800 Years of Women's Letters (26 page)

E.R.

MARIA PERRY,
THE WORD OF A PRINCE: A LIFE OF ELIZABETH I
(1990)

Despite his defection, Elizabeth remained in firm alliance with Henry IV. Although she had worked to dissuade him, she was skilful enough to accept defeat in that area. She then turned her pen to support her religion. In the autumn of 1593 she translated
De Consolatione Philosophiae
(The Consolation of Philosophy) by Boethius. Half in prose, half in verse, partly in her own erratic hand and partly dictated, she succeeded in only seventeen days in rendering the Latin into ‘antique English' to widen the reading available to her subjects
.

Working women petitioned to improve their situation at the beginning of the French Revolution. Notable are the dignified tone and unpretentious demands, in spite of their proclamation of women's suffering in so many areas, from education to old age. This letter is addressed to Louis XVI of France in 1789, in a Petition from the Women of the Third Estate to the King:

Sire,

All women of the Third Estate are born poor. Their education is either neglected or misconceived. At the age of fifteen or sixteen, girls can earn five or six sous a day . . . They get married, without a dowry, to unfortunate artisans and drag out a gruelling existence . . . producing children whom they are unable to bring up . . . If old age overtakes unmarried women, they spend it in tears and as objects of contempt for their nearest relatives. To counter such misfortunes, Sire, we ask that men be excluded from those crafts and practising work that are women's prerogative.

We ask, Sire, to be instructed and given jobs, not that we may usurp men's authority, but so that we might have a means of livelihood.

This was a mild request, since they were suffering from invasion of their traditional crafts by men already earning an average of 30 sous, for jobs which paid women only 14 or 15 sous a day.

There is little information about the attitudes of women to work in the first half of the nineteenth century. This letter, to a former co-worker, H. Robinson, is valuable, as it gives insights into reactions to work in a factory.

Sept. 7, 1846, Lowell, Mass.

Dear Harriet,

With a feeling which you can better imagine than I can describe do I announce to you the horrible tidings that I am
once more a factory girl!
yes; once more a factory girl, seated in the short attic of a Lowell boarding house with a half dozen of girls seated around me talking and reading and myself in the midst, trying to write to you, with the thoughts of so many different persons flying around me that I can hardly tell which are my own. . . . My friends and my mother had almost persuaded me to stay at home during the fall and winter but when I reached home I found a letter which informed me that Mr Saunders was keeping my place for me and sent for me to come back as soon as I could and after reading it my Lowell fever returned and, come I would, and come I did, but now, ‘Ah! me. I rue the day' although I am not so homesick as I was a fortnight ago and just begin to feel more resigned to my fate. I have been here four weeks but have not had to work very hard for there are six girls of us and we have fine times doing nothing. I should like to see you in Lowell once more but cannot wish you to exchange your pleasant home in the country for a factory life in the ‘great city of spindles.' I hope you will learn to perform all necessary domestic duties while you have an opportunity for perhaps you may have an invitation from a certain dark eyed gentleman whom you mentioned in your letter to be mistress of his house his hand and heart and supposing such an event should take place then I will just take a ride some pleasant day and make you a visit when I will tell you more news than I can write – but I will not anticipate.

I almost envy your happy sundays at home. A feeling of loneliness comes over me when I think of
my home
, now far away; you remember perhaps how I used to tell you I spent my hours in the mill – in imagining myself rich and that the rattle of machinery was the rumbling of my chariot wheels but now alas that happy tact [?] has fled from me and my mind no longer takes such airy and visionary flights for the wings of my imagination have folded themselves to rest; in vain do I try to soar in fancy and imagination above the dull reality around me but beyond the roof of the factory I can not rise. . . .

I have no more that you would be interested in, to write. When you receive this letter I shall expect that
long
one you promised me do write it wont you.

