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mournful change, and entreated Adrian and myself to go up to London, and
endeavour to remedy the encreasing evil:--"Tell him," she cried, "tell
Lord Raymond, that my presence shall no longer annoy him. That he need not
plunge into this destructive dissipation for the sake of disgusting me, and
causing me to fly. This purpose is now accomplished; he will never see me
more. But let me, it is my last entreaty, let me in the praises of his
countrymen and the prosperity of England, find the choice of my youth
justified."
During our ride up to town, Adrian and I discussed and argued upon
Raymond's conduct, and his falling off from the hopes of permanent
excellence on his part, which he had before given us cause to entertain. My
friend and I had both been educated in one school, or rather I was his
pupil in the opinion, that steady adherence to principle was the only road
to honour; a ceaseless observance of the laws of general utility, the only
conscientious aim of human ambition. But though we both entertained these
ideas, we differed in their application. Resentment added also a sting to
my censure; and I reprobated Raymond's conduct in severe terms. Adrian was
more benign, more considerate. He admitted that the principles that I laid
down were the best; but he denied that they were the only ones. Quoting the
text, there are many mansions in my father's house, he insisted that the
modes of becoming good or great, varied as much as the dispositions of men,
of whom it might be said, as of the leaves of the forest, there were no two
alike.
We arrived in London at about eleven at night. We conjectured,
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