Anna Wenbourne St. Ives to Louisa Clifton

Paris, Hotel de l'UniversitÉ

Your brother has this moment left me. Our conversation has been animated; and, as usual, I sit down to commit what has passed to paper, while it is fresh on my memory.

He began with the warmest expressions of the force of his passion. I have no reason to doubt of their sincerity; and, if affection can be productive of the end which I hope, its strength ought to give me pleasure. He would scarcely suffer me to suppose it possible there could be any cause of difference between us: let me but name my conditions and they should be fulfilled. He would undertake all that I did, all that I could require; and it was with difficulty that I could persuade him of the possibility of promising too fast. This introduced what was most material in our dialogue.

My heart assures me, madam, said he, that I never gave you the least cause to suspect the sincerity and ardour of my passion: and I should hope that the fears, which I have sometimes thought you too readily entertained, are now dissipated.

My fears are chiefly for, or rather of, myself. I doubt whether any person has so high an opinion of the powers and energy of your mind as I have: but I think those powers ill directed, and in danger of being lost.

I own, madam, I have been sometimes grieved, nay piqued, to perceive that you do not always think quite so well of me as I could wish.

You wrong me. You yourself do not think so highly of yourself as I do.

Yet you suppose me to be in danger?

Of being misled. Some of my opinions and principles, or some of yours, are erroneous, for they differ; I cannot at this moment but perceive how liable I am to be misunderstood. I cannot be insensible of the awkwardness of the situation in which I now place myself. My age, my sex, the customs of the world, a thousand circumstances contribute to cast an air of ridicule upon what ought to be very serious. But I must persist. Do you endeavour to forget these circumstances; and consider only the words, not the girl by whom they are spoken.

It is not you, madam, but I who ought to dread appearing ridiculous. But for your sake—Let me but obtain your favour, and make me as ridiculous as you please.

I told you so!—Should the lordly lettered man submit to have his principles questioned, by an untutored woman? Be sincere: your mind revolts at it?

I feel the justness of your satire. Men are tyrants.

Prejudice is a tyrant: there is no other tyranny.

Madam!

That is one of my strange opinions. It may be true; I am willing to think it is. Such things are indifferent to me. Let me but have your consent, to speak to Sir Arthur, and I have accomplished all I wish. I do not desire to trouble myself with examining opinions, true or false. I am determined to be of your opinion, be it what it will.

That is, you avow that the gratification of your desires is the chief pursuit of your life. We have now found the essential point on which we differ.

Is not happiness, madam, the universal pursuit? Must it not, ought it not to be?

Yes. But the grand distinction is between general and individual happiness. The happiness that centres in the good of the whole may for the present find momentary interruption, but never can be long subverted: while that individual happiness, of which almost the whole world is in pursuit, is continually blundering, mistaking its object, losing its road, and ending in disappointment.

Then, madam, we must all turn monks, preach self-denial, fast, pray, scourge away our sins, live groaning, and die grieving.

[I smiled. It is his usual way, when he thinks I am got a little in the clouds, to draw some humorous or satirical picture, to bring me down to what he esteems common-sense. But, as I am convinced that truth only need to be repeated, and insisted on, whenever there is an opportunity, in order finally to be received, the best way is always to join in the laugh, which is inoffensive, unless pettishness give it a sting.]

You find yourself obliged at present to consider me as a whimsical girl, with a certain flow of spirits, and much vanity, desiring to distinguish herself by singularity?

No, madam, whatever you may think of me, my heart will not endure a thought to your disadvantage.

Nay, nay, forbear your kind reproaches. Every time you differ with me in sentiment, you cannot but think something to my disadvantage. It is so with all of us. The very end of this present explanation is sincerity. We each think well of the other: but do we think sufficiently well? Is there a certainty that our thoughts are in no danger of changing? Of all the actions of private life, there is not one so solemn as that of vowing perpetual love: yet the heedless levity with which it is daily performed, proves that there is scarcely one on which less serious reflection is bestowed. Can we be too careful not to deceive ourselves? Ought we not minutely to examine our hopes and expectations? Ought not you and I, in particular, to be circumspect? Our imaginations are vivid, our feelings strong, our views and desires not bounded by common rules. In such minds, passions, if not subdued, become ungovernable, and fatal.

