Selected English Letters by - (most read books of all time TXT) 📖

stoutly for tithes, though in my opinion few deserve them less than he, and it may be he would be better without them. Yet you say you are not convinced that to be miserable is the way to be good; to some natures I think it is not; but there are many of so careless and vain a temper that the least breath of good fortune swells them with so much pride, that if they were not put in mind sometimes by a sound cross or two that they are mortal, they would hardly think it possible; and though it is a sign of a servile nature, when fear produces more of reverence in us than love, yet there is more danger of forgetting one's self in a prosperous fortune than in the contrary; and affliction may be the surest though not the pleasantest guide to heaven. What think you, might I not preach with Mr. Marshall for a wager?… TO THE SAME

The ideal husband

[No date; c. 1653.]

There are a great many ingredients must go to the making me happy in a husband. My cousin F. says our humours must agree, and to do that he must have that kind of breeding that I have had, and used to that kind of company; that is, he must not be so much a country gentleman as to understand nothing but hawks and dogs, and be fonder of either than of his wife; nor of the next sort of them, whose time reaches no farther than to be justice of peace, and once in his life high sheriff, who reads no book but statutes, and studies nothing but how to make a speech interlarded with Latin, that may amaze his disagreeing poor neighbours, and fright them rather than persuade them into quietness. He must not be a thing that began the world in a free school, was sent from thence to the university, and is at his farthest when he reaches the inns of court; has no acquaintance but those of his form in those places; speaks the French he has picked out of old laws, and admires nothing but the stories he has heard of the revels that were kept there before his time. He must not be a town gallant neither, that lives in a tavern and an ordinary; that cannot imagine how an hour should be spent without company unless it be in sleeping; that makes court to all the women he sees, thinks they believe him, and laughs and is laughed at equally. Nor a travelled Monsieur, whose head is feathered inside and outside, that can talk of nothing but of dances and duels, and has courage enough to wear slashes, when every body else dies with cold to see him. He must not be a fool of no sort, nor peevish, nor ill-natured, nor proud, nor courteous; and to all this must be added, that he must love me, and I him, as much as we are capable of loving. Without all this his fortune, though never so great, would not satisfy me, and with it a very moderate one would keep me from ever repenting my disposal….

TO THE SAME

The growth of friendship

[No date; c. 1653.]

… I must find you pleased and in good humour; merry as you were wont to be, when we first met, if you will not have me show that I am nothing akin to my cousin Osborne's lady. But what an age it is since we first met, and how great a change it has wrought in both of us! if there had been as great a one on my face, it would be either very handsome or very ugly. For God's sake, when we meet, let us design one day to remember old stories in, to ask one another by what degrees our friendship grew to this height 'tis at. In earnest, I am lost sometimes in thinking of it, and though I can never repent of the share you have in my heart, I know not whether I gave it you willingly or not at first. No; to speak ingenuously, I think you got an interest there a good while before I thought you had any, and it grew so insensibly and yet so fast, that all the traverses it has met with since have served rather to discover it to me than at all to hinder it.

TO THE SAME.

Wilful woman

[No date; c. 1653.]

