Excerpt from Raff Hall, Vol. 1 of 3 The minor geniuses of the neighbourhood, if they felt conscience-struck at the subject, could not withhold their applause from his wit, and courted his acquaintance as a matter of dis tinction. The ladies likewise, for the most part, connecting his reputation with a fine per son and a large estate, looked upon Sir Hector Maltravers, Bart. Of Raff Hall, as an apostate angel whom it would be a great triumph to reform. Thus the spirit of contrariety became emboldened in its daring by gratified vanity, and from priding himself upon being less shackled than other people, he arrived at the singular ambition of being thought worse. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.