_Mistakes and family quarrels of Mr. and Mrs. Elford: His departure,
and exile: with the letters he wrote_
And now the period approached when the pleasures of the days of
childhood were to terminate, and when I was to experience an abundance
of those rude disasters under which the poor, the friendless, and the
fatherless, groan.
The first stroke which the malice of fortune aimed at me was the
voluntary banishment of my uncle. Though I have forborne to interrupt
my narrative by a recapitulation of the unhappy bickerings that took
place between Mr. Elford and my aunt, soon after their marriage, yet
these bickerings were very frequent, very bitter, and at last very
fatal. Instead of the happiness which they and every body had thought
so certain, they were completely wretched.
My youth had not prevented me lately from remarking, when at their
house, the steady and severe silence which Mr. Elford endeavoured
to preserve, and the fixed dissatisfaction and gloom of my aunt.
Notwithstanding the efforts they made, especially Mr. Elford, not
to suffer their unhappiness to extend beyond themselves, it became
frequently painful, even for me, to be in their company. He indeed was
often in part successful, in these efforts; but she seldom, or never.
Their mutual discontent was the more easily increased to misery,
because it happened between people who each had the character of
prudent; and whose partiality individually acquitted them of that
disorder, which the want of good temper alone had produced.
In making an estimate of the probable conveniences and inconveniences,
agreements and disagreements, that might happen between them, they had
reciprocally been deceived.
Mr. Elford had endeavoured to provide against this, by a plain
declaration of his sentiments and expectations; which Mrs. Elford had
too inconsiderately concluded she should continue to think rational
and just. She imagined there was no fear of violent quarrels, between
a man of so much understanding as Mr. Elford and a woman so disposed
to listen to reason as herself. She was ignorant of the power of
habit over her temper. The rector had taught her pride, marriage had
taught her misfortune, and pride and misfortune had made her fretful,
melancholy and moody. She had suffered no opposition from her first
husband; her will had been his law; and she knew not, till she had
made the trial, how difficult it is to concede with a good grace. The
least thing that offended her threw her into tears. The passions of
Mr. Elford and my aunt were mutually too much inflamed for either of
them to draw equitable and wise conclusions, and tears he held to be a
false, insulting, and odious mode of proclaiming him a tyrant: it was
to say, I dare not utter my complaints in words, but my tears I cannot
restrain! Too angry to doubt of or examine his reasons, convinced of
his own humanity, and his desire to see and make her happy, such an
accusation he considered so violently unjust as to be unpardonable.
It must be owned, she did not confine her grief to weeping; she
was often seized with fits of hysteric passion, in which the most
outrageous and false accusations were indulged. To reply to them,
or attempt to disprove what he knew to be so absurd, he thought
derogatory to innocence; and the world half suspected him to be the
tyrant he had been painted. This increased his sense of injury, and
consequently did not diminish the affliction of my aunt.
Of the happiness, indeed, which was to result from this marriage,
she had conceived romantic ideas; and when she found herself again
involved in the cares of a family, liable to the control of a man who
expected the utmost propriety and order, who looked with a strict eye
over every department, and whose opinion did not always coincide with
her own, she became constantly peevish, and her former gloom grew
ten fold more gloomy. She pined after that connubial affection which
their reciprocal conduct was calculated to destroy; and from the hasty
decisions of passion convinced herself, that no part of the blame
was justly her own. Mr. Elford was no less obstinate in the contrary
opinion. Taking philosophy such as he found it, he like his neighbours
too hastily concluded there were duties and affairs for which men were
fitted, but of which women were incapable. Blending much truth with
some falsehood, he thus argued:
'The leading features in the character of an amiable and good woman
are mildness, complacency, and equanimity of temper. The man, if he be
a provident and worthy husband, is immersed in a thousand cares: his
mind is agitated, his memory loaded, and his body fatigued. He returns
from the bustle of the world chagrined perhaps at disappointments,
angry at indolent or perfidious people, and terrified lest his
unavoidable connections with such people should make him appear to be
indolent or perfidious himself. Is this a time for the wife of his
bosom, his dearest most intimate friend, to add to his vexations and
increase the fever of an overburthened mind, by a contumelious tongue
or a discontented brow? Business, in its most prosperous state, is
full of anxiety, labour, and turmoil. Oh! how dear to the memory of
man is that wife who clothes her face in smiles; who uses gentle
expressions, and who makes her lap soft to receive and hush his cares
to rest. There is not in all nature so fascinating an object as a
faithful, tender, and affectionate wife!'
Had he wished for a wife who, instead of indulging the caprice of
indolence would have awakened him to energy, and have taught him to
be just not captious, his desires would have been more rational:
but, to a man who had formed a system of obedience to authority, and
not to reason, the arguments he used were irrefragable. To a woman
who imagined that obedience, in all cases, was the badge of abject
slavery, they were absurd. Thus opposite in principle and in practice,
their unhappy state of existence finally became so intolerable, to one
of them at least, as to occasion the violent measure and the painful
sensations described by Mr. Elford in the following letter.