I was carried yesterday abroad to a dinner that was designed for mirth, but it seems one ill-humoured person in the company is enough to put all the rest out of tune, for I never saw people perform what they intended worse, and could not forbear telling them so; but to excuse themselves and silence my reproaches they all agreed to say that I spoiled their jollity by wearing the most unseasonable looks that could be put on for such an occasion. I told them I knew no remedy but leaving me behind them; that my looks were suitable to my fortune though not to a feast. Fie, I am got into my complaining humour that tires myself as well as every body else, and which (as you observe) helps not at all; would it would leave me and that I should not always have occasion for it, but that's in nobody's power, and my Lady Talmash, that says she can do whatever she will, cannot believe whatsoever she pleases. 'Tis not unpleasant, methinks, to hear her talk how at such a time she was sick, and the physicians told her she would have the small-pox and showed her where they were coming out upon her, but she bethought herself that it was not at all convenient for her to have them at that time; some business she had that required her going abroad, and so she resolved she would not be sick nor was not. Twenty such stories as these she tells, and then falls into discourses of the strength of reason and power of philosophy till she confounds herself and all that hear her. You have no such ladies in Ireland…. My poor Lady Vavasor is carried to the Tower, and her situation could not excuse her, because she was acquainted by somebody that there was a plot against the Protector, and did not discover it. She has told now all that was told her, but vows she will never say from whence she had it; we shall see whether her resolutions are as unalterable as those of my Lady Talmash. I wonder how she behaved herself when she was married; I never yet saw anybody that did not look simply and out of countenance, nor ever knew a wedding well designed but one, and that was of two persons who had time enough I confess to contrive it, and nobody to please in it but themselves. He came down into the country where she was upon a visit, and one morning married her; as soon as they came out of the church, they took coach and came for the town, dined at an Inn by the way, and at night came into lodgings that were provided for them, where nobody knew them, and where they passed for married people of seven years' standing. The truth is I could not endure to be Mrs. Bride in a public wedding, to be made the happiest person on earth; do not take it ill, for I would endure it if I could, rather than fail, but in earnest I do not think it were possible for me; you cannot apprehend the formalities of a treaty more than I do, nor so much the success of it. Yet in earnest your father will not find my brother Peyton wanting in civility (though he is not a man of much compliment unless it be in his letters to me), nor an unreasonable person in any thing so he will allow him, out of his kindness to his wife, to set a higher value upon his sister than she deserves. I know not how he may be prejudiced upon the business, but he is not deaf to reason when it is civilly delivered, and is as easily gained with compliance and good usage as any body I know, but no other way; when he is roughly used he is like me ten times the worse for it. I make it a case of conscience to discover my faults to you as fast as I know them, that you may consider what you have to do: my aunt told me no longer ago than yesterday, that I was the most wilful woman that ever she knew, and had an obstinacy of spirit nothing could overcome. Take heed, you see I give you fair warning. I have missed a letter this Monday, what is the reason? By the next I shall be gone into Kent, and my other journey is laid aside, which I am not displeased at, because it would have broken our intercourse very much. Here are some verses of Cowley's; pray tell me how you like them. It is only a piece taken out of a new thing of his. The whole is very long, and is a description of, or rather a paraphrase upon, the friendships of David and Jonathan. 'Tis I think the best I have seen of his, and I like the subject because it is that I would be perfect in. Adieu!

KATHARINE PHILIPS

1631-1664

ORINDA TO THE HONOURABLE BERENICE

Yielding to opinion

Priory of Cardigan, 25 June

Your Ladyship's last favour from Coll. P——'s was truly obliging, and carried so much of the same great soul of yours, which loves to diffuse itself in expressions of friendship to me, that it merits a great deal more acknowledgement than I am able to pay at my best condition, and am less now when my head aches, and will give me no leave to enlarge, though I have so much subject and reason; but really if my heart ached too, I could be sensible of a very great kindness and condescension in thinking me worthy of your concern, though I visibly perceive most of my letters have lost their way to your Ladyship. I beseech you be pleased first to believe I have written every post; but, secondly, since I came, and then to enquire for them, that they may be commended into your hands, where alone they can hope for a favourable residence; I am very much a sharer by sympathy, in your Ladyship's satisfaction in the converse you had in the country, and find that to that ingenious company Fortune hath been just, there being no person fitter to receive all the admiration of persons best capable to pay them, than the great Berenice….

And now (madam) why was that a cruel question, When will you come to Wales? 'Tis cruel to me, I confess, that it is yet in question, but I humbly beg your Ladyship to unriddle that part of your letter, for I cannot understand why you, madam, who have no persons alive to whom your birth hath submitted you, and have already by your life secured to yourself the best opinion the world can give you, should create an awe upon your own actions, from imaginary inconveniences: Happiness, I confess, is two-faced, and one is opinion; but that opinion is certainly our own; for it were equally ridiculous and impossible to shape our actions by others' opinions. I have had so much (and some sad) reason to discuss this principle, that I can speak with some confidence, That none will ever be happy, who make their happiness to consist in, or be governed by the votes of other persons. I deny not but the approbation of wise and good persons is a very necessary satisfaction; but to forbear innocent contentments, only because it's possible some fancies may be so capricious as to dispute whether I should have taken them, is, in my belief, neither better nor worse than to fast always, because there are some so superstitious in the world, that will abstain from meat, upon some score or other, upon every day in the year, that is, some upon some days, and others upon others, and some upon all. You know, madam, there is nothing so various as vulgar opinion, nothing so untrue to itself. Who shall then please since none can fix it? 'Tis heresy (this of submitting to every blast of popular extravagancy) which I have combated in persons very dear to me; Dear madam, let them not have your authority for a relapse, when I had almost committed them; but consider it