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Harte, Bret, 1836-1902

"The Crusade of the Excelsior"

Enough, I married, not only in spite of all opposition--but
BECAUSE of it.
"My mother would have reconciled herself to the marriage, but my wife
never forgave the opposition, and, by some hellish instinct divining
that her power over me might be weakened by maternal influence,
precipitated a quarrel which forever separated us. With the little
capital left by my father, divided between my mother and myself, I took
my wife to a western city. Our small income speedily dwindled under
the debts of her former husband, which she had assumed to purchase
her freedom. I endeavored to utilize a good education and some
accomplishments in music and the languages by giving lessons and
by contributing to the press. In this my wife first made a show of
assisting me, but I was not long in discovering that her intelligence
was superficial and shallow, and that the audacity of expression,
which I had believed to be originality of conviction, was simply
shamelessness, and a desire for notoriety. She had a facility in writing
sentimental poetry, which had been efficacious in her matrimonial
confidences, but which editors of magazines and newspapers found to be
shallow and insincere.


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