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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: without a competitor in the art, to use his own words, of
"battering himself into a warm affection," - a debilitating
and futile exercise. Once he had worked himself into the
vein, "the agitations of his mind and body" were an
astonishment to all who knew him. Such a course as this,
however pleasant to a thirsty vanity, was lowering to his
nature. He sank more and more towards the professional Don
Juan. With a leer of what the French call fatuity, he bids
the belles of Mauchline beware of his seductions; and the
same cheap self-satisfaction finds a yet uglier vent when he
plumes himself on the scandal at the birth of his first
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