800 Years of Women's Letters (16 page)

If you will, from time to time, send me word how you go on, it will be a great favour. Just now I am especially anxious to hear from you; if you cannot guess why, I won't tell you. Do not plague yourself to write long letters, but say how you are in every way; patronise the pronoun ‘I' as much as I do myself! Never mind telling me anything, except inasmuch as it affects or interests you! I have not said a tithe of what I have thought of when lying on the sofa. You little know the comfort it is to me to have you to think of, nor how much I think of you. If you taken an interest in my friend ——, she is rather better, at least was last Tuesday. She had a scheme in her head which had quite roused her. Heaven only knows whether it will prove wise and feasible, but even the power of hoping is no small blessing to her!

ED. A. IRELAND,
SELECTIONS FROM THE LETTERS OF GERALDINE E. JEWSBURY TO JANE WELSH CARLYLE
(1892)

Bertrand Russell edited the letters and diaries of his parents, which he called
The Amberley Papers
, published in 1937. His mother, Kate Amberley, died when he was two, his father soon afterwards. Here she writes of her joy after their engagement.

Dover Street

1/2 6. p.m. Friday

Oct 14/64

My own dearest of darlings

I must just write you one line of goodnight, as I shall not be able to wish it to you to day. I feel quite lost, now I am come home & have not you to go to, or to look at. We have been shopping till this instant & it all appeared to me in another new light, when I was ordering very smart & elaborate toilettes, I could not fancy myself in them or think I should look the same Kätchen; as in the simple little blue gown.

My own great darling it does seem to me so delightful to be able to write & tell you how I love you; It is an old story I have told it you so often but I like writing it down & seeing it on paper. It makes me feel it a reality, to be able to write what I dream of for 6 months.

I do not like being away from you even now, it brings back to mind that awful feeling of when you last left me, & for an instant unconsciously the thought springs to my mind – ‘I am alone again' – Do not think me very silly dearest Schatz but I am still feeling vexed with myself for my absurd & naughty irritation last night. It shall never happen again, at least I trust it will not. Is not one of the great objects of my life in future, to be; to keep that face, I love more than any earthly thing, free fr. all signs of vexation or care? So you can fancy how I shall blame myself if ever I am the cause of a little shade darkening its bonny brow. I am not going to tell you, that I do not wish you to look serious or to think, for I like you to do both, but there is a holy seriousness & a peaceful earnestness of expression which you have at times & which I like. The serious expression caused by thinking of man & men is so different fr. that caused by thinking of the way to be of
use
to them; you shall never be vexed my own darling if I can help it; those lines I sometimes see in your forehead shall be soothed away & may your's be the peace which passeth all understanding.

I am so glad I see you again to-morrow, about 3.30 I suppose; It will seem an age till then.

Once more my own & only darling goodnight.

From your own true love

KATCHEN.

I have forgotten all about commas etc but will not put them in at hazard. I daresay you will make out the drift of what I have said without their help.

ED. BERTRAND RUSSELL,
THE AMBERLEY PAPERS
(1937)

Men admired George Eliot (Marian Evans). She also aroused tremendous admiration amounting to devotion in some women. A Dutch girl wrote her eighteen effusive pages beginning:

26 Dec 1874

Dear Miss Evans,

If I were a German girl I would add: ‘much adored', but we Dutch are not
überschwänglich
in affectionate expressions, as we are too much fulfilled with respect for those who awake our best soul . . . since I finished with reading
Middlemarch
I could not resist something within me that draws me nearer to you. . . . You must have experienced much – you must much have felt. There are cries of the heart that awake an echo in every maiden's soul . . .

Jeanne Buskes

ED. G. HAIGHT,
THE GEORGE ELIOT LETTERS
(1954)

An American admirer, Melusina Fay Pierce, wrote to George Eliot for advice in 1866, and received a long thoughtful letter. In 1869 she wrote again.

Dearest ——

You will not be bored by another love letter – a little one? It is three whole years since I wrote to you before, and you sent me such a grave, kind, precious little answer. O how wise thou art! Where didst thou learn it all? . . . You wrote it for me, dearest, and often it has shamed me and spurred me on. . . .

