He was far
worse than poor and in debt, he was _out of fashion_, and for a man
like himself this meant not only humiliation, but impotent rage. Ladies
no longer ogled him and commanded the stopping of their chairs that
they might call him to them with coquettish reproaches that he neither
came to their assemblies nor bowed and waved hands to them as he sate
on the stage at the playhouse; beaux no longer joined him in the
coffee-house or on the Mall to ask his opinion of this new beauty or
that, and admire the cut of his coat, or the lace on his steenkirk; the
new beauty's successes would not be advanced by his opinion--a man whom
tradespeople dun from morn till night has few additions to his wardrobe
and wears few novelties in lace. Profligacy and defiance of all rules
of healthful living had marred his beauty and degraded his youth; his
gay wit and spirit had deserted him and left him suspicious and bitter.
He had been forced to put down his equipages and change his fashionable
lodgings for cheaper ones; when he lounged in the park his old
acquaintances failed to see him; when he gambled he lost. Downhill he
was going, and there was naught to stop him. For one man in England he
had, even in his most flourishing days, cherished a distaste--the man
who was five inches taller than himself, who was incomparably
handsomer, and whose rank was such, that to approach him as an equal
would have savoured of presumption.
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