I read with pleasure your commands, in your last kind and obliging
letter: and you may be sure of a ready obedience in every one of them,
that is in my power.
That which I can most easily do, I will first do; and that is, to
transcribe the answer I sent to Miss Darnford, and that to Mrs.
Jewkes, the former of which, (and a long one it is) is as follows:
"DEAR MISS DARNFORD,
"I begin now to be afraid I shall not have the pleasure and benefit I
promised myself of passing a fortnight or three weeks at the Hall, in
your sweet conversation, and that of your worthy family, as well
as those others in your agreeable neighbourhood, whom I must always
remember with equal honour and delight.
"The occasion will be principally, that we expect, very soon, Lord and
Lady Davers, who propose to tarry here a fortnight at least; and after
that, the advanced season will carry us to London, where Mr. B.
has taken a house for his winter residence, and in order to attend
parliament: a service he says, which he has been more deficient in
hitherto, than he can either answer to his constituents, or to his own
conscience; for though he is but one, yet if any good motion should be
lost by one, every absent member, who is independent, has to reproach
himself with the consequence of the loss of that good which might
otherwise redound to the commonwealth. And besides, he says, such
excuses as he could make, _every one_ might plead; and then public
affairs might as well be left to the administration, and no parliament
be chosen.
"See you, my dear Miss Darnford, from the humble cottager, what a
public person your favourite friend is grown! How easy is it for a
bold mind to look forward, and, perhaps, forgetting what she was, now
she imagines she has a stake in the country, takes upon herself to be
as important, as significant, as if, like my dear Miss Darnford, she
had been born to it!
"Well; but may I not ask, whether, if the mountain cannot come to
Mahomet, Mahomet will not come to the mountain? Since Lady Davers's
visit is so uncertain as to its beginning and duration, and so great
a favour as I am to look upon it, and really shall, it being her first
visit to _me_:--and since we must go and take possession of our London
residence, why can't Sir Simon spare to us the dear lady whom he could
use hardly, and whose attendance (though he is indeed entitled to all
her duty) he did not, just in that instance, quite so much deserve?
"'Well, but after all, Sir Simon,' would I say, if I had been in
presence at his peevish hour, 'you are a fine gentleman, are you not?
to take such a method to shew your good daughter, that because she did
not come _soon enough_ to you, she came _too soon_! And did ever papa
before you put a _good book_ (for such I doubt not it was, _because_
you were in affliction, though so little affected by its precepts) to
such a _bad use_? As parents' examples are so prevalent, suppose your
daughter had taken it, and flung it at her sister; Miss Nancy at her
waiting-maid; and so it had gone through the family; would it not have
been an excuse for every one to say, that the father, and head of the
family had set the example?
"'You almost wish, my dear Miss tells me, that I would undertake
_you_!--This is very good of you. Sir Simon,' I might (would his
patience have suffered me to run on thus) have added; 'but I hope,
since you are so sensible that you _want_ to be undertaken, (and
since this peevish rashness convinces me that you _do_) that you
will undertake _yourself_; that you will not, when your indisposition
requires the attendance and duty of your dear lady and daughter,
make it more uncomfortable to them, by _adding_ a difficulty of being
pleased, and an impatience of spirit, to the concern their duty and
affection make them have for you; and, _at least_, resolve never to
take a book into your hand again, if you cannot make a better use of
it, than you did then.'
"But Sir Simon will say, I have _already undertaken_ him, were he to
see this. Yet my Lady Darnford once begged I would give him a hint or
two on this subject, which, she was pleased to say, would be better
received from me than from any body: and if it be a little too severe,
it is but a just reprisal made by one whose ears, he knows, he has
cruelly wounded more than once, twice, or thrice, besides, by what
he calls his _innocent_ double entendres, and who, if she had not
resented it, when an opportunity offered, must have been believed, by
him, to be neither more nor less than a hypocrite. There's for you,
Sir Simon: and so here ends all my malice; for now I have spoken my
mind.
"Yet I hope your dear papa will not be so angry as to deny me, for
this my freedom, the request I make to _him_, to your _mamma_, and
to your _dear self_, for your beloved company, for a month or two in
Bedfordshire, and at London: and if you might be permitted to winter
with us at the latter, how happy should I be! It will be half done the
moment you desire it. Sir Simon loves you too well to refuse you, if
you are earnest in it. Your honoured mamma is always indulgent to
your requests: and Mr. B. as well in kindness to me, as for the great
respect he bears you, joins with me to beg this favour of you, and of
Sir Simon and my lady.
"If it can be obtained, what pleasure and improvement may I not
propose to myself, with so polite a companion, when we are carried by
Mr. B. to the play, the opera, and other of the town diversions! We
will work, visit, read, and sing together, and improve one another;
you _me_, in every word you shall speak, in every thing you shall do;
I _you_, by my questions, and desire of information, which will make
you open all your breast to me: and so unlocking that dear storehouse
of virtuous knowledge, improve your own notions the more for
communicating them. O my dear Miss Damford I how happy is it in your
power to make me!
