“He uttered this speech with a self-satisfied air, and went down stairs to dress.

“In about an hour he came to me again; and in the same tone said, ’That he came as my gentleman-usher to hand me down to breakfast.

“‘Of the black rod?’ asked I.

“This question, and the tone in which I asked it, a little disconcerted him.  To say the truth, I now felt no resentment; my firm resolution to free myself from my ignoble thraldom, had absorbed the various emotions which, during six years, had racked my soul.  The duty pointed out by my principles seemed clear; and not one tender feeling intruded to make me swerve:  The dislike which my husband had inspired was strong; but it only led me to wish to avoid, to wish to let him drop out of my memory; there was no misery, no torture that I would not deliberately have chosen, rather than renew my lease of servitude.

“During the breakfast, he attempted to reason with me on the folly of romantic sentiments; for this was the indiscriminate epithet he gave to every mode of conduct or thinking superior to his own.  He asserted, ’that all the world were governed by their own interest; those who pretended to be actuated by different motives, were only deeper knaves, or fools crazed by books, who took for gospel all the rodomantade nonsense written by men who knew nothing of the world.  For his part, he thanked God, he was no hypocrite; and, if he stretched a point sometimes, it was always with an intention of paying every man his own.’

“He then artfully insinuated, ’that he daily expected a vessel to arrive, a successful speculation, that would make him easy for the present, and that he had several other schemes actually depending, that could not fail.  He had no doubt of becoming rich in a few years, though he had been thrown back by some unlucky adventures at the setting out.’

“I mildly replied, ’That I wished he might not involve himself still deeper.’

“He had no notion that I was governed by a decision of judgment, not to be compared with a mere spurt of resentment.  He knew not what it was to feel indignation against vice, and often boasted of his placable temper, and readiness to forgive injuries.  True; for he only considered the being deceived, as an effort of skill he had not guarded against; and then, with a cant of candour, would observe, ’that he did not know how he might himself have been tempted to act in the same circumstances.’  And, as his heart never opened to friendship, it never was wounded by disappointment.  Every new acquaintance he protested, it is true, was ’the cleverest fellow in the world; and he really thought so; till the novelty of his conversation or manners ceased to have any effect on his sluggish spirits.  His respect for rank or fortune was more permanent, though he chanced to have no design of availing himself of the influence of either to promote his own views.