I was not much of a moralist in those days, but my mood happening to be a pliant one, certain thoughts seized the opportunity to intrude themselves and beget sundry reflections. I asked myself if I was not carrying my notions of gentility a little too far; if I was not making a very grave blunder in conveying the impression that I considered myself too good and fine to engage in work in which hundreds of men, in every sense my equals, and in many senses my betters, were employed? I enquired of my common sense whether it were possible for a gentleman--I don’t say a real gentleman, for I am aware of only one kind--to lose caste by adopting any pursuit in which he could preserve his honour and possess his proper dignity securely? Was not an assumed ignorance of the essential, if commonplace, interests of life a very impertinent coxcombry? Should I not be asserting myself as a very despicable kind of fop if I professed to look with contempt on a vocation of which I had not pride enough to restrain me from pocketing the profits? I don’t pretend to say that I answered these questions in a manner such as a severe moralist would approve. My self-conceit was too tenacious of life to be killed by a single blow, and my prejudices were of too old a growth to be tamed by a single wise reflection. I merely wish to exhibit myself as having been capable of sometimes thinking correctly, however long it may have taken me to bend my character into a conformity with my better thoughts. I so thoroughly enjoyed the fresh air and the exquisite serenity of that May evening, that, though you may conceive I thought a good deal about Conny, I don’t remember once regretting that I had not gone to Grove End. It is good for man to be sometimes alone. I am pretty certain that my solitary walk was more beneficial to me than a long evening’s coquetting with my sweet cousin would have been. Besides, I felt it only right that I should not avail myself too persistently of my kind relations’ hospitality.