Your friend H.E. Back

H. ROBINSON PAPERS, A. & E. SCHLESINGER LIBRARY, RADCLIFFE COLLEGE, U.S.A.

Work in the north of Spain, in Galicia, in the nineteenth century, was frequently tough, often left to overburdened women. The poet Rosalía de Castro (1837–85) loved her region and its language so much that she seldom went to Madrid, though life among Madrid intellectuals would have helped to sell her work. In this open, prefatory letter, she describes why she writes about peasant women.

1880

In my new book I gave preference to those poems which tried to express the misfortunes of those I saw suffering, over those poems which could be called personal.

And there is so much suffering in our beloved Galician land! Entire books could be written about the eternal misfortune that afflicts our villagers and sailors, the only true workers in our country. I saw and felt their sorrows as if they were mine. But what has always moved me, and consequently finds an echo in my poetry, are the innumerable sufferings of our women. They are creatures who are loving to their family and to strangers, full of feeling, strong of body but soft of heart, and unfortunate because it seems they were born only to bear all the troubles that afflict the weaker and more naive half of humanity. In the fields they do the same share of heavy work as their men and, at home, they valiantly endure the worries of motherhood, housework, and the barrenness of poverty. Alone most of the time, having to work from sunrise to sunset, without help to support their children and perhaps a sickly father, they seem condemned to find rest only in their grave.

Immigration and the King are forever claiming their lovers, brothers, or husbands – the main support of families that are always large. Left behind to cry helplessly, women spend a bitter life amidst uncertain hope, dark loneliness, and the worries that constant misery brings. The greatest heartbreak for them is that all their men leave: some by force, some by need, some by greed. They leave mothers of numerous children, too small to fathom the unhappiness of the orphanage to which they are being condemned.

EDS. AND TRANS. ALDAZ, GANTT,
POEMS OF ROSALÍA DE CASTRO
(1991)

The first mention of a governess is in the letters of St Jerome. He recommends that a Christian Lady Laeta, in Rome, should educate her daughter for a religious life with an ‘honest woman of sad age'. She should be grave and pale, like the despondent looking governesses in Brontë novels so many centuries later. There were a few ‘maistresses', as Chaucer called them, in lively Plantagenet and troubadour courts. By the end of the fifteenth century more aristocratic girls were being educated, including Lady Jane Grey, and Henry VIII was enthusiastic about education both for himself and his daughters. The Court's example was followed in many a new manor house, where girls might share the classical education of their brothers and all could learn music. A Tudor governess may have been a poor relation, but would have been paid and respected for her learning or her devotion.

One of the best-known governesses is Elizabeth Elstob (1683–1756). Brought up by a narrow-minded uncle, but with an aunt who fortunately encouraged her love of languages, she wrote an
English Saxon Grammar
which brought her fame and the nickname ‘Saxon Lady'. She went to live for a happy thirteen years with her beloved brother, Vicar of St Swithin in London, but after his death, like so many single women, she was destitute. She founded a village school in Evesham where she charged only one groat per pupil and suffered from ‘Nervous Fefer from which I despair of ever being free'. Friends tried to help, but she wrote ‘it is as Glorious an Employment to instruct Poor Children as to teach the Greatest Monarch'.

In 1739 the Duchess of Portland was persuaded to employ her, to teach her four children ‘in the principles of religion, and cultivate their minds as far as their capacity will allow, to keep them company in the house, and when her strength and health permit to take the Air with them.' As Elstob loved teaching, she was happy with the children, but like many governesses, allowed very little of the adults' company, as she relates in this letter:

I want nothing here to make my happiness complete as this world can make it, but the pleasure of seeing Mrs Delany oftener, who is entirely engrossed by Her Grace. I can send you nothing new from hence; Mrs Delaney can do it better, who hears and sees more than I do . . . We begin to talk of going to Bulstrode, where I long to be because I hope to have the honour of more of her Grace's company – for it is impossible to have any of it here.

However, she soon wrote happily to her friend George Balland:

My charming little Ladies take up my time so entirely that I have not the least leisure to do anything from the time they rise till they go to bed, they are so constantly with me, except when they are with her Grace, which is not long at a time.

