Page:Honest debtor, or, The virtuous man struggling with, rising superior to, and overcoming misfortune (2).pdf/7

7 beauty; but who can ever equal thy worth, thy tenderness, thy charming temper, thy good sense and thy amiable candour ?' ' In this address, his eyes, raised to hea- ven, as if looking for her spirit, were suffu- sed with tears. "impute not,” he contin- ued, "impute not to her any thing that I have done. The innocent cause of my mis- fortune, she never even suspected it. And in the midst of the illusions with which she was surrounded, she was far from perceiving the abyss to which is was leading her over a plain strewed with flowers. Enamoured of her before I married her, more enamoured after possession, I though I could never do enough to make her happy; and compared to my ardent love for her, her temid tender- ness, and her sensibility, which were temper- ed by modesty, had an appearance of coldness. To make myself beloved as much as I loved her-Shall I declare it? I wanted to in- toxicate her with happiness, good heavens! what passion ought not a man to indulge with distrust, if it be dangerous, to devote himself too much to the desire of pleasing his wife. ' An elegant house, expensive furniture, whatever fashion and taste could procure in the article of dress, to flatter in young minds the propensities of self-love, by affording new splendour or new attractions to beauty all this inticipated my wife's desires, and poured in upon her, as it were, spontaneous-