While she was restrained by her
husband, a man of sense and firmness, indulgent to her taste in
trifles, but always the undisputed master of his house, her worst
offences had been impertinent jokes, white lies, and short fits of
pettishness ending in sunny good humour. But he was gone; and she was
left an opulent widow of forty, with strong sensibility, volatile
fancy, and slender judgment. She soon fell in love with a
music-master from Brescia, in whom nobody but herself could discover
anything to admire. Her pride, and perhaps some better feelings,
struggled hard against this degrading passion. But the struggle
irritated her nerves, soured her temper, and at length endangered her
health. Conscious that her choice was one which Johnson could not
approve, she became desirous to escape from his inspection. Her
manner towards him changed. She was sometimes cold and sometimes
petulant. She did not conceal her joy when he left Streatham: she
never pressed him to return; and, if he came unbidden, she received
him in a manner which convinced him that he was no longer a welcome
guest. He took the very intelligible hints which she gave. He read,
for the last time, a chapter of the Greek Testament in the library
which had been formed by himself. In a solemn and tender prayer he
commended the house and its inmates to the Divine protection, and,
with emotions which choked his voice and convulsed his powerful
frame, left for ever that beloved home for the gloomy and desolate
house behind Fleet Street, where the few and evil days which still
remained to him were to run out.
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