I am very conscious, madam—

Nay, do not fancy I seek to accuse: my purpose is very different. My mind is no less ardent than yours, though education and habit may have given it a different turn. It glows with equal zeal to attain its end. Where there is much warmth, much enthusiasm, I suspect there is much danger. We had better never meet more, than meet to be miserable.

For heaven's sake, madam, do not torture me with so impossible a supposition!

You expect one kind of happiness, I another. Can they coalesce? You imagine you have a right to attend to your appetites, and pursue your pleasures. I hope to see my husband forgetting himself, or rather placing self-gratification in the pursuit of universal good, deaf to the calls of passion, willing to encounter adversity, reproof, nay death, the champion of truth, and the determined the unrelenting enemy of error.

I think, madam, I dare do all that can be required of me.

I know your courage is high. I know too that courage is one of the first and most essential qualities of mind. Yet perhaps I might and ought to doubt, nay to ask, whether you dare do many things.

What is it, madam, that I dare not do?

Dare you receive a blow, or suffer yourself falsely to be called liar, or coward, without seeking revenge, or what honour calls satisfaction? Dare you think the servant that cleans your shoes is your equal, unless not so wise or good a man; and your superior, if wiser and better? Dare you suppose mind has no sex, and that woman is not by nature the inferior of man?—

Madam—

Nay, nay, no compliments; I will not be interrupted—Dare I you think that riches, rank, and power, are usurpations; and that wisdom and virtue only can claim distinction? Dare you make it the business of your whole life to overturn these prejudices, and to promote among mankind that spirit of universal benevolence which shall render them all equals, all brothers, all stripped of their artificial and false wants, all participating the labour requisite to produce the necessaries of life, and all combining in one universal effort of mind, for the progress of knowledge, the destruction of error, and the spreading of eternal truth?

There is such energy, madam, in all you say, that, while I listen to you, I dare do any thing, dare promise any thing.

Nay, but the daring of which I speak, must be the energy of your own mind, not of mine.

Do not distress yourself and me with doubts, madam. I have heard you yourself say that truth ultimately must prevail. I may differ with you in some points; but I am willing to hear, willing to discuss; and, if truth be on your side, there can be no danger.

The only danger is in the feeble or false colouring which the defenders of truth may give it, and not in truth itself.

I am too well convinced of your power to feel your doubts. You oblige me to see with your eyes, hear with your ears, believe what you believe, and reject what you think incredible. I am and must be whatever you please to make me. You have but to prescribe your own conditions.

Prescribe I must not. If I can persuade, if I can win upon your mind—

If—! You won my whole soul the very first moment I saw you! Not a word or action of mine but what has proclaimed the burning impatience of my passion!

True: the burning impatience—Your eagerness to assent will not suffer you to examine. Your opinions and principles are those which the world most highly approves, and applauds: mine are what it daily calls extravagant, impracticable, and absurd. It would be weak in me to expect you should implicitly receive remote truths, so contradictory to this general practice, till you have first deeply considered them. I ask no such miracle. But if I can but turn your mind to such considerations, if I can but convince you how inestimable they are, even to yourself as well as to the world at large, I shall then have effected my purpose.

Of that, madam, be sure—You shall see!—Upon my honour, you shall!—I will order a fur-cap, a long gown, a white wand, and a pair of sandals this very day! No Grecian ever looked more grave than I will! Nay, if you desire it, razor shall never touch my chin more.

Well, well; equip yourself speedily, and I will provide you with a wooden dish, a lanthorn, and a tub.

But then, having made your conditions, you now grant me your consent?

That is obliging me once more to put on my serious face—The danger in which I so lately saw you hangs heavily on my mind; that and the warm passions by which it was occasioned.

And my excess of ardour, to demonstrate my love, you regard as a proof of my having none.

