WOMEN AS LETTER-WRITERS.
IT is difficult to say what qualities go to make a good letter-writer, but we think an exceptional capacity for intimacy is a sine qua' non. The correspondents who boast that any one might read their letters are letter-writers whom few people care to read. Abandon is necessary to the best letter-writing; discretion must be thrown to the winds with all argumentation and all attempts at eloquence. A letter should be a letter, not a signed article with " Dear So-and-so " stuck at the beginning. It must be a. monologue, but it should never be a treatise. A letter-writer should, while his letter. paper is before him, regard the world as a show, and must endeavour to make his correspondent see the scene, whether it be grave or gay, from his standpoint. The gay, however, should prevail. The primary object of a letter is to enter- tain. Love-letters, of course, belong to another category. They are not exactly letters; they are records of love-making. By rights they should never see the public light. Since, however, the public insists on seeing them, they should form a part of an epistolary anthology.
But if any one wants to know how entertaining letters can be, let him buy a book lately published called " Women as Letter-Writers," selected and edited by Ada M. Ingpen (Hutchinson and Co., 5s. net). The collection here brought together covers over four centuries, and is amusing from the first page to the four hundred and forty-fourth of somewhat close print. There are not enough love-letters, and those there are hardly deserve the name, although they undoubtedly do deserve to be read. The first we come to is by Dorothy Osborne, and we think Sir William Temple must have thought it a little cold, staunch as her devotion was to prove through seven years of an arduous courtship. All passion is here subordinated to sense. She wishes, she admits, for the world's good opinion. She wishes to be considered to contemplate marriage with due, but not undue, regard to worldly wisdom. It is all very well, she says, to tell her that the opinion of the world is of no account. " I never knew any one so satisfied with their own innocence as to be content the world should think them guilty." " 'Tis much easier, sure, to get a good fortune than a good husband; but whosoever marries without any consideration of fortune shall never be allowed to do it out of so reasonable an apprehension ; the whole world (without any reserve) shall pronounce they did it merely to satisfy their giddy humour. Besides, though you imagine 'twere a great argument of my kindness to con• sider nothing but you, in earnest I believe 'twonld be an injury to you. I do not see that it puts any value upon men when women marry them for love (as they term it); 'tis not their merit, but our folly, that is always presumed to cause it; and would it be any advantage to you to have your wife thought an indiscreet person ? " The lady is frank, at any rate. More than a hundred years later we have another love-letter. Mary Wollstonecraft writes to Gilbert Imlay, and sparks of real feeling still glow among the ashes of a then topical sentimentalism. She calls her lover before her mind's eye, "but it is not thy money- getting face" that appears. " No ; I have thy honest countenance before me—relaxed by tenderness ; a little—little wounded by my whims; and thy eyes glittering with sympathy
a delicious tear trembles in my eye that would be all your own, if a grateful emotion directed to the Father of nature, who has made me thus alive to happiness, did not give more warmth to the sentiment it divides." After these effusions we long for Mrs. Browning. Her name is in the " Contents," but when we turn to the page—we find one letter about "Aurora Leigh " I
If we do not find much about love, however, in these feminine letters, we have some entertaining comments upon marriage. This from Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddart is characteristic. How often she seems to write with her brother's pen :—" I think I should like to have you always to the end of our lives living with us; and I do not know any reason why that should not be, except for the great fancy you seem to have for marrying, which after all is but a hazardous kind of an affair; but, however, do as you like ; even, man knows best what pleases himself best. I have known many singlt
men I should have liked in my life (if it had suited them) for a husband: but very few husbands have I ever wished was mine, which is rather against the state in general; but one never is disposed to envy wives their good husbands. So much for marrying—but, however, get married, if you can."
The Godwin family were great letter-writers. Oddly enough, they were in this particular injured by cultivation. Old Mrs. Godwin, the wife of a poor Dissenting minister and the mother of the philosopher, though her spelling is weak and her grammar faulty, wrote with a point and frankness which are delightful. The reader is deeply and instantly interested in her concerns. How anxious she was, poor soul, about a tiresome son, who " seems according to what I can learn to be poorer for y* 244 I have given him than he was before he had it," for even now "he can't neither board nor clothe Harriot," who is " gone to service somewhere in the country." Harriot, we read, wished to go "to her Aunt Barker's " in London, and it is a matter for thankfulness she was not able to do so, since " she had better begin low than be puff° up with pride now and afterwards become low." Her wish to go to London does her no credit. " London is the place where girls go too for services to get better wages than they can in the country, but I know the reason is her is given up to pride and sensuality and well know where y' will lead to and all that tread in the same steps." Her son "Natty" too gives her some anxiety. He desires to marry a very suitable person, apparently with a little money. " He has made one attempt but she was pre-engaged and I don't know another in the world I should like so well, so most likely he must remain a servant all his days. Providence ought to be sub- mitted to." Of the philosopher son she seems very fond, and she sends love to his wife and presents to his children, though it troubles her that he will not go to hear " good Mr. Sykes" preach. Will he not consider how grievous is his apparent ungodliness " Think with yourself, if you were in his place, and in your mother's that loves you, and at the same time highly values Mr. Sykes, who in many respects is the very Image of your dear father, for friendliness and wish to do everybody good." Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was a granddaughter of this lady, and certainly no instance of literary atavism. When she speaks of herself as "drearily young for one so lost as I "—writes of Shelley as " a superior being among men, a bright planetary spirit enshrined in an earthly temple," and of her life as " very monotonous as to outward events ; yet how diversified by internal feeling ! "—exclaims : "How often, in the intensity of grief, does one instant seem to fill and embrace the universe !"—and speaks of a great friend as "joined in misery," and therefore "joined in life," we long for the Dissenting minister's wife without education or affectation, and drilled into simplicity by poverty and thirteen children.
