I was roused about nine o'clock in the evening
by Tickle, who came, according to promise, to squire
me to Mrs. Pickup's and the Misses Oldstyle's;
and dressing myself in Mr. Dawkin's best, I accompanied
him forthwith to the mansion of the
former.

It was yet summer, and the season of gayety
was therefore afar off. All genteel people were,
or were supposed to be, out of town, according to
the rule which, at this season, drives the gentry of
London to their country-seats. The few of Philadelphia
who could imitate the lords and ladies in this
particular, were now catching agues on the Schuylkill;
while the mass, consisting of those whose
revenues did not allow any rustication on their
own lands, were killing sand-flies on the seashore,
or gnawing tough beef and grumbling over bad
butter at some fashionable watering-place in the

[figure description] Page 179.[end figure description]

interior. There were some, however, as there
always are, who considered themselves genteel,
and who stayed at home, either because they were
tired of agues, sand-flies, tough beef, and bad butter,
as they freely professed; because they really
believed they were better off at home; or because
they were, like me and my friend Tickle, not rich
enough to squander their money on vanities, and so
stayed at home from necessity.

Of such persons one can always, even in summer-time,
assemble enough to make a party of
some kind or other, where the contented guests
can be uncommonly sociable, eat ices, and pity
their friends, who may be at the moment roasting
in a ball-room at Saratoga.

It was undoubtedly a great misfortune that I
should make my first introduction to good society
at a time when it was to be seen only in its minimum
of splendour; whereby I lost the opportunity
of being dazzled to the same degree in which I
found myself capable of dazzling others. Nevertheless,
I was vastly captivated by what I saw,
and for the few brief weeks that my destiny permitted
me to live among the refined and exclusive,
I considered myself an uncommonly happy individual.

The reception I met at Mrs. Pickup's convinced
me that, in entering Mr. Dawkins's body, I had done
the wisest thing in the world; for, however much
it endangered me with the tailors, it proved the
best recommendation to the ladies. I found

[figure description] Page 180.[end figure description]

myself ushered into a suite of apartments magnificently
furnished and lighted, and not so over crowded (for
the season was taken into consideration) but that
the moschetoes had room to exercise their talents.
I thought I should be devoured by Mrs. Pickup,
she was so amazingly glad to see me; but
I perceived, by a sort of instinct I had acquired
along with Dawkins's body, that there was something
plebeian about her, although a very fine woman
as far as appearances went; and, indeed, Tickle
assured me she was a mere parvenue, or upstart,
whom everybody despised, and whom no one would
come nigh, were it not for her wealth, and the
resolution she avowed to give six different balls of
the most splendid character in the course of the
season. She had a daughter, who was very handsome,
and a decided speculation; but I did not
think much of her, especially as I found she was
already engaged to be married.

I found here that I knew everybody, or, what was
the same thing, that everybody knew me; and,
with Tickle's help, I soon found myself as much at
home with Mr. I. D. Dawkins's fair acquaintances
as if I had known them all my life. It was still,
as it had been before, a virtue and peculiarity of my
recollections, that they were always roused by a
few words of conversation with any one known to
my prototype; from which I infer, that the associations
of the mind, as well as many of its other
qualities, are more dependant upon causes in the
body than metaphysicians are disposed to allow.

[figure description] Page 181.[end figure description]

This dependance it has been my fate to know and
feel more extensively, perhaps, than any other man
that ever lived. The spirit of Sheppard Lee was
widely different from those of John H. Higginson
and I. D. Dawkins, as, I think, the reader must
have already seen; and yet, no sooner had it entered
the bodies of these two individuals, than the
distinction was almost altogether lost. Certain it
is, that in stepping into each, I found myself invested
with new feelings, passions, and propensities—
as it were, with a new mind—and retaining so little
of my original character, that I was perhaps
only a little better able to judge and reason on the
actions performed in my new body, without being
able to avoid them, even when sensible of their
absurdity.

I do verily believe that much of the evil and
good of man's nature arises from causes and influences
purely physical; that valour and ambition
are as often caused by a bad stomach as ill-humour
by bad teeth; that Socrates, in Bonaparte's body,
could scarce have been Socrates, although the combination
might have produced a Timoleon or Washington;
and, finally, that those sages who labour
to improve the moral nature of their species, will
effect their purpose only when they have physically
improved the stock. Strong minds may be indeed
operated upon without regard to bodily bias, and
rendered independent of it; but ordinary spirits lie
in their bodies like water in sponges, diffused
through every part, affected by the part's affections,

[figure description] Page 182.[end figure description]

changed with its changes, and so intimately united
with the fleshly matrix, that the mere cutting off of
a leg, as I believe, will, in some cases, leave the
spirit limping for life.

But, as I said before, I am not writing a dissertation
on metaphysics, nor on morals either; and as
my adventures will suggest such reflections to all
who care to indulge them, I will omit them for the
present, and hasten on with my story.

And here the reader may expect of me a description
of those scenes and persons in fashionable life
to which and whom I was now introduced; and if
I valued the reader's approbation at a higher price
than my own conscience and reputation, I should
undoubtedly gratify him, by putting my imagination
in requisition, and painting at once some dozen or
two of such fanciful pictures as are found in novels
of fashionable life, though never, I opine, in fashionable
life itself. In such I should have occasion
to represent gentlemen more elegant and witty, and
ladies more charming and ethereal, than are to be
found in any of the ordinary circles of society;
but, as I am writing truth and not fiction, and represent
things as I found, not as I imagined them, I
declare that the ladies and gentlemen of the exclusive
circles to which I was admitted, were very
much like the ladies and gentlemen of other circles—
that is, as elegant and witty as they could be,
and as charming and celestial as it pleased Heaven:—
and that, after due exercise of judgment and
memory, I cannot, in the adventures of three whole

p016-192 [figure description] Page 183.[end figure description]

weeks in such society, remember a single person
or thing worth describing. For which reason I
will pass on to more important matters.