To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.
Montreal, April 3.
I am arrived, my dear, after a very disagreable and dangerous
journey; I was obliged to leave the river soon after I left Des
Chambeaux, and to pursue my way on the land over melting snow, into
which the horses feet sunk half a yard every step.
An officer just come from New York has given me a letter from you,
which came thither by a private ship: I am happy to hear of your
health, and that Temple's affection for you seems rather to increase
than lessen since your marriage.
You ask me, my dear Lucy, how to preserve this affection, on the
continuance of which, you justly say, your whole happiness depends.
The question is perhaps the most delicate and important which
respects human life; the caprice, the inconstancy, the injustice of
men, makes the task of women in marriage infinitely difficult.
Prudence and virtue will certainly secure esteem; but,
unfortunately, esteem alone will not make a happy marriage; passion
must also be kept alive, which the continual presence of the object
beloved is too apt to make subside into that apathy, so insupportable
to sensible minds.
The higher your rank, and the less your manner of life separates you
from each other, the more danger there will be of this indifference.
The poor, whose necessary avocations divide them all day, and whose
sensibility is blunted by the coarseness of their education, are in no
danger of being weary of each other; and, unless naturally vicious, you
will see them generally happy in marriage; whereas even the virtuous,
in more affluent situations, are not secure from this unhappy cessation
of tenderness.
When I received your letter, I was reading Madame De Maintenon's
advice to the Dutchess of Burgundy, on this subject. I will transcribe
so much of it as relates to _the woman_, leaving her advice
to _the princess_ to those whom it may concern.
"Do not hope for perfect happiness; there is no such thing in this
sublunary state.
"Your sex is the more exposed to suffer, because it is always in
dependence: be neither angry nor ashamed of this dependence on a
husband, nor of any of those which are in the order of Providence.
"Let your husband be your best friend and your only confidant.
"Do not hope that your union will procure you perfect peace: the
best marriages are those where with softness and patience they bear by
turns with each other; there are none without some contradiction and
disagreement.
"Do not expect the same degree of friendship that you feel: men are
in general less tender than women; and you will be unhappy if you are
too delicate in friendship.
"Beg of God to guard your heart from jealousy: do not hope to bring
back a husband by complaints, ill humor, and reproaches. The only means
which promise success, are patience and softness: impatience sours and
alienates hearts; softness leads them back to their duty.
"In sacrificing your own will, pretend to no right over that of a
husband: men are more attached to theirs than women, because educated
with less constraint.
"They are naturally tyrannical; they will have pleasures and
liberty, yet insist that women renounce both: do not examine whether
their rights are well founded; let it suffice to you, that they are
established; they are masters, we have only to suffer and obey with a
good grace."
Thus far Madame De Maintenon, who must be allowed to have known the
heart of man, since, after having been above twenty years a widow, she
enflamed, even to the degree of bringing him to marry her, that of a
great monarch, younger than herself, surrounded by beauties, habituated
to flattery, in the plenitude of power, and covered with glory; and
retained him in her chains to the last moment of his life.
Do not, however, my dear, be alarmed at the picture she has drawn of
marriage; nor fancy with her, that women are only born to suffer and
to obey.
That we are generally tyrannical, I am obliged to own; but such of
us as know how to be happy, willingly give up the harsh title of
master, for the more tender and endearing one of friend; men of sense
abhor those customs which treat your sex as if created meerly for the
happiness of the other; a supposition injurious to the Deity, though
flattering to our tyranny and self-love; and wish only to bind you in
the soft chains of affection.
Equality is the soul of friendship: marriage, to give delight, must
join two minds, not devote a slave to the will of an imperious lord;
whatever conveys the idea of subjection necessarily destroys that of
love, of which I am so convinced, that I have always wished the word
obey expunged from the marriage ceremony.
If you will permit me to add my sentiments to those of a lady so
learned in the art of pleasing; I would wish you to study the taste of
your husband, and endeavor to acquire a relish for those pleasures
which appear most to affect him; let him find amusement at home, but
never be peevish at his going abroad; he will return to you with the
higher gust for your conversation: have separate apartments, since your
fortune makes it not inconvenient; be always elegant, but not too
expensive, in your dress; retain your present exquisite delicacy of
every kind; receive his friends with good-breeding and complacency;
contrive such little parties of pleasure as you know are agreable to
him, and with the most agreable people you can select: be lively even
to playfulness in your general turn of conversation with him; but, at
the same time, spare no pains so to improve your understanding, which
is an excellent one, as to be no less capable of being the companion of
his graver hours: be ignorant of nothing which it becomes your sex to
know, but avoid all affectation of knowledge: let your oeconomy be
exact, but without appearing otherwise than by the effect.
Do not imitate those of your sex who by ill temper make a husband
pay dear for their fidelity; let virtue in you be drest in smiles; and
be assured that chearfulness is the native garb of innocence.
In one word, my dear, do not lose the mistress in the wife, but let
your behaviour to him as a husband be such as you would have thought
most proper to attract him as a lover: have always the idea of pleasing
before you, and you cannot fail to please.
Having lectured you, my dear Lucy, I must say a word to Temple: a
great variety of rules have been given for the conduct of women in
marriage; scarce any for that of men; as if it was not essential to
domestic happiness, that the man should preserve the heart of her with
whom he is to spend his life; or as if bestowing happiness were not
worth a man's attention, so he possessed it: if, however, it is
possible to feel true happiness without giving it.
You, my dear Temple, have too just an idea of pleasure to think in
this manner: you would be beloved; it has been the pursuit of your
life, though never really attained perhaps before. You at present
possess a heart full of sensibility, a heart capable of loving with
ardor, and from the same cause as capable of being estranged by
neglect: give your whole attention to preserving this invaluable
treasure; observe every rule I have given to her, if you would be
happy; and believe me, the heart of woman is not less delicate than
tender; their sensibility is more keen, they feel more strongly than
we do, their tenderness is more easily wounded, and their hearts are
more difficult to recover if once lost.
At the same time, they are both by nature and education more
constant, and scarce ever change the object of their affections but
from ill treatment: for which reason there is some excuse for a custom
which appears cruel, that of throwing contempt on the husband for the
ill conduct of the wife.
Above all things, retain the politeness and attention of a lover;
and avoid that careless manner which wounds the vanity of human nature,
a passion given us, as were all passions, for the wisest ends, and
which never quits us but with life.
There is a certain attentive tenderness, difficult to be described,
which the manly of our sex feel, and which is peculiarly pleasing to
woman: 'tis also a very delightful sensation to ourselves, as well as
productive of the happiest consequences: regarding them as creatures
placed by Providence under our protection, and depending on us for
their happiness, is the strongest possible tie of affection to a
well-turned mind.
If I did not know Lucy perfectly, I should perhaps hesitate in the
next advice I am going to give you; which is, to make her the
confidante, and the _only_ confidante, of your gallantries, if you
are so unhappy as to be inadvertently betrayed into any: her heart will
possibly be at first a little wounded by the confession, but this proof
of perfect esteem will increase her friendship for you; she will regard
your error with compassion and indulgence, and lead you gently back by
her endearing tenderness to honor and herself.
Of all tasks I detest that of giving advice; you are therefore
under infinite obligation to me for this letter.
Be assured of my tenderest affection; and believe me,
Yours, &c.
Ed. Rivers.