Capitalists and financiers -- Fiction; Commercial crimes -- Fiction; London (England) -- Fiction; Mate selection -- Fiction; Satire
the British public will not be angry because I do not
whitewash Caroline, especially as I go along with them
altogether in abusing her husband.
But I must not take up your time by sending you another
book, though it gratifies me to think that I am writing
what none but yourself will read. Do it yourself, like a
dear man, and, as you are great, be merciful. Or rather,
as you are a friend, be loving.
Yours gratefully and faithfully,
MATILDA CARBURY.
After all how few women there are who can raise themselves
above the quagmire of what we call love, and make
themselves anything but playthings for men. Of almost all
these royal and luxurious sinners it was the chief sin
that in some phase of their lives they consented to be
playthings without being wives. I have striven so hard to
be proper; but when girls read everything, why should not
an old woman write anything?
This letter was addressed to Nicholas Broune, Esq., the editor of the
"Morning Breakfast Table," a daily newspaper of high character; and,
as it was the longest, so was it considered to be the most important
of the three. Mr. Broune was a man powerful in his profession,--and
he was fond of ladies. Lady Carbury in her letter had called herself
an old woman, but she was satisfied to do so by a conviction that no
one else regarded her in that light. Her age shall be no secret to
the reader, though to her most intimate friends, even to Mr. Broune,
it had never been divulged. She was forty-three, but carried her
years so well, and had received such gifts from nature, that it was
impossible to deny that she was still a beautiful woman. And she
used her beauty not only to increase her influence,--as is natural
to women who are well-favoured,--but also with a well-considered
calculation that she could obtain material assistance in the
procuring of bread and cheese, which was very necessary to her, by
a prudent adaptation to her purposes of the good things with which
providence had endowed her. She did not fall in love, she did not
wilfully flirt, she did not commit herself; but she smiled and
whispered, and made confidences, and looked out of her own eyes into
men's eyes as though there might be some mysterious bond between her
and them--if only mysterious circumstances would permit it. But the
end of all was to induce some one to do something which would cause
a publisher to give her good payment for indifferent writing, or an
editor to be lenient when, upon the merits of the case, he should
have been severe. Among all her literary friends, Mr. Broune was the
one in whom she most trusted; and Mr. Broune was fond of handsome
women. It may be as well to give a short record of a scene which had
taken place between Lady Carbury and her friend about a month before
the writing of this letter which has been produced. She had wanted
him to take a series of papers for the "Morning Breakfast Table," and
to have them paid for at rate No.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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