[Maria by Mary Wollstonecraft]@TWC D-Link book
Maria

CHAPTER 9
3/13

Fatal error! How quickly is the so much vaunted milkiness of nature turned into gall, by an intercourse with the world, if more generous juices do not sustain the vital source of virtue! "One trait in my character was extreme credulity; but, when my eyes were once opened, I saw but too clearly all I had before overlooked.

My husband was sunk in my esteem; still there are youthful emotions, which, for a while, fill up the chasm of love and friendship.

Besides, it required some time to enable me to see his whole character in a just light, or rather to allow it to become fixed.

While circumstances were ripening my faculties, and cultivating my taste, commerce and gross relaxations were shutting his against any possibility of improvement, till, by stifling every spark of virtue in himself, he began to imagine that it no where existed.
"Do not let me lead you astray, my child, I do not mean to assert, that any human being is entirely incapable of feeling the generous emotions, which are the foundation of every true principle of virtue; but they are frequently, I fear, so feeble, that, like the inflammable quality which more or less lurks in all bodies, they often lie for ever dormant; the circumstances never occurring, necessary to call them into action.
"I discovered however by chance, that, in consequence of some losses in trade, the natural effect of his gambling desire to start suddenly into riches, the five thousand pounds given me by my uncle, had been paid very opportunely.

This discovery, strange as you may think the assertion, gave me pleasure; my husband's embarrassments endeared him to me.


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