How passion overshoots itself! Your conclusion is as precipitate as was your proof.

I cannot be cool, madam, on this subject. I wonder to see you so! Did affection throb and burn in your bosom, as it does in mine, I am persuaded it would be otherwise.

We are neither of us so entirely satisfied with each other as we ought to be, to induce either me to consent or you to apply to Sir Arthur.

For heaven's sake, madam—

Hear me patiently, for a moment. Previous to this conversation, I was convinced of the folly and danger of excessive haste. Should you imagine I have any self-complacency or caprice to gratify, by delay, you will do me great injustice: I solemnly protest I have none. My own interest, had I no better motive, would make me avoid such conduct. The inconsistencies and vain antics of the girl, which are justly enough stigmatized by the epithets flirting and coquetry, are repaid tenfold upon the wife. I would deal openly, honestly, and generously; but not rashly. I have every predilection in your favour which you could wish; such doubts excepted as I have declared. But I must not give either you or the world cause to accuse me of levity. My consent to speak to Sir Arthur would be generally understood as a pledge to proceed; not it is true by me, if I saw just cause to retract: but, though I earnestly desire to reform, I almost as earnestly wish not unnecessarily to offend the prejudices of mankind.

Nay let me beg, let me conjure you—[He took both my hands with great ardour.]

And let me beg too, let me conjure you, not to think meanly or unkindly of me, when I tell you that I must insist on a short delay.

I will kneel! I will do any thing—!

Do nothing which your heart does not approve; it never can be the way to forward any worthy suit. For my part, I must tell you, which you may reckon among my faults, that when I have once considered a subject, I am a very positive and determined girl. This may be thought obstinacy; but such I am, and such therefore you ought to see me.

And when, madam, may I now presume to hope?

Do not speak as if you were displeased. Indeed it is far from my intention to offend.

You are too well acquainted, madam, with your own power of pleasing, to fear giving offence.

Far the contrary, for I fear it at this moment.

You are kind and killing both in a breath.—Be doubly kind, and suffer me immediately to speak to Sir Arthur.

I told you I am fixed, and I assure you it is true.

When then may I hope?

I could have wished to have seen my friend, your sister, first: but perhaps Sir Arthur may make some stay in London, and I should be sorry to delay a moment longer than seems absolutely necessary. Let us both consider what has passed this morning, and provided no new accident should intervene—

Another leap from a rock?

Provided our approbation and esteem for each other should continue, and increase, I will ask for no further delay, after we come to London.

Well, well. It is the poor lover's duty to thank his mistress for the greatness of her condescension, even when he thinks she uses him unkindly.

I was going to reply, but my enterprising gentleman—[Indeed, Louisa, your brother is a bold youth]—snatched an unexpected embrace, with more eagerness than fear, and then fell on one knee, making such a piteous face for forgiveness, so whimsical, and indeed I may say witty, that it was impossible to be serious. However, I hurried away, and thus the conference ended.

And now, after reviewing what has passed, tell me, Louisa, ought I to recede? Are not my hopes well founded? Must not the reiteration of truth make its due impression, upon a mind like Clifton's? Can it fail? Is he not the man who, for all the reasons formerly given, truly merits preference?

I must not forget to tell you that Frank readily complied with your request, and Clifton has seen the letters. He seems oppressed, as it were, with a sense of obligation to Frank; which the latter endeavours to convince him is wrong. Reciprocal duties, he says, always must exist among mankind; but as for obligations, further than those, there are none. A grateful man is either a weak or a proud man, and ingratitude cannot exist; unless by ingratitude injustice be meant. Frank's opinions appear to Clifton to be equally novel with mine; and must be well understood, to escape being treated with mockery.

It is infinitely pleasing to me to perceive the fortitude with which Frank resists inclination. He is almost as cheerful, and quite as communicative, and desirous of making all around him happy, as ever. His constancy, however, is not to be shaken, in one particular. I could wish it were! It pains me to recollect that he will persist, to the end of time, in thinking me his, by right!

I cannot proceed!

A. W. ST. IVES