Wesley Corpus

To his Wife Date: YORK, July 15, 1774. Source: The Letters of John Wesley (1774) Author: John Wesley --- MY DEAR,--1. I think it needful to write one letter more in order to state the case between you and me from the beginning. I can’t, indeed, do this so exactly as I would, because I have not either those letters or those parts of my Journal which give a particular account of all circumstances just as they occurred. I have therefore only my memory to depend on; and that is not very retentive of evil. So that it is probable I shall omit abundance of things which might have thrown still more fight on the subject. However, I will do as well as I can, simply relating the fact to the best of my memory and judgement. 2. Before we married I saw you was a well-bred woman of great address and a middling understanding; at the same time I believed you to be of a mild, sweet, even temper. By conversing with you twenty days after we were married I was confirmed in the belief. Full of this, I wrote to you soon after our first parting in the openness and simplicity of my heart. And in this belief I continued after my return till we went down to Kingswood. 3. Here, as I came one morning into your room, I saw a sight which I little expected. You was all thunder and lightning: I stared and listened; said little, and retired. You quickly followed me into the other room, fell upon your knees, and asked my pardon. I desired you to think of it no more, saying, It is with me as if it had never been. In two or three weeks you relapsed again and again, and as often owned your fault, only with less and less concern. You first found we were both in fault, and then all the fault was on my side.