Don't answer this, dearest. I don't require you to think of me as anything more than the evening breeze that sometimes kisses your cheek. I
love
you, you are so love-worthy. And once in a long time I
love
to say so to you. But I would not burden you with the weight of a rose leaf.

ED. G. HAIGHT (1954)

Marian Evans could not marry G.H. Lewes because his wife Agnes was living. Agnes had run away with another man and Evans offered devoted care to his three children. After his death she married a young admirer, John Cross. Her stepson, Charles Lewes, was so devoted to her that he forced himself to accept this unusual marriage. Here Charles's attitude is described by Annie Thackeray Ritchie.

23 May 1880

He gave her away, and looks upon Mr Cross as an elder brother. . . . He is generous about the marriage. He says he owes everything to her, his Gertrude included, and that his father had no grain of jealousy in him, and only would have wished her happy, and that she was of such a delicate fastidious nature that she couldn't be satisfied with anything but an ideal tête-à-tête. George Eliot said to him if she hadn't been human with feelings and failings like other people, how could she have written her books?

He talked about his own mother in confidence, but his eyes all filled up with tears over George Eliot, and altogether it was the strangest page of life I ever skimmed over. She is an honest woman, and goes in with all her might for what she is about. She did not confide in Herbert Spencer.

ED. G. HAIGHT (1954)

Sunday

[May 1908]

Oh, mon cher aimé, I don't think you can know what that little word of yours means to me today.

No, Dear, I don't mistake your silence. I am never so sure of you, I mean of your being happy with me, as when you don't feel it necessary to speak, because then I know that my nearness is no obstacle, no
interruption
to you; that I am part of the air you breathe.

I understand that, & I understand also what prompted you to write that little message just when you did. You knew I was sad at saying goodbye to you. You knew why sometimes I draw back from your least touch. I am so afraid –
so
afraid – of seeming to expect more than you can give, & of thus making my love for you less helpful to you, less what I wish it to be. And sometimes
mon corps ne peut pas oublier ton corps
[my body cannot forget your body], & then I am miserable.

I shouldn't say this if you hadn't shown me that you understood. I don't want to have any plan of conduct with you – to behave in this way or that way – but just to be natural, to be completely myself. And the completest expression of that self is in the desire to help you, to give you the chance to develop what is in you, & to live the best life you can. Nothing else counts for me now, Dear, except the wish to do some good work, & to have you see in it the reflection of all the beauty you have shown me.

Ton amie – E.

Believe me, a man of your intellectual value
has
a ‘market value' when he brings such volonté to his task as you are capable of. This I never have doubted.

Tuesday
[May 17, 1908]

Alas, Dear – if you had felt as I felt, or a fraction of what I feel, you would not have ‘wondered if I had a friend with me,' or if I should have been
surprised
at being surprised – you wouldn't have cared, because you wd have wanted so much to see me that nothing else would have counted. . . .

Sometimes I feel that I
can't
go on like this: from moments of such nearness, when the last shadow of separateness melts, back into a complete néant [nothingness] of silence, of not hearing, not knowing – being left to feel that I have been like a ‘course' served & cleared away!. . .

Voilà ma dernière nouvelle. Et je me remets au travail –

[c. May 20, 1908]

I am mad about you Dear Heart and sick at the thought of our parting and the days of separation and longing that are to follow. It is a wonderful world that you have created for me, Morton dear, but how I am to adjust it to the
other
world is difficult to conceive. Perhaps when I am once more on land my mental vision may be clearer – at present, in the whole universe I see but one thing, am conscious of but one thing, you, and our love for each other.

EDS. R.W.B. AND NANCY LEWIS,
THE LETTERS OF EDITH WHARTON
(1988)

Vita Sackville-West fell in love with Virginia Woolf in December 1926. This letter was written after her first stay at Rodmell, where Leonard and Virginia had bought a house, which can be visited today.

The Long Barn, Sevenoaks 17 June 1926

Dear Mrs Woolf

I must tell you how much I enjoyed my weekend.

