‘In my youth, and through the prime of manhood, I never entered London without feelings of pleasure and hope. It was to me as the grand theatre of intellectual activity, the field of every species of enterprise and exertion, the metropolis of the world of business, thought, and action. … I now entered the great city in a very different tone of mind, one of settled melancholy … My health was gone, my ambition was satisfied, I was no longer excited by the desire of distinction; what I regarded most tenderly [my mother], was in the grave … My cup of life was no longer sparkling, sweet, and
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