. The very countenance of my husband
changed; his complexion became sallow, and all the charms of youth were
vanishing with its vivacity.

"I give you one view of the subject; but these experiments and
alterations took up the space of five years; during which period, I had
most reluctantly extorted several sums from my uncle, to save my husband,
to use his own words, from destruction. At first it was to prevent bills
being noted, to the injury of his credit; then to bail him; and
afterwards to prevent an execution from entering the house. I began at
last to conclude, that he would have made more exertions of his own to
extricate himself, had he not relied on mine, cruel as was the task he
imposed on me; and I firmly determined that I would make use of no more
pretexts.

"From the moment I pronounced this determination, indifference on his
part was changed into rudeness, or something worse.

"He now seldom dined at home, and continually returned at a late hour,
drunk, to bed. I retired to another apartment; I was glad, I own, to
escape from his; for personal intimacy without affection, seemed, to me
the most degrading, as well as the most painful state in which a woman of
any taste, not to speak of the peculiar delicacy of fostered sensibility,
could be placed. But my husband's fondness for women was of the grossest
kind, and imagination was so wholly out of the question, as to render his
indulgences of this sort entirely promiscuous, and of the most brutal
nature. My health suffered, before my heart was entirely estranged by the
loathsome information; could I then have returned to his sullied arms,
but as a victim to the prejudices of mankind, who have made women the
property of their husbands? I discovered even, by his conversation, when
intoxicated, that his favourites were wantons of the lowest class, who
could by their vulgar, indecent mirth, which he called nature, rouse his
sluggish spirits. Meretricious ornaments and manners were necessary to
attract his attention. He seldom looked twice at a modest woman, and sat
silent in their company; and the charms of youth and beauty had not the
slightest effect on his senses, unless the possessors were initiated in
vice. His intimacy with profligate women, and his habits of thinking,
gave him a contempt for female endowments; and he would repeat, when
wine had loosed his tongue, most of the common-place sarcasms levelled at
them, by men who do not allow them to have mind