I would not have excused her to let me twice enjoin the same thing,
while I took so much care to make her compliance with me reasonable, and
such as should not destroy her own free agency, in points that ought to
be allowed her: And if I was not always right, that yet she would bear
with me, if she saw me set upon it; and expostulate with me on the right
side of compliance; for that would shew me, (supposing small points
in dispute, from which the greatest quarrels, among friends, generally
arise,) that she differed from me, not for contradiction-sake, but
desired to convince me for my own; and that I should, another time, take
better resolutions. This would be so obliging a conduct, that I should, in justice, have
doubled my esteem for one, who, to humour me, could give up her
own judgment; and I should see she could have no other view in her
expostulations, after her compliance had passed, than to rectify my
motions for the future; and it would have been impossible then, but I
must have paid the greater deference to her opinion and advice in more
momentous matters. In all companies she must have shewn, that she had, whether I deserved
it altogether or not, a high regard and opinion of me; and this the
rather, as such a conduct in her would be a reputation and security
to herself: For if we rakes attempt a married lady, our first
encouragement, exclusive of our own vanity, arises from the indifferent
opinion, slight, or contempt, she expresses of her husband.
I should expect, therefore, that she should draw a kind veil over my
faults; that such as she could not hide, she would extenuate; that she
would place my better actions in an advantageous light, and shew that I
had her good opinion, at least, whatever liberties the world took with
my character. She must have valued my friends for my sake; been cheerful and easy,
whomsoever I had brought home with me; and, whatever faults she had
observed in me, have never blamed me before company; at least, with such
an air of superiority, as should have shewn she had a better opinion of
her own judgment, than of mine.
Now, my Pamela, this is but a faint sketch of the conduct I must have
expected from my wife, let her quality have been what it would; or have
lived with her on bad terms. Judge then, if to me a lady of the modish
taste could have been tolerable.
The perverseness and contradiction I have too often seen, in some of my
visits, even among people of sense, as well as condition, had prejudiced
me to the married state; and, as I knew I could not bear it, surely I
was in the right to decline it: And you see, my dear, that I have not
gone among this class of people for a wife; nor know I, indeed, where,
in any class, I could have sought one, or had one suitable to my mind,
if not you: For here is my misfortune; I could not have been contented
to have been but moderately happy in a wife.