800 Years of Women's Letters (5 page)

TRANS. E.V. RICHARDS,
CITY OF LADIES
(1982)

Elizabeth I skilfully rejected the proposal of King Erik of Sweden, who set out to woo her in August 1560
.

25 February 1561

Most Serene Prince Our Very Dear Cousin,

A letter truly yours both in the writing and sentiment was given us on 30 December by your very dear brother, the Duke of Finland. And while we perceive therefrom that the zeal and love of your mind towards us is not diminished, yet in part we are grieved that we cannot gratify your Serene Highness with the same kind of affection. And that indeed does not happen because we doubt in any way of your love and honour, but, as often we have testified both in words and writing, that we have never yet conceived a feeling of that kind of affection towards anyone. We therefore beg your Serene Highness again and again that you be pleased to set a limit to your love, that it advance not beyond the laws of friendship for the present nor disregard them in the future. And we in our turn shall take care that whatever can be required for the holy preservation of friendship between Princes we will always perform towards your Serene Highness. It seems strange for your Serene Highness to write that you understand from your brother and your ambassadors that we have entirely determined not to marry an absent husband; and that we will give you no certain reply until we shall have seen your person.

We certainly think that if God ever direct our heart to consideration of marriage we shall never accept or choose any absent husband how powerful and wealthy a Prince soever. But that we are not to give you an answer until we have seen your person is so far from the thing itself that we never even considered such a thing. But I have always given both to your brother, who is certainly a most excellent prince and deservedly very dear to us, and also to your ambassador likewise the same answer with scarcely any variation of the words, that we do not conceive in our heart to take a husband, but highly commend this single life, and hope that your Serene Highness will no longer spend time in waiting for us.

God keep your Serene Highness for many years in good health and safety. From our Palace at Westminister, 25 February

Your Serene Highness' sister and cousin,

Elizabeth

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

Madame de Sévigné is, I consider, the greatest French letter-writer. She spent part of her time in the Court of Louis XIV, about whom we learn a great deal. She was a beauty, but preferred to devote her love to her children, especially her daughter, when she was widowed in her twenties. She had the ability to keep the friendship of many men who admired her. Here she writes to a now-forgotten poet, Ménage. He gained a name at court, wooed her, and later married another. However he did not forget her, wrote to her again in their forties, and received this warm, honest reply.

23 June 1656

Your remembrance of me is a real joy: it has renewed all the pleasure of our old friendship. Your verses have reminded me of my youth, and I wonder why the loss of such a good thing does not make me sad. The verses have given me pleasure, while I think they should have made me weep. But without going into the question of where the feeling comes from, I like whatever it is makes me feel thankful for your gift. You will readily understand that it is pleasant to have one's self-love so much flattered and to be celebrated in this way by the best poet of one's time. But it would have been better for your honour as a poet if I had been more worthy of all you have said about me. However, whatever I have been and whatever I am, I shall never forget your true and constant friendship, and all my life I shall be the most grateful as well as the oldest of your very humble servants.

TRANS. L. TANCOCK,
MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ: SELECTED LETTERS
(1982)

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu lived at the time of Pope, Dr Johnson and Addison. She became well known for her lively interest in intellectual and social concerns, particularly women's rights and education. Her lively correspondence appears in various chapters of this study, as she wrote in many registers on people, places and, above all, ideas. Her husband proved dull and once her children were adult she decided to live in Italy. She was delighted to hear that her daughter, the Countess of Bute, was enjoying the company of her own daughters. In this letter she gives unusual advice on the need for developing interests, since even a rich woman is ‘destined' for a retiring life.

