Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/161

 he had it in his power to leave them whenever he pleased. And I think he was perfectly in the right; for melancholy experience has taught me how miserable it is to abandon one's self to another's power. But now to show you the unaccountable caprice of human nature, I must tell you, that this very gentleman, who had thus groaned under the affliction of another's using him ill, coming to an estate which was entailed on him by a cousin's dying without children, became the greatest tyrant in the world; and kept a led captain, whom he used much worse than his former patron had ever done him: and instead of avoiding the treating another in a manner he himself had found difficult to bear, he seemed so as if he resolved to revenge his former sufferings on a person who was perfectly innocent of them. "I know not to what malignity it is owing, but I have observed, in all the families I have ever been acquainted with, that one part of them spend their whole time in oppressing and teazing the other; and all this they do like Drawcansir, only because they dare, and to show their power; while the other part languish away their days in bemoaning their own hard fate, which has just subjected them to the whims and tyranny of wretches, who are so totally void of taste, as not to desire the affection of the very people they appear willing to oblige. It is late to-night; but if you have a curiosity to hear the remainder of my story, to-morrow I will proceed." David, who never desired any one to do what was the least irksome, took his leave for that evening, and returned the next day, according to Cynthia's own appointment.