text:  What were horses dogs and country dinners to the world of London and of life which now came in full and I will own it extravagant vision before me? The ideas which I conceived of men and things of my own fortunes and the fortunate exercise of my own powers were of an order which in my calmer days have often made me smile; yet what is the whole early life of man but a predisposition to fever? and I was then throbbing on the fiery verge of the disease