Lady Morgan’s Memoirs
Thomas Charles Morgan to Sydney Owen, [December 1811]
Wednesday, December.
My dearest Love,
I am indeed a wretch to inflict pain on so much
excellence; but, alas! what can wretchedness do but complain! Recollect how
often my hopes in you have been delayed a few days, the return of a post, a
week, a month for you to go to town—three weeks delay in your departure
added to this. And now, by every means in your power, you would delay them
still further for an indefinite time. Recollect, too, the things you have said
of yourself, your “exaggeration of your faults,” the array of
lovers you have dressed out; the times you have been on the point of matrimony
and broken it off, and think what I must suffer with a mind making food for
irritation even out of mere possibilities. Indeed, I was cut to the very heart
of heart, when you first hinted at your dislike of this place being a
sufficient motive for keeping from me. But when you
renewed this plea, ere the first pang of parting had ceased to vibrate in my
bosom, when you talked of happiness without me too great for comparison, can
you wonder that I was horror-stricken and overwhelmed with misery. I doubt not,
Glorvina, if I had duties to discharge
incompatible with our meeting for some time, like you, I should discharge them,
but I should feel the sacrifice, I should count the
hours till we met, and should be, as I now am, a very wretch till that time
arrived. I little
thought when we parted at Omagh, that
you meditated to leave me for a longer time than was originally fixed. I
confess to you, I should have entreated you (on my knees I should) to have
married me before you went. I should have then borne your absence with less
uneasiness. Now, I have a sad presentiment we shall never meet again. I read
and re-read your letter to feed upon your kind expressions, but all will not
do. I sink into a despondence almost too great to bear; life is hateful to me,
and the possibility of a good agent in creation scarcely
admissible. For God’s sake give me some idea when you think of returning.
What hopes do the medical people give you of your father’s recovering his
limbs? Your last letter told me you feared he never
would. If I had never been buoyed up with hopes of our speedy union, I could
have better borne your absence. I am in so horrid a state, that I have already
burned two sheets full written, least I should annoy you; and here I am writing
worse than ever. Oh, God! oh, God! can I ever bear it? Can you forgive it?
Lady Asgill too; how that woman
frightens me! She is possessed of the only weapon you
cannot resist—ridicule. You will never endure the
object of her constant raillery. Really I do not see how she can affect you,
now your father is ill. I did not part with every earthly happiness, with
peace, with everything, that you might furnish out her dinner-tables. If you
can dine out, you can come to me. I sent you home to nurse, and every hour
taken from your duty to your father is a double fraud to me. Indeed, if I hear
of your being gay, I shall go quite mad!—Glorvina,
I cannot be gay.
Lady Jemima Sophia Asgill [née Ogle] (1770-1819)
The daughter of Admiral Sir Chaloner Ogle; in 1790 she married Sir Charles Asgill who was
posted to Ireland during the Rebelion of 1798. She is said to be the model for the
flirtatious Lady Olivia in Maria Edgeworth's
Leonora.