lly huntsmen, the bien venu at all the
mansions round about, where people scarce cared to perform the ceremony
of welcome at sight of my glum face. As for my wife, all the world liked
her, and agreed in pitying her. I don't know how the report got abroad,
but 'twas generally agreed that I treated her with awful cruelty, and
that for jealousy I was a perfect Bluebeard. Ah me! And so it is true
that I have had many dark hours; that I pass days in long silence; that
the conversation of fools and whipper-snappers makes me rebellious and
peevish, and that, when I feel contempt, I sometimes don't know how to
conceal it, or I should say did not. I hope as I grow older I grow more
charitable. Because I do not love bawling and galloping after a fox,
like the captain yonder, I am not his superior; but, in this respect,
humbly own that he is mine. He has perceptions which are denied me;
enjoyments which I cannot understand. Because I am blind the world is
not dark. I try now and listen with respect when Squire Codgers talks
of the day's run. I do my best to laugh when Captain Rattleton tells his
garrison stories. I step up to the harpsichord with old Miss Humby (our
neighbour from Beccles) and try and listen as she warbles her ancient
ditties. I play whist laboriously. Am I not trying to do the duties of
life? and I have a right to be garrulous and egotistical, because I have
been reading Montaigne all the morning.

I was not surprised, knowing by what influences my brother was led, to
find his name in the list of Virginia burgesses who declared that the
sole right of imposing taxes on the inhabitants of this colony is now,
and ever hath been, legally and constitutionally vested in the House
of Burgesses, and called upon the other colonies to pray for the Royal
interposition in favour of the violated rights of America. And it was
now, after we had been some three years settled in our English home,
that a correspondence between us and Madam Esmond began to take place.
It was my wife who (upon some pretext such as women always know how to
find) re-established the relations between us. Mr. Miles must need have
the small-pox, from which he miraculously recovered without losing
any portion of his beauty; and on his recovery the mother writes her
prettiest little wheedling letter to the grandmother of the fortunate
babe. She coaxes her with all sorts of modest phrases and humble
offerings of respect and goodwill. She narrates anecdotes o