COUXT RUMFORD. 



magnificent; his wife as exceedingly fond of company, 

 in the midst of which she makes a splendid figure. 

 She seldom went out, but kept open house to all the 

 great and worthy. He describes their dinners and 

 evening teas, which must have been trying to a man 

 who longed for quiet. He could have borne the din- 

 ners, but the teas and their gossip annoyed him. In- 

 stead of living melodious days, his life gradually be- 

 came a discord, and on January 15, 1806, he confides 

 to his daughter, as a family secret, that he is "not at 

 all sure that two certain persons were not wholly mis- 

 taken in their marriage as to each other's charac- 

 ter." The denouement hastened; and on the first 

 anniversary of his marriage he writes thus to his 

 daughter : " My dear child, This being the first year's 

 anniversary of my marriage, from what I wrote two 

 months after it you will be curious to know how things 

 stand at present. I am sorry to say that experience 

 only serves to confirm me in the belief that in charac- 

 ter and natural propensities Madame de Rumford and 

 myself are totally unlike, and never ought to have 

 thought of marrying. We are, besides, both too in- 

 dependent in our sentiments and habits of life to live 

 peaceably together she having been mistress all her 

 days of her actions, and I, with no less liberty, lead- 

 ing for the most part the life of a bachelor. Very 

 likely she is as much disaffected towards me as I am 

 towards her. Little it matters with me, but I call her 

 a female dragon simply by that gentle name! We 

 have got to the pitch of my insisting on one thing and 

 she on another." 



On the second anniversary of his marriage, matters 

 were worse. The quarrels between him and Madame 

 had become more violent and open, and having used 

 the word quarrels to Ms daughter, he gives the follow- 



