Anne Bronte: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

42. CHAPTER XLII (continued)

'It is a resolution you ought to have formed long ago.'

'Well, I'm not thirty yet; it isn't too late, is it?'

'No; it is never too late to reform, as long as you have the sense to desire it, and the strength to execute your purpose.'

'Well, to tell you the truth, I've thought of it often and often before; but he's such devilish good company, is Huntingdon, after all. You can't imagine what a jovial good fellow he is when he's not fairly drunk, only just primed or half-seas-over. We all have a bit of a liking for him at the bottom of our hearts, though we can't respect him.'

'But should you wish yourself to be like him?'

'No, I'd rather be like myself, bad as I am.'

'You can't continue as bad as you are without getting worse and more brutalised every day, and therefore more like him.'

I could not help smiling at the comical, half-angry, half-confounded look he put on at this rather unusual mode of address.

'Never mind my plain speaking,' said I; 'it is from the best of motives. But tell me, should you wish your sons to be like Mr. Huntingdon - or even like yourself?'

'Hang it! no.'

'Should you wish your daughter to despise you - or, at least, to feel no vestige of respect for you, and no affection but what is mingled with the bitterest regret?'

'Oh, no! I couldn't stand that.'

'And, finally, should you wish your wife to be ready to sink into the earth when she hears you mentioned; and to loathe the very sound of your voice, and shudder at your approach?'