If the dean had loved his wife but moderately, seeing all her faults clearly as he did, he must frequently have quarrelled with her: if he had loved her with tenderness, he must have treated her with a degree of violence in the hope of amending her failings. But having neither personal nor mental affection towards her sufficiently interesting to give himself the trouble to contradict her will in anything, he passed for one of the best husbands in the world. Lady Clementina went out when she liked, stayed at home when she liked, dressed as she liked, and talked as she liked without a word of disapprobation from her husband, and all—because he cared nothing about her.
Her vanity attributed this indulgence to inordinate affection; and observers in general thought her happier in her marriage than the beloved wife who bathes her pillow with tears by the side of an angry husband, whose affection is so excessive that he unkindly upbraids her because she is—less than perfection.
The dean’s wife was not so dispassionately considered by some of his acquaintance as by himself; for they would now and then hint at her foibles: but this great liberty she also conceived to be the effect of most violent love, or most violent admiration: and such would have been her construction had they commended her follies—had they totally slighted, or had they beaten her.
Amongst those acquaintances, the aforesaid bishop, by far the most frequent visitor, did not come merely to lounge an idle hour, but he had a more powerful motive; the desire of fame, and dread of being thought a man receiving large emolument for unimportant service.
The dean, if he did not procure him the renown he wished, still preserved him from the apprehended censure.
The elder William was to his negligent or ignorant superiors in the church such as an apt boy at school is to the rich dunces—William performed the prelates’ tasks for them, and they rewarded him—not indeed with toys or money, but with their countenance, their company, their praise. And scarcely was there a sermon preached from the patrician part of the bench, in which the dean did not fashion some periods, blot out some uncouth phrases, render some obscure sentiments intelligible, and was the certain person, when the work was printed, to correct the press.
This honourable and right reverend bishop delighted in printing and publishing his works; or rather the entire works of the dean, which passed for his: and so degradingly did William, the shopkeeper’s son, think of his own homiest extraction, that he was blinded, even to the loss of honour, by the lustre of this noble acquaintance; for, though in other respects he was a man of integrity, yet, when the gratification of his friend was in question, he was a liar; he not only disowned his giving him aid in any of his publications, but he never published anything in his own name without declaring to the world “that he had been obliged for several hints on the subject, for many of the most judicious corrections, and for those passages in page so and so (naming the most eloquent parts of the work) to his noble and learned friend the bishop.”
The dean’s wife being a fine lady—while her husband and his friend pored over books or their own manuscripts at home, she ran from house to house, from public amusement to public amusement; but much less for the pleasure of seeing than for that of being seen. Nor was it material to her enjoyment whether she were observed, or welcomed, where she went, as she never entertained the smallest doubt of either; but rested assured that her presence roused curiosity and dispensed gladness all around.
One morning she went forth to pay her visits, all smiles, such as she thought captivating: she returned, all tears, such as she thought no less endearing.
Three ladies accompanied her home, entreating her to be patient under a misfortune to which even kings are liable: namely, defamation.