'TO MRS. ELFORD,
'The bitterness of unjust reproach, the invectives of an ungoverned
tongue, the rancorous accusations of a stubborn heart, these, wretched
as they long have made me, to me are now no more. Forgetful man! No
more? You I can forsake; but where shall I fly to rid myself of them?
You have riveted them upon me, and while I have life they can never
die. With you I have travelled through the vale of tears: you, like
misery personified, have held the cup of sorrow; have fed me with
affliction, strewed thorns beneath my feet by day, and wound adders
round my pillow by night. Absence itself cannot afford a cure. Yes,
reconcile it to your conscience how you may, you have given my peace a
mortal wound.
'You cannot forget, when I first thought of you for a wife, the
plainness and sincerity with which I acted. I carefully stated that
my family was reputable but not rich, and that I was a younger
brother; that my wealth was not great; but that it was sufficient,
with industry and the character I had established, to gratify the
desires of people whose hearts were not vitiated, and whose wants
were bounded. I conscientiously repeated my ideas concerning the
regulations and economy of a well governed family; and of the parts
which it became the husband and the wife to take. That was the time
in which you ought to have made your objections: but then every thing
was just, every thing was rational; and from your ready acquiescence
to my proposals and the admiration with which you seemed to receive
them, I had no doubt of enjoying that serene that delightful state of
connubial happiness, so often desired and so seldom obtained.
'On such conditions and with such views, I confidently entered with
you into a partnership which unhappily cannot be dissolved. The
irrevocable contract was scarcely ratified before it was violated.
With a temper habitually gloomy and suspicious, and a mind incapable
of bending to those inevitable little anxieties and vexations which
occur in the most quiet families, you soon discovered your propensity
to repel every thing that your jealous and fanciful temper deemed an
infringement of your privileges.
'Let your own heart testify how long and how ardently I endeavoured,
by mildness and the most simple and convincing reasons, to bring you
back to your duty. But in vain: causes of disagreement became so
frequent, and injury succeeded injury so fast, that I was obliged to
proceed to those gentle severities which are all that a husband, who
preserves a proper respect for himself, can inflict. And gentle they
certainly were, when compared to the contumely by which they were
provoked. I forbore those tender and endearing epithets, by which
former affection should be continually revived. I then avoided and
indeed refused to converse with you, except in the company of a third
person or as far as necessity obliged me. Sorry am I to say that,
instead of warning you to shun the rocks of mischief, my efforts did
but aggravate your folly.
'It is true you had your hours of contrition, in which, with tears
and prayers and unbounded acknowledgments of the absurdity of your
conduct, together with solemn assurances of reformation, you have for
a moment recalled my lost love, and made me hope you would acquire
some power over the discordant passions that devoured you. But these
promises were so often repeated, and so continually forgotten, that at
length they afforded neither hope nor ease: they had only been gleams
of sunshine, foreboding that the tempest would soon return with
increasing violence. Yes, partial as I know you, and blind to your own
errors, you cannot deny that at last you approached the fury, rather
than the woman.
'To a man like me, of a delicate temper, quick at discovering errors
and eager to redress them, even in cases where they do not personally
affect myself but indefatigable where they do, this eternal discord,
these quarrels and despicable brawls are become insupportable. I have
endured the torture seven miserable years, and surely that is no
slight trial: surely that is sufficient to prove I have not wanted
patience or fortitude. To be a good husband and a provident father,
and to protect those that depend on me from injury and want, are
qualities which I believe the whole world will allow me, you alone
excepted. _You_ upbraid me with faults; _you_ accuse me of crimes;
_you_ proclaim me a tyrant. When I am gone, when your passions have
subsided, and when you feel the want of me, you will be more just. You
will then lament that nothing, short of this desperate proof, could
convince you of the criminality of your conduct.
'Where I shall seek, where find, or where endure existence, or to what
hospitable or inhospitable shore I shall wander, I know not yet: I
only know that in England it cannot, shall not be. We have lived long
enough in misery; which, everlastingly to avoid, seas or death shall
everlastingly divide us.
W. ELFORD.'
This letter, although it contained many marks of that impatience which
had increased his family misfortunes, could only have been written by
a man of virtue, whose very austerity had in it a preponderance of
benevolent intention. Such was my uncle; whose memory, though but a
child, I often had occasion to regret.
By various plausible pretexts, with the hope of forwarding a fortune
that was to descend to me, Mr. Elford had been prevailed on to lend
my father several sums of money, to the amount of seven hundred
pounds. My uncle too had found other occasions for the exercise of
his humanity. His property had been hastily sold, and therefore
disadvantageously, so that the sum with which he went to seek his
fortune on foreign shores was but small. He was enough acquainted with
my father's affairs to know that of the money lent to him there was
little hope.
To me he wrote a letter which will sufficiently shew how kind he would
have been, had he possessed the power. It was inclosed in one to my
father, with directions to suffer me to read it now, and that it
should be preserved and given to me when age should have matured my
understanding. The following were its contents.
'TO HUGH TREVOR.
