Their estrangement, in short, had grown apace, and had already
brought them to that stage of mutual indifference which is at once so
comfortable and so hopeless--secure alike against the risk of "scenes"
and the hope of reconciliation, shut fast in its exemption from
_amantium irae_ against all possibility of _redintegratio amoris._
To such perfection, indeed, had the feeling been cultivated on both
sides, that Sterne, in the letter above quoted, can write of his
conjugal relations in this philosophic strain:
"As to matrimony I should be a beast to rail at it, for my wife is
easy, but the world is not, and had I stayed from her a second longer
it would have been a burning shame--else she declares herself
happier without me. But not in anger is this declaration made (the
most fatal point, of course, about it), but in pure, sober, good sense,
built on sound experience. She hopes you will be able to strike a
bargain for me before this twelvemonth to lead a bear round Europe,
and from this hope from you I verily believe it is that you are
so high in her favour at present. She swears you are a fellow of wit,
though humorous;[2] a funny, jolly soul, though somewhat splenetic,
and (hating the love of women) as honest as gold.
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