800 Years of Women's Letters (40 page)

. . . I have no wish for further experience, nor have I any fear of it. Under the weariness of illness I long to be asleep; but I have not set my mind on any state. Above all I wish to escape from the narrowness of taking a merely human view of things, from the absurdity of making God after man's own image.

On my side I have suffered much anxiety on your account; and if you can tell me that you are no longer suffering physically under the peculiar feebleness that attends bronchial mischief, you will make me happier than anything else could make me. Farewell for today, dearest friend! While I live, I am your grateful and loving H.M.

EDS. MARIA W. CHAPMAN,
HARRIET MARTINEAU'S AUTOBIOGRAPH AND MEMORIALS OF HARRIET MARTINEAU
(1877)

After the death of a husband a Muslim wife in Senegal has to face not only the family of the second wife (Binetou) but public revelations of her husband's behaviour. This letter is from the novel
So Long a Letter
(1982) by Mariama Bâ.

Dear Aissatou, my friend, perhaps I bore you by relating what you already know: that a dead person be stripped of his most intimate secrets. This is what we crudely learned:

This house and its chic contents were acquired by a bank loan granted on the mortgage of ‘Villa Fallene', where I live. Although the title deeds of this house bear his name, it is nonetheless our common property, acquired by our joint savings. Insult upon injury!

Moreover, he continued the monthly payments of seventy-five thousand francs to the SICAP. These payments were to go on for about ten years before the house would become his.

Four million francs borrowed with ease because of his privileged position, which had enabled him to pay for Lady Mother-in-Law and her husband to visit Mecca to acquire the titles of
Alhaja
and
Alhaji
; which equally enabled Binetou to exchange her Alfa Romeos at the slightest dent.

Now I understand the terrible significance of Modou's abandonment of our joint bank account. He wanted to be financially independent so as to have enough elbow room.

And then, having withdrawn Binetou from school, he paid her a monthly allowance of fifty thousand francs, just like a salary due to her. The young girl, who was very gifted, wanted to continue her studies, to sit for her
baccalauréat
. So as to establish his rule, Modou, wickedly, determined to remove her from the critical and unsparing world of the young. He therefore gave in to all the conditions of the grasping Lady Mother-in-Law and even signed a paper committing himself to paying the said amount. Lady Mother-in-Law brandished the paper, for she firmly believed that the payments would continue, even after Modou's death, out of the estate.

As for my daughter, Daba, she waved about a bailiff's affidavit, dated the very day of her father's death, that listed all the contents of the SICAP Villa. The list supplied by Lady Mother-in-Law and Binetou made no mention of certain objects and items of furniture, which had mysteriously disappeared or had been fraudulently removed.

You know that I am excessively sentimental. I was not at all pleased by this display on either side.

TRANS. M. BODÉ-THOMAS, MARIAMA BÂ,
SO LONG A LETTER
(1982)

A Buddhist nun based at Chithurst Monastery, and involved in setting up a Buddhist school, visits North India on pilgrimage in November 1990. She writes to her friends on how she copes with illness there.

23 November

That night I woke after midnight with a fever, sore throat, stinging eyes and generally feeling rotten. I lay for a while wondering what it could be. A lot of anxiety came up, getting sick in Asia is no fun. My mind went a bit wild, thinking of all sorts of possibilities. Images of all the beggars and filth and poverty. I seemed to be face to face with the total insecurity of life, that feeling is more raw here. I felt assailed by the dark side of India. We have a false sense of security in the west, whereas in reality the shadow of death is always on us. I started to repeat the Bud dho mantra and decided just to let go. As I calmed down, I realised it was important to allow this quite natural response to insecurity. India is overwhelming and one can't pretend to meet it with our usual rational responses which come from a set world view. I realised how cushioned our life is – and fancied some of that cushioning now! Maybe the west isn't so bad with its hygiene and medical resources. . . .

I drank a lot of purified water, took some paracetamol and homoeopathy for fever, and lay down for a few hours just observing sensations in the body and calming the mind. I reflected on the inevitability of death and separation from the loved. Quite awesome, this impermanence. No wonder we cushion ourselves so much. In the morning the fever had subsided leaving me with a fluey cold, not too bad.

