The new
country, too, had given me, not only a fresh fund of ideas, but a
new stock of health--morally and physically I was in better
condition than I ever was before in my life. I had a clear head; a
keen sense of my past follies; a vivid consciousness of the
consequences which such follies, crimes they may be called, are
almost certain to bring. I flattered myself that I was not only a
reformed prisoner, but a reformed drunkard, and a thoroughly
restored matrimonial monomaniac.
And when I returned, at last, to the East, and went once more to
visit my near and dear friends in Ontario County, I was received as
one who had come back from the dead. When I had been here a few
weeks, and had communicated to my cousins so much of the story of my
life as I then thought advisable, I took good counsel and finally
did what I ought to have done long years before. I commenced proper
legal proceedings for a divorce from my first and worst wife. I do
not need to dwell upon the particulars; it is enough to say, that
the woman, who was then living, so far from opposing me, aided me
all she could, even making affidavit to her adultery with the hotel
clerk at Bainbridge, long ago, and I easily secured my full and
complete divorce. Now I was, indeed, a free man-all the other wives
whom I had married, or who had married me, whether I would or no,
were as nothing; some were dead and others were again married. It
may be that this new, and to me strange sense of freedom, legitimate
freedom, set me to thinking that I might now secure a genuine and
true wife, who would make a new home happy to me as long as we both
should live.
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