spoil an only child.

I have need of consolation in my son, for (to this silent paper I may
confess it) I have but little in my husband. I love him still; and he
loves me, in his own way--but oh, how different from the love I could
have given, and once had hoped to receive! How little real sympathy
there exists between us; how many of my thoughts and feelings are
gloomily cloistered within my own mind; how much of my higher and better
self is indeed unmarried--doomed either to harden and sour in the sunless
shade of solitude, or to quite degenerate and fall away for lack of
nutriment in this unwholesome soil! But, I repeat, I have no right to
complain; only let me state the truth--some of the truth, at least,--and
see hereafter if any darker truths will blot these pages. We have now
been full two years united; the 'romance' of our attachment must be worn
away. Surely I have now got down to the lowest gradation in Arthur's
affection, and discovered all the evils of his nature: if there be any
further change, it must be for the better, as we become still more
accustomed to each other; surely we shall find no lower depth than this.
And, if so, I can bear it well--as well, at least, as I have borne it
hitherto.

Arthur is not what is commonly called a bad man: he has many good
qualities; but he is a man without self-restraint or lofty aspirations, a
lover of pleasure, given up to animal enjoyments: he is not a bad
husband, but his notions of matrimonial duties and comforts are not my
notions. Judging from appearances, his idea of a wife is a thing to love
one devotedly, and to stay at home to wait upon her husband, and amuse
him and minister to his comfort in every possible way, while he chooses
to stay with her; and, when he is absent, to attend to his interests,
domestic or otherwise, and patiently wait his return, no matter how he
may be occupied in the meantime.

Early in spring he announced his intention of going to London: his
affairs there demanded his attendance, he said, and he could refuse it no
longer. He expressed his regret at having to leave me, but hoped I would
amuse myself with the baby till he returned.

'But why leave me?' I said. 'I can go with you: I can be ready at any
time.'

'You would not take that child to town?'

'Yes; why not?'

The thing was absurd: the air of the town would be certain to disagree
with him, and with me as a nurse; the late hours and London habits would
not suit