I should only weary my reader were I to lay before him in detail half the catalogue of those minor distresses which embarrass the idea of a modish life: he must however perceive, from the little which has been said, that every pleasure has its countervailing pain; and that every sacrifice to diversion and splendour has its correspondent chastisement in vexation and disgrace. Hitherto those principles have been assumed as the basis of calculation, upon which people of Fashion have _some_ advantages in their favour; but there is another ground upon which (to say the whole truth) it ought to be put, and on which all the advantages are _against_ them. Man (it is notorious) is a reflecting being; and, do what he will, he _must_ reflect. He may choose an _habitual_ career of sense; but still he must have, whether he seek or shun them, moments of _Reflection_. This is I admit, extremely inconvenient; but then it is without a remedy. My business, however, is, neither to impugn, nor to vindicate the existence of such a principle; but to show its bearings upon the sort of life which people of Fashion must necessarily lead. Not to enter into particulars, what can constitute a heavier affliction, than for a man of Fashion (or, which is the same thing, a man of the world) to be obliged to think over again the events of his licentious career? To be persecuted with recollecting the property he has squandered, the wine he has drunk, the seduction he has practised, and the duels he has fought? These things were well enough at the time; they had their humour and their reputation, and they were not without their pleasure: but then they were designed to be _acted_, and not _reflected_ upon. The woman of Fashion is under the same law, and is therefore exposed to the same mental torments. She, too, must trace back (though she would give the world to be excused) the steps she has trodden in the enchanting walks of dissipation. She must live over again every portion of a life which, though too fascinating to be declined, is yet too shocking to be thought of. Her memory, also, must be haunted with frightful scenes, which remind her, at the expence of how much health, and property, and time, and virtue, she has sustained the figure which made her so talked of, and the gaieties which rendered her so happy. Now these are real afflictions; and that _Reflection_ from which they result is, not without reason, felt and acknowledged as the scourge of their existence, by the ingenuous part, at least, of the Fashionable World.