t appears, already twelve hundred more of injured
wives and husbands eager to be free. The evil, such as it is, will
extend itself. Under the old system there was, practically speaking, no
redress, and a man and woman tied together would endeavour to make the
best of it; now, if they feel the more they quarrel and disagree with
each other, the better chance they have of being at liberty, it is to be
feared, in some cases, husband and wife will not try so heartily to
forget and forgive, as husbands and wives ought to do. I do not say
there ought not to be liberty, where all love has long since died out,
and been followed by bad faith and cruelty, and neglect. I believe there
should be, and that the Divorce Act was an experiment imperatively
required. Where mutual love has been exchanged for mutual hate, it is
hard that human law should bind together, in what must be life-long
misery--misery perhaps not the less intense that it has uttered no word
of complaint, made no sign, been unsuspected by the world, yet all the
while dragging its victim to an early or premature grave. But human
nature is a poor weak thing, and many a silly man or silly woman may
think that Sir Cresswell Cresswell may prove a healing physician, when
their malady was more in themselves than they cared to believe. I hear
of one case where a lady having 15,000 pounds a-year in her own right,
has run off with her footman. Would she have done that if there had been
no Sir Cresswell? I fancy not. Again, another married lady, with
100,000 pounds settled on her, runs off with the curate. Had it not
occurred to her that Sir Cresswell Cresswell would, in due time, dissolve
her union with her legitimate lord, and enable her to follow the bent of
her passions, would she not have fought with them, and in the conquest of
them won more true peace for herself, than she can ever hope for now? I
believe so. In the long commerce of a life, there must be times, when we
may think of others we have known, when we may idly fancy we should have
been happier with others; but true wisdom will teach us that it is
childish to lament after the event, that it were wiser to take what
comfort we can find, and that, after all, it is duty, rather than
happiness, that should be the pole-star of life. Southey told Shelley a
man might be happy with any woman, and certainly a wise man, once
married, will try to make the best of it. But to return to Sir Cresswell
Cresswell, I