However, there was nothing to be seen at that early hour on Sunday morning which in the least resembled a gentleman, or even, in their Sunday new coats and bran new yellow leather gloves, could be mistaken for one, that came within a mile of me.
"This must be Leinster's Apollo," said I. How could I address myself to such a booby? True, this man may perhaps have a certain indescribable charm about him, a je ne sais quoi, which may not be discoverable at the first glance! I ventured to raise my eyes to his face, and, if I did not laugh, I looked as though I was thinking about it; and on this he spoke and smiled, and blushed, and bowed.
I conceived that, having brought a man up to Marylebone Fields on such a terribly hot morning, it would not have been fair or lady-like to have dismissed him, until I had given his talents and powers of pleasing a fair trial. I walked him up to the tip-top of Primrose Hill, and then towards Hampstead, and then back again to Great Portland Street.
At last his lordship made a full stop, while he took off his hat to wipe his face, declaring he could go no further, as he was quite unaccustomed to walking and the sun was so very oppressive. He therefore entreated that I would permit him to accompany me immediately to my house, if only to sit down and rest, or otherwise he apprehended—fever or sudden death!
I assured him I was sorry, very sorry, and hoped such fatal consequences would not follow our little rural bit of pleasure; at the same time I could only express my regrets, while I frankly declared to him that he was not in the least the sort of person I wanted.
Lord George L. Gower was too proud, too well-looking, to be deeply wounded at my determination, so he smiled, and bowed, and wished me good morning, declaring himself much amused with the eccentricity and frankness of my character.
It will not do, I see, to lay one's self out for love, thought I, after his lordship had left me. It comes, like money, when one is not thinking about it. Reading is a much more independent amusement than loving. Books one may cut, when one is tired of them; so I began immediately on arriving home with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Letters. The style was very unequal I thought: now paltry and ungraceful, now elevated. The same observations were applicable to the sentiments she expressed. In some letters one would accuse her of being both indecent and profligate; in others she displayed herself as the most refined, elegant and delicate of her sex. I read as far as this passage:—"Our vulgar notions that Mahomet did not own women to have any souls, is a mistake. It is true, he says they are not of so elevated a kind, and therefore must not hope to be admitted into the paradise appointed for the men, who are to be entertained by celestial beauties. But there is a place of happiness destined for souls of the inferior order, where all good women are to be in eternal bliss. Any woman that dies unmarried is looked upon to die in a state of reprobation. To confirm this, I believe they reason that the end of the creation of woman is to increase and multiply, and that she is only properly employed in the works of her calling, when she is bringing forth children, or taking care of them, which is all the virtue God expects of her."
I threw the book down at this passage, beginning to feel very much ashamed of myself; I rang my bell, and sent to my bookseller for the "History of Mahomet," hoping that most prolific prophet would put me in the way of obeying his commands in case, after duly studying his laws, I were disposed to turn Turk.
I seriously determined to choose my own religion, instead of following blindly that which happened to be my father's. If this determination be sinful, I must still think it ever has been, and ever will be the sin of all intelligent minds. The uneducated child, or the rudest clown who earns his hard fare by the sweat of his brow, and whistles as he returns home for want of thought, will give the same answers, when you ask why they say their prayers, namely, "Because the parson says I ought." Will it not occur to them that accident has had much to do with their being Christians, or Jews, or Turks? Will not they be aware of the force of early impressions, good or bad, and, if but to impress on their mind the wisdom and justice, as well as the superiority of the religion they were born in, will they not compare it steadily with that of the greater part of the creation? It may be answered that all religions are good, and we have but to act up to our belief of what is right, which is all that justice can require of us: yet will the ardent mind, while suffering under the various ills which flesh is heir to, be led to doubt and to search eagerly into the reason why a just God, who is our father, has created us for so much misery.
I pondered a whole night on these expressive words of Lord Byron, in his "Childe Harold":