The Last Man

My fortunes have been, from the beginning, an exemplification of the power that mutability maypossess over the varied tenor of man's life. With regard to myself, this came almost by inheritance. My father was one of those men on whom nature had bestowed to prodigality the envied gifts of witand imagination, and then left his bark of life to be impelled by these winds, without adding reasonas the rudder, or judgment as the pilot for the voyage. His extraction was obscure; but circumstancesbrought him early into public notice, and his small paternal property was soon dissipated in thesplendid scene of fashion and luxury in which he was an actor. During the short years of thoughtlessyouth, he was adored by the high-bred triflers of the day, nor least by the youthful sovereign, whoescaped from the intrigues of party, and the arduous duties of kingly business, to find never-failingamusement and exhilaration of spirit in his society. My father's impulses, never under his owncontroul, perpetually led him into difficulties from which his ingenuity alone could extricate him;and the accumulating pile of debts of honour and of trade, which would have bent to earth anyother, was supported by him with a light spirit and tameless hilarity; while his company was sonecessary at the tables and assemblies of the rich, that his derelictions were considered venial, and hehimself received with intoxicating flattery.