Mary | Page 2

Many such noughts are there in the female world! yet she had a good
opinion of her own merit,--truly, she said long prayers,--and sometimes
read her Week's Preparation: she dreaded that horrid place vulgarly
called hell, the regions below; but whether her's was a mounting spirit,
I cannot pretend to determine; or what sort of a planet would have been
proper for her, when she left her material part in this world, let
metaphysicians settle; I have nothing to say to her unclothed spirit.
As she was sometimes obliged to be alone, or only with her French
waiting-maid, she sent to the metropolis for all the new publications,
and while she was dressing her hair, and she could turn her eyes from
the glass, she ran over those most delightful substitutes for bodily
dissipation, novels. I say bodily, or the animal soul, for a rational one
can find no employment in polite circles. The glare of lights, the
studied inelegancies of dress, and the compliments offered up at the
shrine of false beauty, are all equally addressed to the senses.
When she could not any longer indulge the caprices of fancy one way,
she tried another. The Platonic Marriage, Eliza Warwick, and some
other interesting tales were perused with eagerness. Nothing could be
more natural than the developement of the passions, nor more striking
than the views of the human heart. What delicate struggles! and
uncommonly pretty turns of thought! The picture that was found on a
bramble-bush, the new sensitive-plant, or tree, which caught the swain
by the upper-garment, and presented to his ravished eyes a
portrait.--Fatal image!--It planted a thorn in a till then insensible heart,

and sent a new kind of a knight-errant into the world. But even this was
nothing to the catastrophe, and the circumstance on which it hung, the
hornet settling on the sleeping lover's face. What a _heart-rending_
accident! She planted, in imitation of those susceptible souls, a rose
bush; but there was not a lover to weep in concert with her, when she
watered it with her tears.--Alas! Alas!
If my readers would excuse the sportiveness of fancy, and give me
credit for genius, I would go on and tell them such tales as would force
the sweet tears of sensibility to flow in copious showers down beautiful
cheeks, to the discomposure of rouge, &c. &c. Nay, I would make it so
interesting, that the fair peruser should beg the hair-dresser to settle the
curls himself, and not interrupt her.
She had besides another resource, two most beautiful dogs, who shared
her bed, and reclined on cushions near her all the day. These she
watched with the most assiduous care, and bestowed on them the
warmest caresses. This fondness for animals was not that kind of
attendrissement which makes a person take pleasure in providing for
the subsistence and comfort of a living creature; but it proceeded from
vanity, it gave her an opportunity of lisping out the prettiest French
expressions of ecstatic fondness, in accents that had never been attuned
by tenderness.
She was chaste, according to the vulgar acceptation of the word, that is,
she did not make any actual _faux pas_; she feared the world, and was
indolent; but then, to make amends for this seeming self-denial, she
read all the sentimental novels, dwelt on the love-scenes, and, had she
thought while she read, her mind would have been contaminated; as she
accompanied the lovers to the lonely arbors, and would walk with them
by the clear light of the moon. She wondered her husband did not stay
at home. She was jealous--why did he not love her, sit by her side,
squeeze her hand, and look unutterable things? Gentle reader, I will tell
thee; they neither of them felt what they could not utter. I will not
pretend to say that they always annexed an idea to a word; but they had
none of those feelings which are not easily analyzed.

CHAP. II.
In due time she brought forth a son, a feeble babe; and the following
year a daughter. After the mother's throes she felt very few sentiments
of maternal tenderness: the children were given to nurses, and she
played with her dogs. Want of exercise prevented the least chance of
her recovering strength; and two or three milk-fevers brought on a
consumption, to which her constitution tended. Her children all died in
their infancy, except the two first, and she began to grow fond of the
son, as he was remarkably handsome. For years she divided her time
between the sofa, and the card-table. She thought not of death, though
on the borders of the grave; nor did any of the duties of her station
occur to her as necessary. Her children were left in the nursery; and