25 Nov. Today I went to see the local Tibetan doctor as I've been feeling a bit rough. He put it down to general readjustment and has given me some strange looking herbal pills to take three times a day. One shouldn't take any heavy drugs or antibiotics unless it's something serious, but rather just give one's body time to build up its own immunity.

26 Nov. The sickness seems to be subsiding. Feel like I've been through a massive clean out. The Tibetan medicine seems to be working. I went to the temple, only 5 minutes walk, to join in prostrations with the elderly ladies. Almost any time of day or night one can see the Tibetan monks, nuns and laity alike doing prostrations. One aspect that's strongly emphasised is that everything should be undertaken with the view of benefiting all sentient beings. . . .

With respects, gratitude and loving thoughts to you all, Sister Thanissara.

AUTHOR'S COLLECTION

This final chapter demonstrates female capacity for reasoning and logical argument in many areas: skill in argument demonstrated by women in power, or addressing those in power, in an attempt to persuade; skill in expounding ethical or theological ideas, and in analysing other people. All these writers possess the ability to deploy ‘patriarchal' discourses together with female responsiveness to individuals.

The chapter opens with two letters from Hildegard of Bingen. Respected for her visions and sermons, she was often asked for advice. Here she takes the initiative, to persuade the young king ‘readily to do good, for your mind is well-disposed, except when the foul habits of others overwhelm you'. She uses bold biblical images to frighten a Pope with her warning. The second letter is proof of the power possessed by a women when in charge of a large independent nunnery.

There are a fair number of letters available from queens, who were in a position to wield power, and negotiate. I include the first translation in English of a letter by Isabella la Católica, mother of Catherine of Aragon, to her brother, King Enrique, to persuade him to let her marry the man of her choice. This was Ferdinand of Aragon who proved an excellent consort, and who was possibly a model for Machiavelli's
The Prince
. Together they reunited Spain, making it the most powerful country in the known world: Isabel had the foresight, alone among Europeans, to back Columbus.

The two letters of Elizabeth I demonstrate her skill in adapting her discourse to the topics on which she wished to legislate or persuade. Her faith is as strong as her sister's, but vastly distinct in tone and content. Both took power as Head of the Church, and displayed patriarchal ability to use that power forcefully. Distinct in tone, but not in common sense, are the letters of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, who used her influence to stop the Franco-Austrian war, and Queen Victoria. Both sound naïve, but they carried out their duty better than most monarchs.

The working-class is not omitted, with two brave, skilful letters from groups petitioning men in power to improve their pitiful earning position.

Every
century offers evidence of the skill with which women used ‘patriarchal' discourse to convince their readers, such as Aphra Behn who deployed many different types of language in order to earn a living (see Chaper Seven). By the eighteenth century, groups of intellectual women were corresponding with each other; and far more so as the century drew to its revolutionary close.

Mary Wollstonecraft is the best-known among many who argued for women's equality, as in the letter to Talleyrand earlier. Women novelists, in less argumentative vein, possessed the ability to pronounce balanced judgements on the awesomely distinguished, as Fanny Burney on Dr Johnson.

By the nineteenth century, women wrote on public issues and social reform, from Elizabeth Fry on prisons to Beatrice Webb for the Fabians. Suffragette views are so well kown that I have included only one – a farseeing argument for a Women's Movement from Christabel Pankhurst – because of its classlessness. Anaïs Nin argues for honesty in wartime, in a letter to a homosexual friend. Finally, La Pasionaria links her personal grief for the death of her son with public support for the Revolution.

Hildegard of Bingen had mystic visions, composed moving plainsong and ran a large convent. Yet she always found time to help powerful men with her letters of advice. The first letter is to Henry II of England. He had been crowned king in 1154. He greatly admired the Emperor, Barbarossa, and a marriage was planned between the babies of the two royal houses, which Henry cancelled when his future son-in-law was passed over in the imperial succession. King Henry supported the antipope, while the English bishops, Thomas à Becket among them, supported Pope Alexander. Henry became Thomas's enemy, but did penance after his murder at Canterbury in 1170. The archbishop was canonized three years later.

