ELIZA.

To Octavia Southgate.

To Moses Porter.

My most charming Cousin! Most kind and condescending friend—teach me how

I may express the grateful sense I have of the obligations I owe you;

your many and long letters have chased away the spleen, they have

rendered me cheerful and happy, and I almost forgot I was so far from

home.—O shame on you! Moses, you know I hate this formality among

friends, you know how gladly I would throw all these fashionable forms

from our correspondence; but you still oppose me, you adhere to them

with as much scrupulosity as to the ten commandments, and for aught I

know you believe them equally essential to the salvation of your soul.

But, Eliza, you have not answered my last letter! True, and if I had not

have answered it, would you never have written me again—and I confess

that I believe you would not—yet I am mortified and displeased that you

value my letters so little, that the exertions to continue the

correspondence must all come from me, that if I relax my zeal in the

smallest degree it may drop to the ground without your helping hand to

raise it. I do think you are a charming fellow,—would not write because

I am in debt, well, be it so, my ceremonious friend,—I submit, and

though I transgress by sending a half sheet more than you ever did, yet

I assure you ’twas to convince you of the violence of my anger which

could _induce_ me to forget the rules of politeness. I am at Wiscassett.

I have seen Rebecca every day, she is handsome as ever, and we both of

us were in constant expectation of seeing you for 2 or 3 days, you did

not come and we were disappointed.

I leave here for Bath next week. I have had a ranting time, and if I did

not feel so offended, I would tell you more about it.

As I look around me I am surprised at the happiness which is so

generally enjoyed in families, and that marriages which have not love

for a foundation on more than one side at most, should produce so much

apparent harmony. I may be censured for declaring it as my opinion that

not one woman in a hundred marries for love. A woman of taste and

sentiment will surely see but a very few whom she could love, and it is

altogether uncertain whether either of them will particularly

distinguish her. If they should, surely she is very fortunate, but it

would be one of fortune’s random favors and such as we have no right to

expect. The female mind I believe is of a very pliable texture; if it

were not we should be wretched indeed. Admitting as a known truth that

few women marry those whom they would prefer to all the world if they

could be viewed by them with equal affection, or rather that there are

often others whom they could have preferred if they had felt that

affection for them which would have induced them to offer

themselves,—admitting this as a truth not to be disputed,—is it not a

subject of astonishment that happiness is not almost banished from this

connexion? Gratitude is undoubtedly the foundation of the esteem we

commonly feel for a husband. One that has preferred us to all the world,

one that has thought us possessed of every quality to render him happy,

surely merits our gratitude. If his character is good—if he is not

displeasing in his person or manners—what objection can we make that

will not be thought frivolous by the greater part of the world?—yet I

think there are many other things necessary for happiness, and the world

should never compel me to marry a man because I could not give

satisfactory reasons for not liking him. I do not esteem marriage

absolutely essential to happiness, and that it does not always bring

happiness we must every day witness in our acquaintance. A single life

is considered too generally as a reproach; but let me ask you, which is

the most despicable—she who marries a man she scarcely thinks _well_

of—to avoid the reputation of an old maid—or she, who with more

delicacy, than marry one she could not highly esteem, preferred to live

single all her life, and had wisdom enough to despise so mean a

sacrifice, to the opinion of the rabble, as the woman who marries a man

she has not much love for—must make. I wish not to alter the laws of

nature—neither will I quarrel with the rules which custom has

established and rendered indispensably necessary to the harmony of

society. But every being who has contemplated human nature on a large

scale will certainly justify me when I declare that the inequality of

privilege between the sexes is very sensibly felt by us females, and in

no instance is it greater than in the liberty of choosing a partner in

marriage; true, we have the liberty of refusing those we don’t like, but

not of selecting those we do. This is undoubtedly as it should be. But

let me ask you, what must be that love which is altogether voluntary,

which we can withhold or give, which sleeps in dulness and apathy till

it is requested to brighten into life? Is it not a cold, lifeless

dictate of the head,—do we not weigh all the conveniences and

inconveniences which will attend it? And after a long calculation, in

which the heart never was consulted, we determine whether it is most

prudent to love or not.

How I should despise a soul so sordid, so mean! How I abhor the heart

which is regulated by mechanical rules, which can say “thus far will I

go and no farther,” whose feelings can keep pace with their convenience,

and be awakened at stated periods,—a mere piece of clockwork which

always moves right! How far less valuable than that being who has a soul

to govern her actions, and though she may not always be coldly prudent,

yet she will sometimes be generous and noble, and that the other never

can be. After all, I must own that a woman of delicacy never will suffer

her esteem to ripen into love unless she is convinced of a return.

Though our first approaches to love may be involuntary, yet I should be

sorry if we had no power of controlling them if occasion required. There

is a happy conformity or pliability in the female mind which seems to

have been a gift of nature to enable them to be happy with so few

privileges,—and another thing, they have more gratitude in their

dispositions than men, and there is a something particularly gratifying

to the heart in being beloved, if the object is worthy; it produces a

something like, and “Pity melts the heart to love.” Added to these there

is a self-love which does more than all the rest. Our vanity (’tis an

ugly word but I can’t find a better) is gratified by the distinguished

preference given us. There must be an essential difference in the

dispositions of men and women. I am astonished when I think of

it—yet—But I have written myself into sunshine—’tis always my way when

anything oppresses me, when any chain of thoughts particularly occupies

my mind, and I feel dissatisfied at anything which I have not the power

to alter,—to sit down and unburthen them on paper; it never fails to

alleviate me, and I generally give full scope to the feelings of the

moment, and as I write all disagreeable thoughts evaporate, and I end

contented that things shall remain as they are. When I began this it

absolutely appeared to me that no woman, or rather not one in a hundred,

married the man she should prefer to all the world—not that I ever could

suppose that at the time she married him she did not prefer him to all

others,—but that she would have preferred another if he had professed to

love her as well as the one she married. Indeed, I believe no woman of

delicacy suffers herself to think she could love any one before she had

discovered an affection for her. For my part I should never ask the

question of myself—do I love such a one, if I had reason to think he

loved me—and I believe there are many who love that never confessed it

to themselves. My Pride, my delicacy, would all be hurt if I discovered

such _unasked_ for love, even in my own bosom. I would strain every

nerve and rouse every faculty to quell the first appearance of it. There

is no danger, however. I could never love without being beloved, and I

am confident in my own mind that no person whom I could love would ever

think me sufficiently worthy to love me. But I congratulate myself that

I am at liberty to refuse those I don’t like, and that I have firmness

enough to brave the sneers of the world and live an old maid, if I never

find one I can love.

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