I think it absolutely right that my ever-dear and beloved lady should be
opened and embalmed. It must be done out of hand this very afternoon.
Your acquaintance, Tomkins, and old Anderson of this place, I will bring
with me, shall be the surgeons. I have talked to the latter about it.
I will see every thing done with that decorum which the case, and the
sacred person of my beloved require.
Every thing that can be done to preserve the charmer from decay shall
also be done. And when she will descend to her original dust, or cannot
be kept longer, I will then have her laid in my family-vault, between my
own father and mother. Myself, as I am in my soul, so in person, chief
mourner. But her heart, to which I have such unquestionable pretensions,
in which once I had so large a share, and which I will prize above my
own, I will have. I will keep it in spirits. It shall never be out of
my sight. And all the charges of sepulture too shall be mine.
Surely nobody will dispute my right to her. Whose was she living?--Whose
is she dead but mine?--Her cursed parents, whose barbarity to her, no
doubt, was the true cause of her death, have long since renounced her.
She left them for me. She chose me therefore; and I was her husband.
What though I treated her like a villain? Do I not pay for it now?
Would she not have been mine had I not? Nobody will dispute but she
would. And has she not forgiven me?--I am then in statu quo prius with
her, am I not? as if I had never offended?--Whose then can she be but
mine?