[Editor's note continued.]
Some time after this, Mrs. Darnley's father
paid the debt of nature; her husband, from
gaming, extravagance, and folly of different
kinds, offended his employer, and was dismissed
from his situation. The marquis was dead, and
though he left to Mrs. Darnley a bequest of
one hundred and fifty pounds a year, during her
life, yet that was trifling compared to what
Darnley had been accustomed to expend. They
removed to Wales, and here her brother Frederic
Lewis visited her. During this period, she
was deprived of her friend Anne, and her mind
became, to use her own expression, in a letter
she addressed to her brother, “dead to love and
joy,” and alive only to a sensation of peace which
arose from a conviction of having, to the utmost,
performed her duty. She was now at an age
when every impulse of the soul is in full vigor,
especially, in a well regulated mind; for the
senses at this time are more under the control
of reason; the heart selects its associates and
pleasures with caution, and its choice is sanctioned
by judgment. But Sarah, with a mind formed
for all the gentle delights of love, friendship,
and domestic happiness, had not one object on
which to lavish its tenderness. A short letter
which she addressed to her brother on his return
from a six years station in America, from
whence he had brought an amiable wife and
two lovely children, will give a better picture of
her mind, situation and feelings, than any transcript
could possibly do.
