“I should never have wished to marry you,” he wrote to his betrothed, about a fortnight before the wedding, “if you had not been religious, for I have confidence in no woman who is not so. I only think there is sometimes an excess in the ostentation of religious sanctity, and of that I have a dread, as you have yourself, no doubt. Miss Porter,” he adds, “is sincere and _refined_ as few professedly religious people are.” In another letter he says:-- “Mine is not a love such as I have fancied and written about. It is more sober, more mingled with esteem and respect, and more fitted for every-day life. It had well need be, indeed, for I have taken it in lieu of what has hitherto been the principal occupation of my life. I am to live for you, dear Mary, and you for me,--if you like! That is to say, henceforth dissipation (if we indulge in it) will be _your_ pleasure, not mine. I have lived the last ten years in gay society, and I am sick at heart of it. I want an apology to try something else. I am made for something better, and I feel sincerely that this is the turning-point of both mind and heart, both of which are injured in their best qualities with the kind of life I have been leading. Do not understand me that I am to make a hermit of myself, however, or a prisoner of you. You will have always friends enough, and society enough, and change of place and scene enough. In short, I shall exact but one thing,--four or five hours in my study in the morning, and you may do what you like with the rest.”