Myself and both servants at church in the morning We dined on the remains of yesterday’s dinner, with the addition of some broth. In the afternoon myself and both servants at church…Sam Jenner drank tea with me and to whom and Joseph Fuller and in the day I read [ ] of Tillotson’s sermons.
The thoughts of that most amiable creature, the best of wives, has this day overspread my mind with a melancholy gloom. Oh, how severely do I feel the loss! To give her a character which her merits justly deserved and which they have a just claim to demand requires a pen more nervous than my own. She was undoubtedly superior in wisdom, prudence and economy to most of her sex and I think the neatest and most cleanest woman in her person I ever beheld. Therefore to describe my loss by words I cannot. No, it is impossible my inward anguish of mind is more expressive than words ever could be, and that I almost daily feel I doubt not but my anguish of mind may be deemed (by some) timidity and proceeding from pusillanimity of temper (and that perhaps justly) for my reason stands convicted that whatever happens to us frail mortals here on earth by the providence and guidance of the Supreme Being (who knows what is better for us than we can for ourselves) is always right, is best and happy perhaps might it be for me could I bring my will to act in subjection to my reason… [77 words omitted]…I think word can convey but a faint idea of the pleasure and happiness that a husband finds in the company of a virtuous, prudent and discreet woman, one whose love is founded not on the basis of sensual pleasures but on the more solid foundation of friendship and domestic happiness, whose chief delight is to render the partner of her bosom happy. For whatever the libertines may say or think of marriage, I believe they never felt that secret pleasure which is to be found in it, notwithstanding their boast of freedom and I know not what… [104 words omitted].