Page:Horrid Mysteries Volume 3.djvu/182

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176
THE HORRID MYSTERIES.

to our new station, we actually incurred the danger of being rusticated. I do not know what opinion S******i entertained of me with regard to that point; however, his behaviour gave me just reason for thinking thus of him. He could easily accommodate himself to almost any situation; and its character, which he appropriated to himself, soon became completely natural to him. He pressed, as it were, the essence out of all scenes and circumstances of human life, and always found something agreeable in the enjoyment thereof. Ere long, his borrowed character grew habitual with him; and he never left his assumed manners before they relinquished him, or a new situation required it.

I, on the contrary, did not so easily and so perfectly catch the spirit of a character. My disposition of mind, which always leads me back to the time past, and renders the gratification the present moment affords agreeable to me only as far as itharmonizes