had a
feeling that however they might express ridicule of his intended
marriage they would not dare display it when it had taken place;
therefore seeking the consent of his guardian which with some
difficulty he obtained, and of the father of his mistress which was
more easily given, without acquainting any one else of his intention,
by the time he had attained his twentieth birthday he had become the
husband of Diana.

He loved her with passion and her tenderness had a charm for him that
would not permit him to think of aught but her. He invited some of his
college friends to see him but their frivolity disgusted him. Diana
had torn the veil which had before kept him in his boyhood: he was
become a man and he was surprised how he could ever have joined in the
cant words and ideas of his fellow collegiates or how for a moment he
had feared the censure of such as these. He discarded his old
friendships not from fickleness but because they were indeed unworthy
of him. Diana filled up all his heart: he felt as if by his union with
her he had received a new and better soul. She was his monitress as he
learned what were the true ends of life. It was through her beloved
lessons that he cast off his old pursuits and gradually formed himself
to become one among his fellow men; a distinguished member of society,
a Patriot; and an enlightened lover of truth and virtue.--He loved her
for her beauty and for her amiable disposition but he seemed to love
her more for what he considered her superior wisdom. They studied,
they rode together; they were never seperate and seldom admitted a
third to their society.

Thus my father, born in affluence, and always prosperous, clombe
without the difficulty and various disappointments that all human
beings seem destined to encounter, to the very topmost pinacle of
happiness: Around him was sunshine, and clouds whose shapes of beauty
made the prospect divine concealed from him the barren reality which
lay hidden below them. From this dizzy point he was dashed at once as
he unawares congratulated himself on his felicity. Fifteen months
after their marriage I was born, and my mother died a few days after
my birth.

A sister of my father was with him at this period. She was nearly
fifteen years older than he, and was the offspring of a former
marriage of his father. When the latter died this sister was taken by
her maternal relations: they had seldom seen one another, and were
quite unlike in