On the whole, we think that the letters of the literary women are the most charming in the book (unless we count Mrs. Carlyle as an exception), despite the fact that the greatest among them, George Eliot, was a dull correspondent. Miss Austen, too, should have been a perfect letter-writer, but, judging by the few specimens which have come down to us, she was not. A spirited account of the publication of " Pride and Prejudice " which affords some insight into her character is, however, quoted by Mrs. Ingpen. " I must confess," we read, " that I think her [Elizabeth] as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print, and how I shall be able to tolerate those who do not like her at least I do not know." Fanny Burney when she writes about Court manners, Mary Howitt about Quaker customs, and Lady Caroline Lamb when she writes of herself are in- imitable. Fanny Burney describes to a friend how at Court one must never cough, nor sneeze, nor blow one's nose, nor proclaim by word or gesture any discomfort of any descrip- tion. If a pin-prick brings tears to your eyes, or "if the blood should gush from your head you must let it gush; if you are uneasy to think of making such a blurred appearance, you must be uneasy, but you must say nothing about it." The advice reminds us of Mrs. Barbauld's account of a sermon preached in Geneva. "At proper periods of the discourse the minister stops short, and turns his back to you, in order to blow his nose, which is a signal for all the congre- gation to do the same." Mary Howitt's naive wish to keep to the Quaker's dress because it is becoming is told with a simplicity that is not altogether unconscious, and illustrates the natural frugality of the literary spirit which cannot bear to waste " copy " :—" Why, dear Anna, if thou feelst the disadvantage and absurdity of Friends' peculiarities, dost thou not abandon them ? William has done so, and really I am glad. He is a good Christian, and the change has made no difference in him, except for the better, as regards looks. I am amazed now how I could advocate the ungraceful cut of a Friend's coat; and if we could do the same, we should find ourselves religiously no worse, whatever Friends might think. I never wish to be representative to any meeting, or to hold the office of clerk or sub-clerk. All other privileges of the Society we should enjoy the same. But I am nervous on the subject. I should not like to wear a straw bonnet without ribbons ; it looks so Methodistical ; and with ribbons, I again say, I should be nervous. Besides, notwithstanding all his own changes, William likes a Friend's bonnet. In all other particulars of dress, mine is just in make the same as everybody else's. Anna Mary I shall never bring up in the payment of the tithe of mint and cummin ; and I fancy Friends are somewhat scandalised at the unorthodox appearance of the little maiden.
As to language, I could easily adopt that of our countrymen, but think with a Friend's bonnet it does not accord ; and I like con- sistency." Again, we see the same professional feeling when she recalls to her sister how they first read " Lalla Rookh " :—" And dost thou remember our first reading of Lelia Rookh ' ? It was on a washing day. We read and clapped our clear- starching, read and clapped, read and clapped and read again, and all the time our souls were not on this earth. Ay, dear Anna, it was either being young or being unsolicited which gave such glory to poetry in those days."
Lady Caroline Lamb enables us in two letters to make a complete sketch of her personality. "I thank God," she begins, "being born with all the great names of England around me. I value them alone for what they dare do, and have done ; and I fear nobody except the devil, who certainly has all along been very particular in his attentions to me, and has sent me as many baits as he did Job." Her child- hood was troublous. " I was ordered by the late Dr. Ware neither to learn anything nor to see any one, for fear the violent passions and strange whims they found in me should lead to madness." Therefore " I wrote not, spelt not; but I made verses, which they all thought beautiful : for myself, I preferred washing a dog, or polishing a piece of Derbyshire spar, or breaking in a horse, to any accomplishment in the world. Drawing-room (shall I say with-drawing-room, as they now say F), looking-glasses, finery, or dress-company for ever were my abhorrence. I was, I am, religious ; I was loving (F), but I was and am unkind." Here is a list in order of procedure of how well Lady Caroline Lamb loved her friends and herself :—" William Lamb first, my mother second, Byron third, my boy fourth, my brother William fifth, my father and godmother sixth; my uncle and aunt, my cousin Devonshire, my brother Fred (myself), my cousins next, and last, my petit friend, young Russell, because he is my aunt's godson; because when he was but three I nursed him; because he has a hard-to-win, free, and kind heart; but chiefly because he stood by me when no one else did." On all this comes the curious comment: "The only noble fellow I ever met with is William Lamb." Space forbids us to quote Mrs. Carlyle's description of how Leigh Hunt kissed a strange lady who came to tea and flattered him off his weak head. It is a commonplace to say that letter-writing is a lost art, a commonplace which is contrary to common-sense. There will always be good letters written while science fails to annihilate distance, while men and women have time and friends, and while the great forces of altruism and egoism keep us interested in each other and in ourselves.
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