To a certain man who holds a certain office, the Lord says: ‘Yours are the gifts of giving: it is by ruling and defending, protecting and providing, that you may reach heaven.' But a bird, as black as can be, comes to you from the North and says: ‘You have the power to do whatever you want. So do this and do that; make this excuse and that excuse. It does not profit you to have regard for Justice; for if you are always attentive to her, you will not be a master but a slave.'

Yet you should not listen to the thief who gives you this advice; the thief who, in your infancy, when you had become, from ashes, a thing of beauty, after receiving the breath of life, stripped you of greater glory. Look, instead, more attentively upon your Father who made you. For your mind is well-disposed, so that you readily do good, except when the foul habits of others overwhelm you and you become entangled in them for a time. Shun this, with all your might, beloved son of God, and call upon your Father, since willingly he stretches out his hand to help you. Now live forever and remain in eternal happiness.

Following Eugenius, Anastasius IV reigned briefly as Pope between 12 July, 1153 and 3 December, 1154. Although an upright figure himself, he won a reputation for tolerating lesser men in positions of influence. Note Hildegard's bravery in criticizing the Pope, in spite of his position as leader of the Church.

So it is, O man, that you who sit in the chief seat of the Lord, hold him in contempt when you embrace evil, since you do not reject it but kiss it, by silently tolerating it in depraved men. And so the whole earth is disordered by a great succession of heresies; for man loves what God has destroyed. And you, Rome, like a man lying at the point of death, will be so confounded that the strength of your feet, on which up till now you have stood, will ebb away. For you love the King's daughter, Justice, not with a burning love, but as though in the numbness of sleep; so that you drive her from you. But she herself will flee from you if you do not call her back.

But the high mountains will still hold out to you the jaw-bone of assistance. They will lift you up, supporting you with the massive timbers of tall trees, so that you will not be despoiled completely of all your honour – the glory of your betrothal to Christ. You will keep some wings to adorn you, until the snow of manifold mockeries arrives, producing much folly. Beware, therefore, of wanting to associate yourself with the ways of the pagans, lest you fall.

ED. M. FOX,
LETTERS OF HILDEGARD OF BINGEN
(1987)

Hardworking Margaret Paston not only ran a large estate whenever her husband was away, she helped her children with their financial problems. In this letter Margaret writes to her son with serious news about her husband's will.

1450

This is to let you know that I am sending you by the bearer of this letter £40 in gold coin, which I have borrowed for you on pledge, because I would not take the money laid aside for you at Norwich; for, so I am told by the chancellor, Master John Smith, and others, we have all been cursed for administering a dead man's goods without licence or authority, and I think matters are going all the worse with us because of it. For the reverence of God, get a licence from my lord of Canterbury, to ease my conscience and yours, to administer goods to the value of three or four hundred marks, and explain to him how your estates have been in such trouble these past two years that you could get nothing at all from them, nor can take anything now without hurting your tenants. They have been so harrassed by unjust means before now, and you have so much important business in hand, that you cannot afford to be forebearing with them or keep your rights without using your father's goods for a time. This I hope, will ease our conscience in respect of what we have administered and spent before; because we have no more money to pay off this £40 and all other charges than the £47 which you and your uncle know about, which is laid aside at Norwich.

By your mother

ED. ALICE D. GREENWOOD,
SELECTIONS FROM THE PASTON LETTERS
(1920)

Isabella of Castile (1451–1501) transformed a peninsula of disparate, warring kingdoms into the nation-state of Spain, much as we know it today. Only eighteen when she wrote this letter to her brother, King Enrique, she displays many skills in argument: she underlines her position and rights, as sister and heir to the throne; as sister, she stresses her love for the brother; as princess, she renounces civil war, in order to bring peace to their kingdom. She gives many reasons why the man she favours as her future husband would prove better than her brother's choices for her, which he had endeavoured to impose by keeping her under house arrest.