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Lady Morgan’s Memoirs
Thomas Charles Morgan to Sydney Owen, 16 December [1811]
INTRODUCTION & INDEXES
DOCUMENT INFORMATION
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Preface
Vol. I Contents.
Prefatory Address
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
Chapter XXXIII
Chapter XXXIV
Chapter XXXV
Chapter XXXVI
Chapter XXXVII
Chapter XXXVIII
Vol. I Index
Vol. II Contents
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter IV
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
Chapter XXXIII
Chapter XXXIV
Chapter XXXV
Chapter XXXVI
Chapter XXXVII
Chapter XXXVIII
Chapter XXXIX
Chapter XL
Vol. II Index
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Saturday, December 16th.

Ah, dearest, what have I done? positively nothing, but what I was always prepared to do, what I always felt bound to do—given up to yourself,—and considered you entirely your own mistress, to act as you pleased; free as air, unpromise-bound—to the very last moment of your approach to the altar; and yet, though our relative situation is not altered, I am fretful and uneasy, that you should deliberate. Perhaps I am mortified that deliberation should yet be necessary; whatever it be, I have not the courage to look the possibility of losing you in the face. Surely,
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surely, it has not been a presentiment of truth, that has uniformly haunted me with the idea that you would not ultimately be mine. Do not say I am meanly suspicious, or that I have any fixed notion of your intending me unfairly; it is but the restless anxiety of a mind, naturally too susceptible of painful impressions, acted upon by circumstances very peculiar, and which (when once we are married) can never recur. “Je ne doute pas de votre sincerité; votre amour même n’est plus un mystere pour moi, mais j’apprehende quelques révolutions; quelles, et d’ou peuvent elles venir? Je n’en sais rien—je crois que je puis dire; je crains parceque j’aime.” This is exactly my state; ah, my God! you deliberate!! and under what circumstances? surrounded by objects all acting forcibly on your senses and imagination, all opposed to my interests in you. Bored eternally by acquaintance who wish to retain you they know not why,—and no one by to take my part, to support my cause and plead with you for me. Alas! the paper can indeed carry my complaints, can show you the variety of my feelings, but it shows only the désagréments of the passion, but the inconvenience to which (perhaps an ill regulated) love appears to threaten you. Little can it express the warmth, the tenderness of the feeling, still less can it convey the kiss, the sigh, the tear, the look which speak at once to the heart, and “outstrip the pauser reason;” ah! les absents ant tort, en verité, in this case. It is vain that the cold line is traced, without the expression that should accompany its delivery, the rhetoric of the eye is dumb and the heart cannot submit to
510 LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR.  
mere calculation and debate. Dearest, dearest girl, I have a friend, an eloquent friend in your bosom; call him often to council; he will tell you far, far more than words can express; he will remind you of moments, blissful as they were transitory, moments when the world was but as nothing, compared to the passion, the tender self-abandonment of your friend; he will whisper of instants when father, sister, all were forgotten, or remembered only as less capable of conferring happiness than he who now addresses you. You have had, I admit, but a bad specimen of my temper. Irritable feelings but too idly indulged; but consider the unusual situation in which I am placed. You had always assumed a volatile, inconsequent air, and before I could be assured of your love, you left me. Honestly and fervently, I believed you no trifling good, and the weight of the loss has always pressed on me more than the probability, that I should lose you. I was uneasy because I was not absolutely and entirely certain of you.

Do you understand this? If I at all know myself, and can judge by my three years of married life, I am above suspicion and jealousy. I do not know that I ever felt one uneasy moment on that head. But while fate can snatch you from me, while you are anything short of my married wife, I cannot help taking alarm—I know not why—and from circumstances that won’t bear analysis. Cannot you comprehend a sensation of uneasiness that crossed me (for instance) when I read your friends’ satirical account of this place. It appears as if every body were trying to de-
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tain you and to picture your prospects in as dark colours as possible. Such have, however, been the but of every anecdote you have written me of Dublin conversation. Ah, my own sweet love, you cannot think how much more than they ought, such trifles prey upon a bosom agitated like mine. I should, indeed, be ashamed to confess this, if I did not feel it was nature, and a necessary part of a devoted affection. Our weather, contrary to your supposition, is fine, and Baron’s Court in (my eyes) as lovely as ever. Were you out of the question, I could live here for ever. London and its gaieties would be forgotten.