This, then, is the case of the man; he either discovers that on further acquaintance the qualities he believed in were not so palpable as he thought, or, if there, marred in their exercise by opposing and antagonist forces, of whose existence he knew not, he thinks he detects discrepancies of temperament, disparities of taste; he foresees that in the channel where he looked for deep water there are so many rocks, and shoals, and quicksands, that he fears the bark of conjugal happiness may be shipwrecked upon them; and like a prudent mariner, he resolves to lighten the craft by "throwing over the lady." Had this man married with all these impending suspicions on his mind, there is little doubt he would have made a most execrable husband; not to mention the danger that his wife should not be all amiable as she ought. He stops short--that is, he explains in one, perhaps in a series of letters, the reasons of his new course.
He expects in return the admiration and esteem of her, for whose happiness he is legislating, as well as for his own; and oh, base ingratitude! he receives a letter from her attorney. The gentlemen of the long robe--newspaper again--are in ecstasies. Like devils on the arrival of a new soul, they brighten up, rub their hands, and congratulate each other on a glorious case. The damages are laid at five thousand pounds; and, as the lady is pretty, and can be seen from the jury-box, being fathers themselves, they award every sixpence of the money.
I can picture to myself the feeling of the defendant at such a moment as this. As he stands alone in conscious honesty, ruminating on his fate--alone, I say, for, like Mahomet's coffin, he has no resting-place; laughed at by the men, sneered at by the women, mulcted of perhaps half his fortune, merely because for the last three years of his life he represented himself in every amiable and attractive trait that can grace and adorn human nature. Who would wonder, if, like the man in the farce, he would register a vow never to do a good-natured thing again as long as he lives; or what respect can he have for a government or a country, where the church tells him to love his neighbour, and the chief justice makes him pay five thousand for his obedience.