The justice which Mr Allworthy had executed on Partridge
at first met with universal approbation; but no sooner
had he felt its consequences, than his neighbours
began to relent, and to compassionate his case; and
presently after, to blame that as rigour and severity
which they before called justice. They now exclaimed
against punishing in cold blood, and sang forth the
praises of mercy and forgiveness.
These cries were considerably increased by the death
of Mrs Partridge, which, though owing to the distemper
above mentioned, which is no consequence of poverty
or distress, many were not ashamed to impute to Mr
Allworthy’s severity, or, as they now termed
it, cruelty.
Partridge having now lost his wife, his school, and
his annuity, and the unknown person having now discontinued
the last-mentioned charity, resolved to change the
scene, and left the country, where he was in danger
of starving, with the universal compassion of all his
neighbours.
A short sketch of that felicity which prudent couples
may extract from hatred: with a short apology
for those people who overlook imperfections in their
friends.
Though the captain had effectually demolished poor
Partridge, yet had he not reaped the harvest he hoped
for, which was to turn the foundling out of Mr Allworthy’s
house.
On the contrary, that gentleman grew every day fonder
of little Tommy, as if he intended to counterbalance
his severity to the father with extraordinary fondness
and affection towards the son.
This a good deal soured the captain’s temper,
as did all the other daily instances of Mr Allworthy’s
generosity; for he looked on all such largesses to
be diminutions of his own wealth.
In this, we have said, he did not agree with his wife;
nor, indeed, in anything else: for though an
affection placed on the understanding is, by many
wise persons, thought more durable than that which
is founded on beauty, yet it happened otherwise in
the present case. Nay, the understandings of
this couple were their principal bone of contention,
and one great cause of many quarrels, which from time
to time arose between them; and which at last ended,
on the side of the lady, in a sovereign contempt for
her husband; and on the husband’s, in an utter
abhorrence of his wife.
As these had both exercised their talents chiefly
in the study of divinity, this was, from their first
acquaintance, the most common topic of conversation
between them. The captain, like a well-bred man,
had, before marriage, always given up his opinion to
that of the lady; and this, not in the clumsy awkward
manner of a conceited blockhead, who, while he civilly
yields to a superior in an argument, is desirous of
being still known to think himself in the right.
The captain, on the contrary, though one of the proudest
fellows in the world, so absolutely yielded the victory
to his antagonist, that she, who had not the least
doubt of his sincerity, retired always from the dispute
with an admiration of her own understanding and a love
for his.