'My dear boy: young as you are, I have conceived a friendship and
affection for you, which perhaps inflict as severe a pang, at the
present moment, as any one of the distressing circumstances that
occasion my flight. Had I wealth to leave, I would endeavour to secure
you from the baneful effects of poverty; as it is, accept all that
I have to give, my best wishes, my dearest love, and a little good
advice. Though your understanding is greatly above your years, yet
you cannot have experience and knowledge enough of sorrow to conceive
what my feelings are: but if hereafter you should remember me, and
if at that most serious moment when you enter on the marriage state
you should wish for a friend like me to advise with, let this letter
supply my place. The miseries I have endured, by my mistakes on the
subject, are so strongly imprinted on my mind, that I can think
of nothing else; and, inapplicable as it may seem to your present
course of thought, I cannot persuade myself but that it is the most
interesting of all topics, upon which I could write to you.
'Of the wisdom of entering into the marriage state, and of the virtue
of the institution, I have lately begun to entertain the most serious
doubts. Whether they are well founded, or are the consequences of my
own mistakes of conduct, I dare not at this moment determine: but,
while the present forms of society exist, should you arrive at manhood
the probability is that you will marry. If then you should ever think
of marriage, think of it as a duty; and not merely as the means of
self gratification, or the indulgence of some childish and irrational
passion, which irrational people dignify with the name of love. Let
the affection you conceive for woman be founded on the qualities of
her mind.
'But above all things first examine yourself, whether you can endure
opposition without anger; and next put the woman you intend to
marry to the same test; for, unless you are mutually unshaken in
your resolutions on this head, if you marry you are miserable. The
task of man and wife is reciprocally arduous. She should be mild,
good-humoured, cheerful and tender; he cool, rational, and vigilant;
without acrimony, devoid of captiousness, and free from passion. It is
mutually their duty to inspect and to expostulate, but to beware how
they reprove. Where gentleness and equanimity of temper are wanting,
happiness never can be obtained. Believe me, my dear boy, I have never
stood so low in my own opinion as when I have caught myself betrayed
into petulance, and descending to passion. The combats I have
maintained to overcome this weakness are inconceivable.
'Whether it be constitutional in me or habitual I cannot
determine'--[Had Mr. Elford been more a philosopher, he would have
known that frequent anger is merely a habit.]--'but I suspect that
to this I chiefly owe my present misfortunes, as I am half persuaded
there is no woman that may not be moulded into what form her husband
pleases, provided he possess a superior understanding and an entire
command of his temper. But Oh! how severe the task to preserve a
perfect equality in despite of the ill humour, caprice, or injustice
of a woman for whom you undergo a thousand difficulties, encounter
continual labours, and undauntedly expose yourself to every fatigue
and danger!--I blush to think I have sunk beneath the trial.--But we
have both gone too far to recede: we have mutually said and done what
never can be forgotten.
'As good temper is the basis of connubial felicity, means must be
taken by which it may be cultivated and preserved. From the first hour
of marriage, beware of too much familiarity, and of encouraging or of
taking liberties. Be as circumspect in your behaviour as if a stranger
were present, and dread deviating from that respect which is due from
man to woman, and from woman to man, in a single state. This does not
imply coldness, or formality, but the cheerful intercourse of good
sense. Behave as you would to a person from whom you are happy to
receive a visit, and with whose company you are delighted. Should you
indulge those ebullitions of passionate fondness which lose sight of
these limits, it is impossible to foretell to what they may lead. A
caress neglected, or supposed to be neglected, a kiss not returned
with the like warmth, or a fond pressure not answered with equal
ardour, may poison a mind which applauds itself for the delicacy of
its sensations.
'Do not expect to find your wife all perfection. I know the romance
of lovers: they read descriptions in which the imagination has been
exhausted, to depict enamoured youth superior to every terrestrial
being; and they are convinced that, above all others, the object
of their own particular choice has never yet been equalled. Such
fanciful and silly people, when time and experience have something
allayed their ardour, will often find their dainty taste offended at
discovering a mole on the bosom, or a yellow shade in the neck, or any
other trifling bodily blemish, which was as visible before marriage as
after, had they looked with the same scrutinizing eyes. Be resolute in
repelling every emotion of anger or disgust. Never permit a choleric
or bitter expression to escape you; for wedded love is but too often
of a tender and perishable nature, and such rude potions are its
poison.
'I look back at what I have been writing, and am astonished at the
subject I have chosen. But the torrent of my thoughts is irresistible:
they hurry me away, and persuade me that though young, it is yet
possible you may hereafter remember me, and at a time when perhaps
you shall have arrived at the exercise of many of those noble virtues
which are now only in the bud. I have a great affection for you, my
dear nephew, and should be glad that, if you then cannot think kindly,
you should at least think justly; and that you should possess some
faint picture of the present state of my feelings. Could you but know
all the emotions of my heart, you would bear witness to its honesty;
and would own that its efforts have been strenuous, unremitted, and
sincere, though unfortunate.
'Years pass quickly away: yet a little while and you will be an actor
in this busy world, of which at present your knowledge is small. I am
doomed never to see you more; but, while I have life and memory, I
shall never forget you.
W. ELFORD.'