Darling Virginia, you don't know how happy I was . . .

About prose and poetry, and the difference between them. I don't believe there is any, with all due respect to Coleridge. It is surely only a question of the different shape that words assume in the mind, not a question of drunkenness and sobriety. All too often the distinction leads people to think they may mumble inanities which would make them blush if written in good common English, but which they think fit to print if split up into lines. This alone shows that there isn't any real difference. None of the definitions fit. Matthew Arnold says that poetry describes the flowing, not the fixed; why should not prose?

A brilliant gathering at Sibyl's, – what you missed! The drawing room at Argyll House coruscated. Sibyl was, I thought, very stuffy about you; evidently cross at being cheated of a star in her firmament. ‘If she could come up to London with
you
,' she snapped, ‘she could have come here tonight.' I drew a touching picture of your frailty; she sniffed.

London, Chelsea

Now, having annoyed you (as I hoped) by telling you what you missed and what bad colour you are in with her ladyship, I'll tell you that I disenjoyed myself extremely; would have exchanged all the champagne in the cellar for a glass of Rodmell water; would have sent everybody flying with a kick.

I wish I were back at Rodmell. I wish you were coming here. Is it any good suggesting (you see that I am in a despondent mood,) that you should do so? It is very nice here, you know; but I expect you are busy. Only, it would be a nice refuge if you wanted to escape from London, and I would fetch you in the motor. In any case I shall see you on Friday? a damned long way off, too. Is this a dumb letter? You did spoil me so at Rodmell. I was terribly happy.
Tell me how you are
.

The following year:

Sevenoaks
Tuesday [31 May]
1927

My darling, I needn't tell you that it makes me wretched to know that you are ill. I feared the worst the moment I saw Leonard's writing on the envelope. Oh Virginia, I'd do anything to make you well. I wish to God that if you had got to be ill, it had happened here, and then you'd have been obliged to stay, and I could have looked after you. But that's selfish really, because I suppose you'd be miserable away from your own house.

Leonard says will I come and see you towards the end of the week, so you can't be
so
very bad. Of course I'll come any time you like. I shall be here all the week, so you have only to get Leonard to send me a postcard – or ring up.

I send you a few flowers. I fear they won't look as fresh when they reach you as when they leave me. Put ten grains of aspirin, powdered, in the water to revive them.

Are you in bed? yes, I suppose so. With an aching head. Able to read? Allowed to have letters? I am asking Leonard to let me know how you are. I do worry so about you, and above all can't bear the idea that you should be in pain.

Your

V.

EDS. L. DESAHO AND M. LEASKA,
THE LETTERS OF VITA SACKVILLE-WEST TO VIRGINIA WOOLF
(1984)

Courtship, the wooing of women, is usually said to have begun with the troubadours in the Middle Ages. They had to praise the lady of the manor if they were to earn their daily bread. By Tudor times wooing is celebrated in courtly poetry, passionately exchanged by many of Shakespeare's lovers (half-mocked by Rosalind in
As You Like It
). Idyllic wooing was
not
the experience of most in the real court, as shown by the wives of Henry VIII.

Difficulties increased during the Civil War: Dorothy Osborne was forced to wait twelve years for her fiancé. He had espoused Cromwell's winning side, unlike her father, and she here deploys her witty, skilful, elegant, teasing pen to keep him interested. She was fortunate in finding a man whose love survived courtship, but many realized fully how shortlived wooing was, as shown in an anonymous seventeenth-century letter.

Jane Austen's novels analyse some of the follies, and occasional wisdom revealed by behaviour during courting. Her first novel, composed of seven brief letters written in early adolescence, suggested that courting could be ideally straightforward, and contrasts with her amused comments in later work.

In the nineteenth century there was a weakening of the external controls on courtship which brought greater personal autonomy, displayed in the letter from an American teacher, Bessie Huntting. The proposals here support feminists' contention that they offered women one of few moments of power. Yet it could scarcely be enjoyed, as it involved the disposing of a whole life. These answers reveal the thoughtful, unromantic approach to most of this irrevocable, irreversible decision.