“His passions were on fire. He could not comprehend the mysterious conduct of Eudocia. Her absence from home, at a time when he expected her to receive him, and her being seen at a distance in company with a professed debauchee, were a labyrinth which he could not explore. Though he doubted not Eudocia’s honor, yet her folly and imprudence, in subjecting her character to suspicion and reproach, he thought unpardonable. His resentment determined him to break the proposed connexion immediately; and, lest his love should get the better of his resolution, he went directly to the house.
“As he could not command his temper, he appeared extremely agitated, and angrily told Eudocia that she had caused him great uneasiness; and that he came to claim the satisfaction of knowing, why she had avoided his society, and made an assignation with a man who had involved her in infamy? Eudocia was astonished and justly offended at this address. With all the dignity of conscious innocence, she replied, that as yet he had no right to challenge an account of her conduct; but for her own sake, she would condescend to give it. This she did by a faithful and undisguised relation of facts. She then asked him if he was satisfied. He answered, No. For, said he, though you have cleared yourself of guilt, in my apprehension, you will find it very difficult to free your character from the blemish it has received in the opinion of the world. Saying this he told her, that however highly he esteemed her, so opposite were their dispositions, that they must often be at variance; and so nice was his sense of honor, that his wife like Cæsar’s must not only be virtuous, but unsuspected. She rejoined, that his sentiments were apparent; and if what he then expressed were his opinion of her, it was best they should part.
“Some further conversation passed; when promising to call, the next day, and satisfy her parents, and wishing Eudocia all possible happiness in life, he took his leave.
“The impropriety of her conduct, and her losing the affections of a man she too ardently loved, together with the cruel treatment she had just received from him, overwhelmed her with grief, and produced the most violent emotions of regret. She walked her room in all the anguish of disappointed hope. Her parents used every argument to soothe and console her, but in vain.
“She yielded to their persuasions so far as to retire to bed; but rest she found not; and the morning presented her in a burning fever. Leontine called in the course of the day; but the friends of Eudocia refused to see him. An account of her disorder had roused him to a sense of his rashness, and he begged to be admitted to her chamber; but this she utterly denied.
“Her fever left her; but the disease of her mind was beyond the power of medicine. A settled melancholy still remains; and she lives the victim of calumniation!
“To detract from the merit of others, beside the want of politeness which it betrays, and beside the injuries which it always occasions, is extremely impolitic. It is to confess your inferiority, and to acknowledge a wish not to rise to greater respectability; but to bring down those about you to your own level! Ill-natured remarks are the genuine offspring of an envious and grovelling mind.
“Call yourselves to a severe account, therefore, whenever you have been guilty of this degrading offence; and always check the first impulses towards it.
“Accustom yourselves to the exercise of sincerity, benevolence and good humor, those endearing virtues, which will render you beloved and respected by all.
“To bestow your attention in company, upon trifling singularities in the dress, person, or manners of others, is spending your time to little purpose. From such a practice you can derive neither pleasure nor profit; but must unavoidably subject yourselves to the imputation of incivility and malice.”