"You know me as well or better than I do myself. You know my former prejudices and my present thoughts--you know my weaknesses, my vanity, my whole mind; you have converted me from one erroneous way, let me hope you will attempt to correct what others are wrong.... Again and again I attempt to say what I feel, but I cannot. Let me, however, claim not to be the selfish being that wishes to bend your affections for his own sake only. In whatever way I can best minister to your happiness, either by assiduity or by absence, it shall be done. Do not injure me by withdrawing your friendship, or punish me for aiming to be more than a friend by making me less; and if you cannot grant me more, leave me what I possess,--but hear me."
The lady hesitated, and went to Margate. There he followed her, and they proceeded together to Dover and Shakspeare's Cliff, and he returned to London full of happiness and hope. He loved her with all the ardour of his nature, and in due course, on June 12, 1821, they were married. The bridegroom desired that there should be no bustle or noise at the wedding, and that the day should not be specially distinguished; but he calls it himself "an event which more than any other contributed to his happiness and healthful state of mind." As years rolled on the affection between husband and wife became only deeper and deeper; his bearing towards her proved it, and his letters frequently testify to it. Doubtless at any time between their marriage and his final illness he might have written to her as he did from Birmingham, at the time of the British Association:--"After all, there is no pleasure like the tranquil pleasures of home, and here--even here--the moment I leave the table, I wish I were with you IN QUIET. Oh! what happiness is ours! My runs into the world in this way only serve to make me esteem that happiness the more."
He took his bride home to Albemarle Street, and there they spent their wedded life; but until Mr. Barnard's death it was their custom to go every Saturday to the house of the worthy silversmith, and spend Sunday with him, returning home usually in the evening of that day. His own father died while he was at Riebau's, but his mother, a grand-looking woman, lived long afterwards, supported by her son, whom she occasionally visited at the Institution, and of whose growing reputation she was not a little proud.