"I am much affected with your account of Mrs. Jewkes's reformation,
I could have wished, had I not _other_ and _stronger_ inducements
(in the pleasure of so agreeable a neighbourhood, and so sweet a
companion), I could have been down at the Hall, in hopes to have
confirmed the poor woman in her newly assumed penitence. God give her
grace to persevere in it!--To be an humble means of saving a soul from
perdition! O my dear Miss Darnford, let me enjoy that heart-ravishing
hope!--To pluck such a brand as this out of the fire, and to assist to
quench its flaming susceptibility for mischief, and make it useful to
edifying purposes, what a pleasure does this afford one! How does it
encourage one to proceed in the way one has been guided to pursue!
How does it make me hope, that I am raised to my present condition,
in order to be an humble instrument in the hand of Providence to
communicate great good to others, and so extend to many those benefits
I have received, which, were they to go no further than myself, what a
vile, what an ungrateful creature should I be!
"I see, my dearest Miss Darnford, how useful in every condition of
life a virtuous and a serious turn of mind may be!
"In hopes of seeing you with us, I will not enlarge on several
agreeable subjects, which I could touch upon with pleasure, besides
what I gave you in my former (of my reception here, and of the
kindness of our genteel neighbours): such, particularly, as the
arrival here of my dear parents, and the kind, generous entertainment
they met with from my best friend; his condescension in not only
permitting me to attend them to Kent, but accompanying us thither, and
settling them in a most happy manner, beyond their wishes and my
own; but yet so much in character, as I may say, that every one must
approve his judicious benevolence; the favours of my good Lady Davers
to me, who, pleased with my letters, has vouchsafed to become my
correspondent; and a thousand things, which I want personally to
communicate to my dear Miss Darnford.
"Be pleased to present my humble respects to Lady Darnford, and to
Miss Nancy; to good Madam Jones, and to your kind friends at Stamford;
also to Mr. and Mrs. Peters, and their kins-woman: and beg of that
good gentleman from me to encourage his new proselyte all he can; and
I doubt not, she will do credit, poor woman! to the pains he shall
take with her. In hopes of your kind compliance with my wishes for
your company, I remain, _dearest Miss Darnford, your faithful and
obliged friend and servant,_
"P.B."
This, my good lady, is the long letter I sent to Miss Darnford, who,
at parting, engaged me to keep up a correspondence with her, and put
me in hopes of passing a month or two at the Hall, if we came down,
and if she could persuade Sir Simon and her mamma to spare her to my
wishes. Your ladyship will excuse me for so faintly mentioning the
honours you confer upon me: but I would not either add or diminish in
the communications I make to you.
The following is the copy of what I wrote to Mrs. Jewkes:
"You give me, Mrs. Jewkes, very great pleasure, to find, that, at
length, God Almighty has touched your heart, and let you see, while
health and strength lasted, the error of your ways. Many an unhappy
one has not been so graciously touched, till they have smarted under
some heavy afflictions, or been confined to the bed of sickness, when,
perhaps, they have made vows and resolutions, that have held them no
longer than the discipline lasted; but you give me much better hopes
of the sincerity of your conversion; as you are so well convinced,
before some sore evil has overtaken you: and it ought to be an earnest
to you of the Divine favour, and should keep you from despondency.
"As to me, it became me to forgive you, as I most cordially did; since
your usage of me, as it proved, was but a necessary means in the hand
of Providence, to exalt me to that state of happiness, in which I have
every day more and more cause given me to rejoice, by the kindest and
most generous of gentlemen.
"As I have often prayed for you, even when you used me the most
unkindly, I now praise God for having heard my prayers, and with high
delight look upon you as a reclaimed soul given to my supplication.
May the Divine goodness enable you to persevere in the course you have
begun! And when you can taste the all-surpassing pleasure that fills
the worthy breast, on being placed in a station where your example
may be of advantage to the souls of others, as well as to your own--a
pleasure that every good mind glories in, and none else can truly
relish; then may you be assured, that nothing but your perseverance,
and the consequential improvement resulting from it, is wanted to
convince you, that you are in a right way, and that the woe that is
pronounced against the presumptuous sinner, belongs not to you.
"Let me, therefore, dear Mrs. Jewkes (for now _indeed_ you are dear to
me), caution you against two things; the one, that you return not
to your former ways, and wilfully err after this repentance; for the
Divine goodness will then look upon itself as mocked by you, and will
withdraw itself from you; and more dreadful will your state then be,
than if you had never repented: the other, that you don't despair of
the Divine mercy, which has so evidently manifested itself in your
favour, and has awakened you out of your deplorable lethargy, without
those sharp medicines and operations, which others, and perhaps _not
more faulty_ persons, have suffered. But go on cheerfully in the same
happy path. Depend upon it, you are now in the right way, and turn not
either to the right hand or to the left; for the reward is before you,
in reputation and a good fame in this life, and everlasting felicity
beyond it.
"Your letter is that of a sensible woman, as I always thought you; and
of a truly contrite one, as I hope you will prove yourself to be: and
I the rather hope it, as I shall be always desirous, then of taking
every opportunity that offers of doing you real service, as well with
regard to your present as future life: for I am, _good_ Mrs. Jewkes,
as I now hope I may call you, _your loving friend to serve you_,