Anna Wenbourne St. Ives to Louisa Clifton

London, Grosvenor Street

I must write, dear Louisa. My heart feels as if it were estranged by silence, and thinks it has a thousand things to repeat; though, when it comes to enquire what, they seem as if they had all vanished. Not but I have a little incident to relate, which interests us both; the Dramatis Personae being, as usual, Clifton, Frank Henley, and the friend of my Louisa.

We yesterday paid a visit to my aunt Wenbourne, at her summer villa of Richmond. But I ought to premise, that I am sorry to see Clifton again looking on Frank Henley with uneasiness, and a kind of suspicion that might almost be called jealousy.

Having consulted Sir Arthur, I mentioned it, as a pleasant excursion, to Clifton; and added, as soon as Frank Henley should come, I would desire him to hold himself in readiness. Sir Arthur was present; and Clifton, in a pouting kind of manner, whispered me—'Can we never go any where, without that young fellow dogging us at the heels?'

I smiled it off, rapped him on the knuckles with my thimble, told him he was naughty, and said we must not suffer merit to think itself neglected. Clifton began to sing Britons strike home; which he soon changed to Rule Britannia: sure tokens that he was not pleased; for these are the tunes with which he always sings away his volatile choler. But one of the columns, on which I raise my system is a determination to persist in the right. Frank Henley was therefore invited, and accompanied us.

Clifton endeavoured to pout; but, as I did not in the least change my good humour, knowing how necessary it was rather to increase than diminish it, he could not long hold out, and soon became as cheerful and as good company as usual; and his flow of spirits, and whimsical combinations, are very exhilarating.

After dinner, my good old aunt presently got to wordy wars with Frank; in which, as you may suppose, she had little chance of victory. But she called in Clifton, to be her auxiliary; and he fell into the same pettish, half-haughty, half-contemning kind of manner, in which he had so improperly indulged, previous to the accident of the lake, in France. I looked at him; he understood me, and endeavoured, but rather awkwardly, to change his tone.

The conversation continued, and he was again becoming warm; and, while Frank was laying down the law to my aunt, at which I could perceive his tongue tingled, I took an opportunity to warn him to beware, for that I had more than one crow to pluck with him already.

However, as the best and securest mode was, from the temper of the parties, to put an end to the conversation, I rose, and proposed a walk, and my proposal was accepted.

I was particularly cautious to say as little to Frank as I could, purposely that Clifton might have no retort upon me; though a part of my plan is to accustom him to see me just to the merits of Frank, without indulging any unworthy suspicions. But this I did not think a fit occasion for such experiments.

We returned to town, and I purposed, when Clifton should come to pay me his morning visit next day, to read him a gentle lecture. Of this he was aware; and, feeling, as I suppose, that he should make a bad serious defence, knew a comic one would better serve his turn: for his fancy and humour appear to be inexhaustible. The first thing he did, when he entered the room, was to fall down on his knees, like a child to his school-mistress, holding his hands pressed flatly together, with a piteous face and a 'Pray, pray!' I laughed, and told him he was a very bad child. His 'Pray, pray!' was repeated, with another strangely pleasant contortion of countenance. But I still answered—'No, indeed—I should not forgive him, till I had made him truly sensible of his fault.' On which he rose from his knees, pulled out a paper fool's cap, which he had been carving and fashioning for himself, fixed it on his head, and placed himself, with a new kind of penitential countenance, in a corner; continuing such quaint mimickry, of a child in sorrow, that there was no resisting fair and downright laughter.

I still made two or three attempts to begin to argue; but they were ineffectual; they were all answered with some new antics; and I was obliged at last to say—'Well, well! I find you are sensible how much you deserve punishment; and therefore I dare say you will take care not to offend in future.'

After this, he gave the whole discourse a comic and a witty cast, embellishing it with all the flights of his rich and strong imagination, on purpose to avoid the possibility of remonstrance. This is a certain sign that it must be very painful to him; unless indeed we allow for the pleasure which he cannot but take, in exhibiting the activity of his mind. Yet painful I am sure it is. Contradiction is thing to which he has not been accustomed. He has no doubt led the opinions of his companions; partly by conforming to and strengthening their favourite prejudices, though chiefly by his superior talents: and to be too often encountered, by any one whose intellects are more clear and consistent than his own, is a kind of degradation to which he scarcely knows how to submit.

