1792-1800] Happiness in Marriage 15 



pleasures, participating in his hopes, strengthening his good 

 dispositions, and gently discouraging his harshness and 

 petulance, and more than all, who is become flesh of his 

 flesh and bone of his bone, by bearing him children, who 

 that is susceptible of that delightful and ennobling sympathy, 

 would truck it for the wandering gratifications and ferocious 

 contests of brutes. And these men are improvers of the 

 condition of mankind ! If one did not know them to be 

 better than they profess to be, one would be afraid to hold 

 converse with them. It is singular that Rousseau, who 

 has given so admirable a picture of domestic education, and 

 infused it with all the powers of his eloquence, should have 

 sent his children to the Enfans trouves, and that Godwin, 

 whose writings tend to make a foundling hospital of the 

 world, should have been an affectionate husband, and is now 

 a tender father to his wife's and his own child. I am and 

 will be your affectionate husband, and we are and will be 

 tender parents to our dear children. I have no pleasures 

 that I can compare with those I derive from you and from 

 them. Your idea fills me, and I clasp you as the heroes of 

 poetry clasp the shades of the departed. 



My sisters went to look at Chettle on Sunday, and were 

 much taken with it. ... My mother speaks of you as her 

 dear Bessy. She says she does not know enough of Dorset- 

 shire to be prejudiced for or against it, but she shall be very 

 glad to be near Tom and me and her dear Bessy, and the 

 word with her has a deeper meaning than with some who 

 use it oftener. She is not demonstrative, but she is affec- 

 tionate. Chettle is to be vacant at Michaelmas. Besides 

 the advantage of my mother and sisters as neighbours, 

 which will be particularly great to Tom, we get the command 

 of a very good manor. 



I have just sent up my income return, and I have given 

 in 874 as the tenth of my last year's income. I cannot 

 say but it grudges me to pay such a sum to be squandered, 

 as I believe it will, mischievously. ... I have set some 

 additional hands to work at Gunville, and I do not yet 

 despair of Tom and me getting in by the 1st Sept., and 



