"Not a servant, not a child, did he leave me any authority over; if I
would attempt to correct or dismiss them, there was instant appeal to
Mr. Baretti, who was sure always to be against me in every dispute.
With Mr. Thrale I was ever cautious of contending, conscious that a
misunderstanding there could never answer, as I have no friend or
relation in the world to protect me from the rough treatment of a
husband, should he chuse to exert his prerogatives; but when I saw
Baretti openly urging Mr. Thrale to cut down some little fruit trees
my mother had planted and I had begged might stand, I confess I did
take an aversion to the creature, and secretly resolved his stay
should not be prolonged by my intreaties whenever his greatness chose
to take huff and be gone. As to my eldest daughter, his behaviour was
most ungenerous; he was perpetually spurring her to independence,
telling her she had more sense and would have a better fortune than
her mother, whose admonitions she ought therefore to despise; that
she ought to write and receive her own letters _now_, and not submit
to an authority I could not keep up if she once had the spirit to
challenge it; that, if I died in a lying-in which happened while he
lived here, he hoped Mr. Thrale would marry Miss Whitbred, who would
be a pretty companion for Hester, and not tyrannical and overbearing
like me. Was I not fortunate to see myself once quit of a man like
this? who thought his dignity was concerned to set me at defiance,
and who was incessantly telling lies to my prejudice in the ears of
my husband and children? When he walked out of the house on the 6th
day of July, 1776, I wrote down what follows in my table book.
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