Hate him--True--I don't hate him--But I have been so much accustomed to
treat him like a fool, that I can't help thinking him one. He should not
have been so tame to such a spirit as mine. He should have been angry
when I played upon him. I have got a knack of it, and shall never leave
it off, that's certain.
Then I hope he will be angry with you. I hope that he will resent your
ill-treatment of him.
Too late, too late to begin, Harriet. I won't take it of him now. He
has never let me see that his face can become two sorts of features. The
poor man can look sorrowful; that I know full well: but I shall always
laugh when he attempts to look angry.
You know better, Charlotte. You may give him so much cause for anger,
that you may make it habitual to him, and then would be glad to see him
pleased. Men have an hundred ways that women have not to divert
themselves abroad, when they cannot be happy at home. This I have heard
observed by--
By your grandmother, Harriet? Good old lady! In her reign it might be
so; but you will find, that women now have as many ways to divert
themselves abroad as the men. Have you not observed this yourself in one
of your letters to Lucy? Ah! my dear! we can every hour of the
twenty-four be up with our monarchs, if they are undutiful.