yndon, Esq.' will not be written in
vain. Not that my Lady was a scold or a shrew, as some wives are; I
could have managed to have cured her of that; but she was of a cowardly,
crying, melancholy, maudlin temper, which is to me still more odious:
do what one would to please her, she would never be happy or in
good-humour. I left her alone after a while; and because, as was natural
in my case, where a disagreeable home obliged me to seek amusement and
companions abroad, she added a mean detestable jealousy to all her other
faults: I could not for some time pay the commonest attention to any
other woman, but my Lady Lyndon must weep, and wring her hands, and
threaten to commit suicide, and I know not what.

Her death would have been no comfort to me, as I leave any person of
common prudence to imagine; for that scoundrel of a young Bullingdon
(who was now growing up a tall, gawky, swarthy lad, and about to become
my greatest plague and annoyance) would have inherited every penny of
the property, and I should have been left considerably poorer even than
when I married the widow: for I spent my personal fortune as well as the
lady's income in the keeping up of our rank, and was always too much a
man of honour and spirit to save a penny of Lady Lyndon's income. Let
this be flung in the teeth of my detractors, who say I never could have
so injured the Lyndon property had I not been making a private purse for
myself; and who believe that, even in my present painful situation, I
have hoards of gold laid by somewhere, and could come out as a Croesus
when I choose. I never raised a shilling upon Lady Lyndon's property but
I spent it like a man of honour; besides incurring numberless personal
obligations for money, which all went to the common stock. Independent
of the Lyndon mortgages and incumbrances, I owe myself at least one
hundred and twenty thousand pounds, which I spent while in occupancy of
my wife's estate; so that I may justly say that property is indebted to
me in the above-mentioned sum.

Although I have described the utter disgust and distaste which speedily
took possession of my breast as regarded Lady Lyndon; and although I
took no particular pains (for I am all frankness and above-board) to
disguise my feelings in general, yet she was of such a mean spirit, that
she pursued me with her regard in spite of my indifference to her, and
would kindle up at the smallest kind word I spoke to her. The fact is,
between my