But, though
hatred may succeed to contempt, and may perhaps get the better of
it, love, I believe, cannot. The truth is, the passion of love is
too restless to remain contented, without the gratification which it
receives from its object; and one can no more be inclined to love
without loving, than we can have eyes without seeing. When a
husband, therefore, ceases to be the object of this passion, it is
most probable some other man- I say, my dear, if your husband grows
indifferent to you- if you once come to despise him- I say- that is-
if you have the passion of love in you- Lud! I have bewildered myself
so- but one is apt, in these abstracted considerations, to lose the
concatenation of ideas, as Mr. Locke says:- in short, the truth is- in
short, I scarce know what it is; but, as I was saying, my husband
returned, and his behaviour, at first, greatly surprized me; but he
soon acquainted me with the motive, and taught me to account for it.
In a word, then, he had spent and lost all the ready money of my
fortune; and, as he could mortgage his own estate no deeper, he was
now desirous to supply himself with cash for his extravagance, by
selling a little estate of mine, which he could not do without my
assistance; and to obtain this favour, was the whole and sole motive
of all the fondness which he now put on.
"With this I peremptorily refused to comply. I told him, and I
told him truly, that, had I been possessed of the Indies at our
first marriage, he might have commanded it all; for it had been a
constant maxim with me, that where a woman disposes of her heart,
she should always deposit her fortune; but, as he had been so kind,
long ago, to restore the former into my possession, I was resolved
likewise to retain what little remained of the latter.
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