After reading this note, I thought not of pursuing or saving Lady
Glenthorn. I was as anxious for a divorce as she could be. Some months
afterwards the affair was brought to a public trial. When the cause
came on, so many circumstances were brought in mitigation of damages,
to prove my utter carelessness respecting my wife’s conduct, that a
suspicion of collusion arose. From this imputation I was clear in the
opinion of all who really knew me; and I repelled the charge publicly,
with a degree of indignation that surprised all who knew the usual
apathy of my temper. I must observe, that during the whole time my
divorce-bill was pending, and whilst I was in the greatest possible
anxiety, my health was perfectly good. But no sooner was the affair
settled, and a decision made in my favour, than I relapsed into my old
nervous complaints.
CHAPTER V.
“‘Twas doing nothing was his curse;--
Is there a vice can plague us worse?
The wretch who digs the mine for bread,
Or ploughs, that others may be fed,
Feels less fatigue than that decreed
To him who cannot think or read.”
Illness was a sort of occupation to me, and I was always sorry to get
well. When the interest of being in danger ceased, I had no other to
supply its place. I fancied that I should enjoy my liberty after my
divorce; but “even freedom grew tasteless.” I do not recollect any thing
that wakened me from my torpor, during two months after my divorce,
except a violent quarrel between all my English servants and my Irish
nurse. Whether she assumed too much, upon the idea that she was a
favourite, or whether national prejudice was alone the cause of the
hatred, that prevailed against her, I know not; but they one and
all declared that they could not, and would not, live with her. She
expressed the same dislike to _consorting_ with them; “but would _put
up_ with worse, ay, with the devils themselves, to oblige my honour, and
to lie under the same roof _wid_ my honour.”
The rest of the servants laughed at her blunders. This she could bear
with good-humour; but when they seriously affected to reproach her with
having, by her uncouth appearance, at her first presenting herself at
Sherwood Park, endangered my life, she retorted, “And who cared for him
in the wide world but I, amongst you all, when he lay for dead? I ask
you that,” said she.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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