the service I then stood most in need of, not having sufficient interest to procure me a situation, but from him I reaped advantages far more precious, which have been useful to me through life, lessons of pure morality, and maxims of sound judgment.
In the successive order of my inclinations and ideas, I had ever been too high or too low.Achilles or Thersites; sometimes a hero, at others a villain.M.Gaime took pains to make me properly acquainted with myself, without sparing or giving me too much discouragement.He spoke in advantageous terms of my disposition and talents, adding, that he foresaw obstacles which would prevent my profiting by them; thus, according to him, they were to serve less as steps by which I should mount to fortune, than as resources which might enable me to exist without one.He gave me a true picture of human life, of which, hitherto, I had formed but a very erroneous idea, teaching me, that a man of understanding, though destined to experience adverse fortune, might, by skillful management, arrive at happiness; that there was no true felicity without virtue, which was practicable in every situation.He greatly diminished my admiration of grandeur, by proving that those in a superior situation are neither better nor happier than those they command.One of his maxims has frequently returned to my memory: it was, that if we could truly read the hearts of others we should feel more inclination to descend than rise: this reflection, the truth of which is striking without extravagance, I have found of great utility, in the various exigences of my life, as it tended to make me satisfied with my condition.He gave me the first just conception of relative duties, which my high-flown imagination had ever pictured in extremes, ****** me sensible that the enthusiasm of sublime virtues is of little use in society; that while endeavoring to rise too high we are in danger of falling; and that a virtuous and uniform discharge of little duties requires as great a degree of fortitude as actions which are called heroic, and would at the same time procure more honor and happiness.That it was infinitely more desirably to possess the lasting esteem of those about us, than at intervals to attract admiration.
In properly arranging the various duties between man and man, it was necessary to ascend to principles; the step I had recently taken, and of which my present situation was the consequence, naturally led us to speak of religion.It will easily be conceived that the honest M.Gaime was, in a great measure, the original of the Savoyard Vicar: prudence only obliging him to deliver his sentiments, on certain points, with more caution and reserve, and explain himself with less *******; but his sentiments and councils were the same, not even excepting his advice to return to my country; all was precisely as I have since given it to the public.Dwelling no longer, therefore, on conversations which every one may see the substance of, I shall only add, that these wise instructions (though they did not produce an immediate effect) were as so many seeds of virtue and religion in my heart which were never rooted out, and only required the fostering cares of friendship to bring to maturity.
Though my conversion was not very sincere, I was affected by his discourses, and far from being weary, was pleased with them on account of their clearness and simplicity, but above all because his heart seemed interested in what he said.My disposition is naturally tender, I have ever been less attached to people for the good they have really done me than for that they designed to do, and my feelings in this particular have seldom misled me: thus I truly esteemed M.Gaime.Iwas in a manner his second disciple, which even at that time was of inestimable service in turning me from a propensity to vice into which my idleness was leading me.