Page:Paul Clifford Vol 3.djvu/210

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
202
PAUL CLIFFORD.

often more felt by those who belong to the inferior classes than by those appertaining to the more elevated, who, in losing one luxury, will often cheerfully surrender all. A fine lady can submit to more hardships than her woman; and every gentleman who travels, smiles at the privations which agonize his valet. Poverty, and its grim comrades, made way for a whole host of petty irritations and peevish complaints; and as no guest or visitor ever relieved the domestic discontent, or broke on the domestic bickering, they generally ended in that moody sullenness which so often finds love a grave in repentance. Nothing makes people tire of each other, like a familiarity that admits of carelessness in quarrelling, and coarseness in complaining. The biting sneer of Welford gave acrimony to the murmur of his wife; and when once each conceived the other the injurer, or him or herself the wronged, it was vain to hope that one would be more wary, or the other more indulgent. They both exacted too much, and the wife in especial conceded too little. Mrs. Welford was altogether and emphatically what a libertine calls—"a woman,"—such as a