ABSTRACT
As I wished to avoid dancing, I strolled to an adjoining apartment, where I found a large circle of both sexes, seated round a table: men intent on the turn of a card, which was destined either to ruin themselves or their intimate associates; and women, sacrificing all the graces of mind and person, wholly absorbed in the vortex of destruction. I cannot describe the disgust which I felt, while I contemplated features, decked with the bloom of youth, yet distorted by internal emotions! Bosoms, which nature formed for the abodes of gentleness and virtue, burning with rage, and panting with disappointment! Eyes, darting forth the lightnings of despair; and lips, pallid with the apprehension of impending ruin! Is this, what men call the world? thought I. Are these the votaries of pleasure, the children of luxurious life? Am I to emerge from obscurity for such society; – to obliterate every solid charm that sweetens the cup of existence; – to crush every fair and opening flower for a bitter potion of regret, and a path over-run with weeds that will destroy me? The sombre shade of scholastic labour, now, by comparison with the scene before me, was the sweet retirement of rational delight! The solitudes, the mountain solitudes of Glenowen, were the haunts of meditation, soothing to the heart, and gratifying to the senses. Ah! Rosanna! Why – why did I ever leave them?
