Your passion, my dear Mrs. ***, was to be rich, you married a man you
despised, and whose intrinsic worth is centured in his wealth: which
gave charms even to deformity, transformed Hymen into Mammon, and the
god of love into a satyr. Content yourself then with wealth, enjoy it,
cultivate your taste for those advantages it can produce; and let these
console you for the loss of every thing you have sacrificed for it. Have
recourse to the principles of your determination: you had other offers:
you have therefore examined, compared, chosen, and regretted. Be firm to
this decision of your own judgment, and do not act inconsistently, by
repining that you do not possess what you did not purchase. If the
vices, if the follies of your husband, should become every day more and
more intolerable to you, it will be in vain to regret the tranquility,
the peace, the tender affection, endearing attention, or confidential
intercourse, which might have distinguished your days, had you been
united to a man of merit. In the height of your despair, you exclaim!
“Was it for this, my amiable mother nurtured me with such care, and
cultivated in me, every idea replete with honour, enlivened by
sentiment, and corrected with tenderness? Alas! these embellishments do
now but add to my misery, in rendering me more sensible of the
wretchedness of my state. The man I am chained to, is so far from
possessing sensibility or taste, that he is dead to every impression of
merit; and modesty, which might have endeared me to a man of delicacy,
renders me hateful to this libertine; who by the indecency of his
discourse, is continually offending against the sensations of a virtuous
mind. While I regret the loss of intellectual enjoyment, my regret is
strengthened by the direful effects of its privation on him. Mutual
esteem is as necessary in a married state, as mutual affection; neither
of which I enjoy. What is pomp, equipage, or splendor, compared with
such seraphic sensations dwelling in the human heart? Will the blaze of
diamonds atone for the deficiency of this passion? Will the gold of
Ophir, melted into one mass, weigh against the raptures of uniting
hearts, warmed with sentiment and truth?”
As this man’s character was known before you married him, can you have
now any just reason of complaint, especially as you have not even the
excuse of partiality to plead for his person? Recollect your own sordid
selfish views; prevailing passion has been gratified, and you will
pardon me, for questioning whether you would relinquish the advantages
of your wealth, to be restored again to your liberty. Miss Aikin favours
us with the following passage from one of Lucian’s dialogues. “Jupiter
complains to Cupid, that though he had so many intrigues, he was never
sincerely beloved: in order to be beloved, says Cupid, you must lay
aside your ægis and your thunderbolts; you must curl and perfume your
hair, place a garland on your head, and walk with a soft step, and
assume a winning obsequious deportment.” “But replied Jupiter, I am not
willing to resign so much of my dignity.” “Then, returns Cupid, leave
off desiring to be loved.” He wanted to be Jupiter and Adonis at the
same time: as you to be rich and happy. What right had you to expect
that a miracle was to be performed in your favour? You knew well that
the wretch to whom you have allied yourself, forsook humanity, and every
genial feeling of an upright and honest heart, in the acquisition of
that fortune, which you wished to possess, and have obtained, and which
has since pampered the vices which disgust you. If he enumerates the
spoils of his victories in ----, are they not covered with the blood of
the vanquished? Did he give peace and happiness to the conquered? Did he
accept the gifts of their princes, to use them for the comfort of those
whose fathers, sons, or husbands, were massacred? Did he use his power
to gain security and freedom to the regions of oppression and slavery?
Did he endear the American name by examples of generosity? Did he return
with the consciousness of his duty discharged to his country, and
humanity to his fellow-creatures? If he was deficient in all this, what
manner of right had you to expect tenderness and affection from him? You
might with the same propriety look for the sensitive plant in a bed of
nettles, and then complain you are stung by them. But you need not be
upbraided for the folly of your election, since your own experience is
but too severe a monitor. Debasement is the child of pride. All that
remains for you now, is to render yourself as easy as possible; it is
your duty to soothe the melancholy disposition your husband will be in
(when alone) from a recollection of his crimes. Perhaps, by using your
influence judiciously, you may yet have it in your power to humanize his
passions, and refine his pleasures: but your good sense will tell you
that there is so much pride interwoven in the heart of man, that his
obstinacy will never condescend to receive any more than a hint from a
wife. A husband is more likely to be praised into virtue, than rallied
out of vice; and the most essential point in the art of leading others,
is to conceal from them that they are led at all. If he reforms, and
thinks the world gives him the credit of it, in a short time he will
believe it proceeded from his own will and inclinations, which will
insure his constancy in it. Every method is laudable on your part, to
reclaim your husband, except an affectation of fondness for him: this
would be a profanation of love: and a woman capable of such abject
deceit, I should look upon as capable of the most determined baseness.
If his crimes have hardened him, it will be in vain for you to attempt
his reformation: but while you lament his depravity, you are left at
liberty to spend your own time as you think proper. The gratifications
of society, and the secrecy of solitude, are now equally in your power;
please yourself and be content. If gaiety and dissipation are your
pursuits, it cannot be denied that they are slight counterpoises for
domestic felicity: but as the latter is entirely out of your reach, you
should endeavour to make yourself easy. It is your own judgment alone
that must lead you to obtaining that tranquility, which you may possibly
find in the exulting joy of succouring virtue in distress, merit in
indigence and obscurity; in wiping tears from the eyes of affliction,
and in making the widow’s heart leap for joy. The serene complacency
which springs in a good mind, on the exertion of benevolent principles,
cannot be described; like the peace of God, it passeth knowledge. The
poet says,
It is a joy possess’d by few indeed!
Dame Fortune has so many fools to feed,
She cannot oft afford, with all her store,
To yield her smiles, where nature smil’d before.
To sinking worth a cordial hand to lend;
With better Fortune to surprise a friend;
To chear the modest stranger’s lonely state;
Or snatch an orphan family from fate:
To do, possess’d with virtue’s noblest fire,
Such gen’rous deeds, as we with tears admire.