B. HOWE,
A GALAXY OF GOVERNESSES
(1954)

It was considered bad manners to be rude to the governess during the eighteenth century; nor was she slighted in public by her pupils, unlike the Victorian governess. Maria Edgeworth informed readers in her letters on education, how ‘in her time, the Governess was no longer treated as an Upper Servant but as a Gentlewoman'. In the recently published
Heber Letters
(1782–1832) the Reverend Reginald Heber, Rector of Malpas and Parson of Hodnet, was told by his sister in a letter dated 1798:

We will make all the enquiries we can after a governess for little Mary, but such as are in every respect eligible are difficult to be met with and their terms very high. There are plenty of emigrant ladies, some of the rank of Viscountess, to be had, but I think you would not prefer a Frenchwoman, and I am sure would not take a Roman Catholic into your House. We have just hired a governess for Mary Ann, her wages or salary is to be forty guineas a year, her washing is done at home or paid for, and she is to eat at their own table. She undertakes to instruct her pupil in English, French, Geography, Music, Writing & Arithmetic. The wages are now, it seems, thought low, fifty or sixty pounds or guineas being frequently given.

HEBER LETTERS
(1950)

The rising middle class offered employment to educated young women as governesses. Some were well treated, but most overworked and ill-appreciated, even publicly humiliated, as here, and in
Jane Eyre.

Nellie Weeton (1776–1844) lost her father at five. Her asthmatic mother opened a small school where Nellie had to help with all the teaching and all the housework. Yet both overburdened sickly women supported the fortunate son Tom in his law studies. He helped to find her a position considered better by society, after the mother's early death. She was paid 30 guineas a year.

Jan. 26, 1810

Dear Brother,

The comforts of which I have deprived myself in coming here, and the vexations that occur sometimes during the hours of instruction with a child of such a strange temper to instruct, would almost induce me to give up my present situation, did not the consideration which brought me here, still retain me. O Brother! Sometime thou wilt know perhaps the deprivations I have undergone for thy sake, and that thy attentions have not been such as to compensate them. For thy sake I have wanted food and fire, and have gone about in rags; have spent the flower of my youth in obscurity, deserted, and neglected; and now, when God has blessed me with a competence, have given up its comforts to promote thy interest in the world. Should I fail in this desire, should I not succeed – what will recompense me? – God perhaps will bless me for the thought that was in my heart; and if I am rewarded in heaven – I am rewarded indeed! I will be patient – I will be resigned, and – with the help of the Power around me, I will persevere.

ED. E. HALL,
MISS WEETON: JOURNAL OF A GOVERNESS
(1936)

Nellie Weeton to her brother, 15 September 1810. Mr Pedder's child was killed in a fire, but Weeton was asked to stay on as companion to Mrs Pedder. The situation soon became intolerable, owing to Mr Pedder's ungovernable temper.

I am scarcely permitted either to speak or stir in his presence; nor ever to maintain any opinion different to his own. When in a violent passion (which is but too frequent), on the most trifling occasions he will sometimes beat and turn his wife out of doors. Twice she has run away to her father's – oh! brother, and then, such a house! Mr P. roaring drunk and swearing horridly, and making all the men about the house drunk. I have thought at such times, I really could not bear to stay any longer, particularly when he has been in his violent passions with me, which has occurred six or seven times. As he at one time found fault with almost everything I did, I have ceased to do anything I am not asked to do. The consequence is, I have almost all my time to myself, as I do little else than sew for Mr and Mrs P. Mr P. will have Mrs P. take such an active part in the house, that she has little time for my instruction; and as my assistance in domestic concerns has not been required for 3 or 4 months back, I sit a great deal alone, chiefly employed at my needle. Whether Mr P. means to keep me thus idle, or to dismiss me, I know not. Mrs P.'s gentle and kind treatment of me makes me very comfortable, for in general, I see little of Mr P. except at dinner.