This man had known the mistress of the house in her youth; good nature induced him to visit her; but when he saw Mary he had another inducement.  Her appearance, and above all, her genius, and cultivation of mind, roused his curiosity; but her dignified manners had such an effect on him, he was obliged to suppress it.  He knew men, as well as books; his conversation was entertaining and improving.  In Mary’s company he doubted whether heaven was peopled with spirits masculine; and almost forgot that he had called the sex “the pretty play things that render life tolerable.”

He had been the slave of beauty, the captive of sense; love he ne’er had felt; the mind never rivetted the chain, nor had the purity of it made the body appear lovely in his eyes.  He was humane, despised meanness; but was vain of his abilities, and by no means a useful member of society.  He talked often of the beauty of virtue; but not having any solid foundation to build the practice on, he was only a shining, or rather a sparkling character:  and though his fortune enabled him to hunt down pleasure, he was discontented.

Mary observed his character, and wrote down a train of reflections, which these observations led her to make; these reflections received a tinge from her mind; the present state of it, was that kind of painful quietness which arises from reason clouded by disgust; she had not yet learned to be resigned; vague hopes agitated her.

“There are some subjects that are so enveloped in clouds, as you dissipate one, another overspreads it.  Of this kind are our reasonings concerning happiness; till we are obliged to cry out with the Apostle, That it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive in what it could consist, or how satiety could be prevented.  Man seems formed for action, though the passions are seldom properly managed; they are either so languid as not to serve as a spur, or else so violent, as to overleap all bounds.

“Every individual has its own peculiar trials; and anguish, in one shape or other, visits every heart.  Sensibility produces flights of virtue; and not curbed by reason, is on the brink of vice talking, and even thinking of virtue.

“Christianity can only afford just principles to govern the wayward feelings and impulses of the heart:  every good disposition runs wild, if not transplanted into this soil; but how hard is it to keep the heart diligently, though convinced that the issues of life depend on it.

“It is very difficult to discipline the mind of a thinker, or reconcile him to the weakness, the inconsistency of his understanding; and a still more laborious task for him to conquer his passions, and learn to seek content, instead of happiness.  Good dispositions, and virtuous propensities, without the light of the Gospel, produce eccentric characters:  comet-like, they are always in extremes; while revelation resembles the laws of attraction, and produces uniformity; but too often is the attraction feeble; and the light so obscured by passion, as to force the bewildered soul to fly into void space, and wander in confusion.”