Page:Blanchard on L. E. L.pdf/208

208 "I must have seen it, had she been so unhappy. She could not, would not, have so concealed it. I have racked my memory, in order to recollect whether I could have spoken peevishly or unkindly to her during the few days immediately preceding her death—I had just then been relieved from the dreadful pain I had suffered—but I cannot remember having done so, even by accident. . ..

"You will understand that I have here spoken of poor Letitia's situation in its very worst light, at a period when I was ill and suffering cruelly, without alluding to the many hours of happiness, pure unalloyed happiness, and of still happier anticipations of the future, which we have passed together; nor have I said a word of her almost invariable cheerfulness, and (apparent) happiness and contentment, which would alone give the lie to the vile insinuations, so industriously circulated and so eagerly believed."

Mr. Maclean also adverts to the fact, of his having transmitted the letters alluded to, subsequently to his wife's death, which, except upon the principle, Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat, he would scarcely have ventured to do, had he felt that there was anything to suppress. "I knew," he says, "the contents of the whole, having made them up, and sealed, and, I think, addressed, a portion of them. I had them in my exclusive possession—in my own sole power; and surely had I been indeed the monster I have been represented, I should, at least, have had the common discretion to destroy or suppress such formidable proofs of my villany." . ..

He then states that on the evening of Sunday, the 14th of October, his wife, seeing him scarcely able to attempt even one or two indispensable