Didactic fiction; Domestic fiction; England -- Fiction; Married women -- Fiction
idea in the liveliest manner before my eyes. This is the bed in which
you have reposed; that is the chair on which you sat. Upon these boards
you have stood. These books you have read to me. Can I walk among our
beds of flowers without viewing your favourites, nay, those which you
have planted with your own hands? can I see one beauty from our beloved
mount which you have not pointed out to me?’--Thus she went on, the
woman, madam, you see, still prevailing.”--“Since you mention it,” says
Miss Matthews, with a smile, “I own the same observation occurred to me.
It is too natural to us to consider ourselves only, Mr. Booth.”--“You
shall hear,” he cried. “At last the thoughts of her present condition
suggested themselves.--’ But if,’ said she, ‘my situation, even in
health, will be so intolerable, how shall I, in the danger and agonies
of childbirth, support your absence?’--Here she stopt, and, looking on
me with all the tenderness imaginable, cried out, ‘And am I then such
a wretch to wish for your presence at such a season? ought I not to
rejoice that you are out of the hearing of my cries or the knowledge of
my pains? if I die, will you not have escaped the horrors of a parting
ten thousand times more dreadful than this? Go, go, my Billy; the very
circumstance which made me most dread your departure hath perfectly
reconciled me to it. I perceive clearly now that I was only wishing to
support my own weakness with your strength, and to relieve my own pains
at the price of yours. Believe me, my love, I am ashamed of myself.’--I
caught her in my arms with raptures not to be exprest in words, called
her my heroine; sure none ever better deserved that name; after which
we remained for some time speechless, and locked in each other’s
embraces.”--
“I am convinced,” said Miss Matthews, with a sigh, “there are moments in
life worth purchasing with worlds.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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