SIR W. Yes, I also formed an attachment to a young girl that I idolised. You have known me some years—that is to say, I was leaving college shortly after you entered, and you know how I have ever prized education—that it has been my watchword, my constant theme when I had a seat in Parliament. I don’t sit now, but that’s not my fault; but when I did sit, my constant agitation was education. “Educate,” said I, “educate! that is the panacea for every social evil!”
BLEN. I’ve read your speeches.
SIR W. You should have heard them—will you hear one now?
BLEN. Don’t trouble yourself.
SIR W. Well, after dinner. One day, Sir, in riding through the country, my horse stumbled, and I was thrown violently. My head encountered the edge of a stone wall; the wall being the hardest I was the only sufferer. Stunned and bleeding I was carried into a farm-house. My injuries were so severe that I was compelled to remain there for some weeks. The farmer’s daughter constantly waited on me, paid me so much attention, so amused me, so anticipated my every wish—in short, made herself so necessary to my comforts, that——
BLEN. You——
SIR W. Exactly! I used to watch her every action as I reclined on my sofa. She was rude and odd, but there was a heartiness in her nature and a comeliness in her person that pleased me, that really fascinated me, till at last I began rather to love her.
BLEN. You love an uneducated country wench?
SIR W. It was silly, wasn’t it? but we are not our own masters in such matters. However, don’t laugh at me yet. I anticipated the pleasure of rightly directing her mind, of the happiness in possessing a subject on which to practise my favorite theory—in short, I pictured a whole life of felicity in educating the object of my affection.
BLEN. For which purpose you married her.