Greek being, next to interest, the best road to the mitre

.... I was intended for the Church: wishing, betimes, to instruct myself in its ceremonies, I persuaded my schoolmaster's maid-servant to assist me towards promoting a christening. My father did not like this premature love for the sacred rites. He took me home; and, wishing to give my clerical ardour a different turn, prepared me for writing sermons, by reading me a dozen a day. I grew tired of this, strange as it may seem to you. 'Father,' said I, one morning, 'it is no use talking, I will not go into the Church—that's positive. Give me your blessing, and a hundred pounds, and I'll go up to London, and get a living instead of a curacy.' My father stormed, but I got the better at last. I talked of becoming a private tutor; swore I had heard nothing was so easy,—the only things wanted were—pupils; and the only way to get them—was to go to London, and let my learning be known. My poor father!—well, he's gone, and I am glad of it now!—(the speaker's voice faltered)—I got the better, I say, and I came to town, where I had a relation a bookseller. Through his interest, I wrote a book of Travels in Æthiopia, for an earl's son, who wanted to become a lion; and a Treatise on the Greek Particle, dedicated to the prime minister, for a dean, who wanted to become a bishop,—Greek being, next to interest, the best road to the mitre. These two achievements were liberally paid; so I took a lodging in a first floor, and resolved to make a bold stroke for a wife. What do you think I did?—nay, never guess, it would be hopeless. First, I went to the best tailor, and had my clothes sewn on my back; secondly, I got the peerage and its genealogies by heart; thirdly, I marched one night, with the coolest deliberation possible, into the house of a duchess, who was giving an immense rout! The newspapers had inspired me with this idea. I had read of the vast crowds which a lady 'at home' sought to win to her house. I had read of staircases impassable, and ladies carried out in a fit; and common sense told me how impossible it was that the fair receiver should be acquainted with the legality of every importation. I therefore resolved to try my chance, and—entered the body of Augustus Tomlinson, as a piece of stolen goods. Faith! the first night I was shy,—I stuck to the staircase, and ogled an old maid of quality, whom I had heard announced as Lady Margaret Sinclair. Doubtless, she had never been ogled before; and she was evidently enraptured with my glances. The next night I read of a ball at the Countess of——. My heart beat as if I were going to be whipped; but I plucked up courage, and repaired to her ladyship's. There I again beheld the divine Lady Margaret; and, observing that she turned yellow, by way of a blush, when she saw me, I profited by the port I had drunk as an encouragement to my entré, and lounging up in the most modish way possible, I reminded her ladyship of an introduction with which I said I had once been honoured at the Duke of Dashwell's, and requested her hand for the next cotillon. Oh Paul! fancy my triumph! the old damsel said with a sigh, 'She remembered me very well,' ha! ha! ha! and I carried her off to the cotillon like another Theseus bearing away a second Ariadne. Not to be prolix on this part of my life, I went night after night to balls and routs, for admission to which half the fine gentlemen in London would have given their ears. And I improved my time so well with Lady Margaret, who was her own mistress, and had five thousand pounds,—a devilish bad portion for some, but not to be laughed at by me,—that I began to think when the happy day should be fixed. Meanwhile, as Lady Margaret introduced me to some of her friends, and my lodgings were in a good situation, I had been honoured with some real invitations. The only two questions I ever was asked were (carelessly), 'Was I the only son?' and on my veritable answer 'Yes!' 'What,' (this was more warmly put,)—'what was my county?'—luckily, my county was a wide one,—Yorkshire; and any of its inhabitants whom the fair interrogators might have questioned about me could only have answered, 'I was not in their part of it.'

- Augustus Tomlinson in Edward Bulwer Lytton's Paul Clifford