The motives for his grief were great, it must be allowed, and such as demanded the utmost fortitude to sustain; — he certainly exerted all he was master of on this occasion; but, in spite of his efforts, nature got the upper hand, and rendered him inconsolable: — he burst not into any violent exclamations, but the silent sorrow preyed on his vitals, and reduced him, in a short time, almost to the shadow of what he had been.
One of the most dangerous effects of melancholy is, the gloomy pleasure it gives to every thing that serves to indulge it: — darkness and solitude are its delight and nourishment, and the person possessed of it, naturally shuns and hates whatever might alleviate it; — the sight of his best friends now became irksome to him; — he not only loathed, but grew incapable of all business; — he shut himself in his closet, shunned conversation, was scarce prevailed on to take the necessary supports of nature, and seemed as if his soul was buried in the tomb of his son, and only a kind of vegetative life remained within him.
His sister, who loved him very affectionately, and for whom he had always preserved the tenderest amity, being informed of his disconsolate condition, came to town, flattering herself with being able to dissipate, at least some part of his chagrin. To this end she brought with her all her children, some of whom he had never seen, and had frequently expressed by letter, the desire he had of embracing them, and the regret he had that the great affairs he was always constantly engaged in, would not permit him time to take a journey into the country where she lived.
But how greatly did she deceive herself; — he was too far sunk in the lethargy of grief, to be roused out of it by all her kind endeavours; — on the contrary, the sight of those near and dear relatives she presented to him only added to his affliction, by reminding him in a more lively manner of his own loss; and the sad effect she found their presence had on him, obliged her to remove them immediately from his eyes.
She could not, however, think of quitting him in a state so truly deplorable, and so unbecoming of his circumstances and character: — she remained in his house, would pursue him wherever he retired, and as she was a woman of excellent sense, as well as good-nature, invented a thousand little stratagems to divert his thoughts from the melancholly theme which had too much engrossed them, but had not the satisfaction to perceive that any thing she could say or do, occasioned the least movement of that fixed sullenness, which, by a long habit, appeared like a second nature in him.
This poor lady found also other matters of surprize and discontent, on her staying in town, besides the sad situation of her brother's health: — as she had never been informed of the disunion between him and his wife, much less of the occasion of it, the behaviour of that lady filled her with the utmost astonishment: — to perceive she took no pains to alleviate his sorrows, never came into the room where he was, or even sent her woman with those common compliments, which he received from all who had the least acquaintance with him, would have afforded sufficient occasion for the speculation of a sister; yet was this manifest disregard, this failure in all the duties of a wife, a friend, a neighbour, little worthy of consideration, when put in comparison with her conduct in other points.
After the adventure of her detection, finding the minister was resolved to support her, and that her husband durst not come to any open breach with her, she immediately began to throw aside all regard for decorum; — she seemed utterly to despise all sense of shame, and even to glory in a life of continual dissolution; — the company she kept of both sexes, were, for the most part, persons of abandoned characters: whether she indulged herself in a plurality of amours, is uncertain, though it was said she did so; but there was one man to whom she was most particularly attached; — this was a person who had formerly enjoyed a post under the government, but was turned out on the score of misbehaviour, and had now no other support than what he received from her: — with him she frequently passed whole nights, and took so little care in concealing the place of their meeting, that the sister of Natura easily found it out.
On relating the discovery she had made to some of their relations, they advised her to tell her brother, imagining this glaring insult on his honour would effectually rouse him out of the stupidity he languished under: — she was of the same opinion, and took the first opportunity of letting Natura into the whole infamous affair, not without some apprehensions, that an excess of rage on hearing it, might hurry him into a contrary extreme; but her terrors on this head were presently dissipated, when having repeated many circumstances to corroborate the truth of what she said, there appeared not the least emotion in his countenance; and on her urging him to take some measures to do himself justice, or at least to put a stop to this licentiousness of a person whose dishonour was his own; all she could get from him was, that he had neither regard enough for her to take any pains for the reclaiming her, nor for the censure of the world on himself, and desired she would not trouble him any farther on this point.
This strange insensibility afforded cause to fear his faculties were all too deeply absorbed in melancholy, for him ever to become a man of the world again, and as she truly loved him, gave both her, and all his other friends, an infinite concern.