Louvere, Jan. 28, N.S., 1753

DEAR CHILD
, – You have given me a great deal of satisfaction by your account of your eldest daughter. I am particularly pleased to hear she is a good arithmetician; it is the best proof of understanding: the knowledge of numbers is one of the chief distinctions between us and brutes. If there is anything in blood, you may reasonably expect your children should be endowed with an uncommon share of good sense. Mr Wortley's family and mine have both produced some of the greatest men that have been born in England. I will therefore speak to you as supposing Lady Mary not only capable, but desirous of learning: in that case by all means let her be indulged in it. You will tell me I did not make it a part of your education: your prospect was very different from hers. And you had much in your circumstances to attract the highest offers, it seemed your business to learn how to live in the world, as it is hers, to know how to be easy out of it. It is the common error of builders and parents to follow some plan they think beautiful (and perhaps is so), without considering that nothing is beautiful which is displaced. Hence we see so many edifices raised that the raisers can never inhabit, being too large for their fortunes. Vistas are laid open over barren heaths, and apartments contrived for a coolness very agreeable in Italy, but killing in the north of Britain; thus every woman endeavours to breed her daughter a fine lady, qualifying her for a station in which she will never appear, and at the same time incapacitating her for that retirement, to which she is destined. Learning, if she has a real taste for it, will not only make her contented, but happy in it. No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting. She will not want new fashions, nor regret the loss of expensive diversions, or variety of company, if she can be amused with an author, in her closet. To render this amusement complete, she should be permitted to learn the languages. I have heard it lamented that boys lose so many years in mere learning of words: this is no objection to a girl, whose time is not so precious: she cannot advance herself in any profession, and has therefore more hours to spare; and as you say her memory is good, she will be very agreeably employed this way. There are two cautions to be given on this subject: first, not to think herself learned, when she can read Latin, or even Greek. Languages are more properly to be called vehicles of learning than learning itself, as may be observed in many schoolmasters, who, though perhaps critics in grammar, are the most ignorant fellows upon earth. True knowledge consists in knowing things, not words. I would no farther wish her a linguist than to enable her to read books in their originals, that are often corrupted, and are always injured by translations. Two hours' application every morning will bring this about much sooner than you can imagine, and she will have leisure enough beside, to run over the English poetry, which is a more important part of a woman's education than it is generally supposed. This subject is apt to run away with me. I'll trouble you no more with it.

Your mother M. Wortley

ED. R. HALSBAND,
THE SELECTED LETTERS OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU
(1971)

We have too little from working class or peasant women, though feminists have now discovered a tradition of those responding to a fashion for ‘primitive' poetry. The most famous is Ann Yearsley, encouraged by Hannah More in the eighteenth century. Another underestimated poet was Mary Leapor (1722–46), daughter of a gardener. This extract is from a poem written to other women about fears of the illness which led to her death at the age of twenty-four. It is particularly moving, since she knew she was about to die and had no hope of being noticed as a poet, being a poor man's daughter. Written only a few months before her death, she refers to herself as ‘Mira' and recounts a dream which she contrasts to her kitchen work in ‘dusty walls' with merely ‘sliding joys'.

I include two extracts from verse epistles, because this form became fashionable in the Renaissance, when it was imported from Italy. It was popular among aristocrats able to make the Grand Tour through France and Italy. Women soon showed their proficiency at this demanding form, though they had to learn the skill on their own, unlike men. It is striking that Mary Leapor was able to master the demands of rhyming couplets at such a young, untutored age.

1745

EDS. D. SPENDER AND J. TODD,
ANTHOLOGY OF BRITISH WOMEN WRITERS
(1989)

Apprehension about the reception of their writing has worried women from the time of Hildegard to today's young novelists, such as Maggie Gee. Here, Charlotte Smith uses the verse epistle to bemoan the fate of her novel
Emmeline
, intended for print, then suppressed in 1782. Smith (1749–1806), a prolific poet and novelist, was forced to support her many children when her husband was imprisoned for debt. Her long Gothic novels were relatively successful, especially the first,
Emmeline
, finally published in 1788. She pleased the Romantic taste: ‘I wrote mournfully because I was unhappy
.'

1787

CHARLOTTE SMITH,
EMMELINE
(1788)

Mary Hays was born in 1760 of a Dissenting family. Her fiancé died before the wedding and her later passion for a philosopher was not requited, which made her well aware of the sufferings of women, to which she draws public attention in 1798:

Dear generous creatures!

Of all the systems which human nature in its moments of intoxication has produced – if indeed a bundle of contradictions and absurdities may be called a system – that which men have contrived with a view to forming the minds, and regulating the conduct of women, is perhaps the most completely absurd. And, though the consequences are often very serious to both sexes, if one could for a moment forget these, and consider it only as a system, it would rather be found a subject of mirth . . .