With respect to Frank Henley, whenever he is pleading the cause of truth, he is inflexible. I have sometimes indeed known him silent, when he was hopeless of doing good: but at others I have heard him blame himself for this, and assert that we never ought to despair; for that truth, no matter how violently opposed at the moment, would revive in the mind, and do her office, when the argument and the anger should be wholly forgotten.

I believe the observation to be just. But he is no common thinker! No! I am almost persuaded he is the first of human beings! Equal, nay I have sometimes even thought superior, to Louisa herself!

As you perceive, dear friend of my heart, that I know you too well to fear offending you, I am sure you will do me the justice at the same time to confess that I do not seek to flatter.

Thus, dear Louisa, you perceive, we do not perhaps make quite so swift a progress as we could wish: but we must be satisfied. The march of knowledge is slow, impeded as it is by the almost impenetrable forests and morasses of error. Ages have passed away, in labours to bring some of the most simple of moral truths to light, which still remain overclouded and obscure. How far is the world, at present, from being convinced that it is not only possible, but perfectly practicable, and highly natural, for men to associate with most fraternal union, happiness, peace, and virtue, were but all distinction of rank and riches wholly abolished; were all the false wants of luxury, which are the necessary offspring of individual property, cut off; were all equally obliged to labour for the wants of nature, and for nothing more; and were they all afterward to unite, and to employ the remainder of their time, which would then be ample, in the promotion of art and science, and in the search of wisdom and truth!

The few arts that would then remain would be grand; not frivolous, not the efforts of cunning, not the prostitution of genius in distress, to flatter the vanity of insolent wealth and power, or the depraved taste of an ill-judging multitude; but energies of mind, uniting all the charms of fancy with all the severe beauties of consistent truth.

Is it not lamentable to be obliged to doubt whether there be a hundred people in all England, who, were they to read such a letter as this, would not immediately laugh, at the absurd reveries of the writer?—But let them look round, and deny, if they can, that the present wretched system, of each providing for himself instead of the whole for the whole, does not inspire suspicion, fear, disputes, quarrels, mutual contempt, and hatred. Instead of nations, or rather of the whole world, uniting to produce one great effect, the perfection and good of all, each family is itself a state; bound to the rest by interest and cunning, but separated by the very same passions, and a thousand others; living together under a kind of truce, but continually ready to break out into open war; continually jealous of each other; continually on the defensive, because continually dreading an attack; ever ready to usurp on the rights of others, and perpetually entangled in the most wretched contentions, concerning what all would neglect, if not despise, did not the errors of this selfish system give value to what is in itself worthless.

Well, well!—Another century, and then—!

In the meantime, let us live in hope; and, like our worthy hero, Frank, not be silent when truth requires us to speak. We have but to arm ourselves with patience, fortitude, and universal benevolence.

Pardon this prattle!—The heart will sometimes expand; and it is then weak enough to plead that the effusions of friendship claim attention, and respect. This is among the prejudices of our education, and I know not who has hitherto overcome them all. I can only say, dear Louisa, it is not her who is most affectionately your,

A. W. ST. IVES

P.S. Clifton is quite successful with my relations: he has won the heart of my aunt. Every moment that he was absent was lavished in his praise. 'He was a handsome man, prodigiously handsome, exceedingly well bred, a man of great understanding, and what was more a man of family. His pretensions were well founded; it was a very proper connection, and was very much approved by her.' Nor did the good old lady omit various sarcastic hints glancing at Frank, and which were not softened by the opposition he made to her opinions. But he is too great a lover of truth to betray it for the sake of self; and she too much an admirer of her own prejudices not to be offended at contradiction. Once more, Louisa, we are the creatures that education has made us; and consequently I hope we shall hereafter be wiser and better.