Anna Wenbourne St. Ives to Louisa Clifton

London, Grosvenor-Street

A fortnight has almost elapsed since I last wrote to my Louisa, till my heart begins to cry shame at the delay. Could I plead no other excuse than the trifling occupations of a trifling world I must sign my own condemnation; but your brother has afforded me better employment. Our frequent conversations on many of the best and most dignified of moral enquiries, his acute remarks and objections, and the difficult problems he has occasionally given me to solve, have left me in no danger of being idle.

Oh, Louisa, how exquisite is the pleasure I feel, to see him thus determined, thus incessant in his pursuit! A change so fortunate and so sudden astonishes while it delights!—May it continue!—May it increase!—May?—Vain unworthy wish!—It must—The mind having once seized on the clue of truth can neither quit its hold nor become stationary; it is obliged to advance. And when its powers are equal to those of Coke Clifton, ought we to wonder at its bold and rapid flights?

Still the conquests he daily makes over his own feelings cannot but surprise. His struggles are evident, but they are effectual. He even resolutely casts off the strong prejudices he had conceived against Frank Henley, invites him to aid us in our researches, and appeals to him to explain and decide.

'Let us if we wish to weed out error be sincere in our efforts, and have no remorse for our prejudices.'

This is his own language, Louisa! Oh that I could fully communicate the pleasure this change of character gives me to my friend. Yes, the restraint which too frequent contradiction lays him under will soon wear off, and how great will then be the enthusiasm with which he will defend and promulgate truth!

Nor is it less delightful to observe the satisfaction which this reform sometimes gives to Frank Henley. At others indeed he owns he is disturbed by doubt: but he owns it with feelings of regret, and is eager to prove himself unjust.

Yet respecting me his thoughts never vary—Alas! Louisa, I still 'am his by right.' His tongue is silent, but his looks and manner are sufficiently audible. I surely have been guilty of the error I so much dreaded; my cause was strong, but my arguments were feeble; I have prolonged the warfare of the passions which I attempted to eradicate; or rather have left on his mind a deep sense of injustice committed by me—! The thought is intolerable!—Excruciating!

But oh with what equanimity, with what fortitude does he endure his imagined wrongs! Pure most pure must that passion be which at once possesses the strength of his and his forbearance! There are indeed but few Frank Henleys!

Surely, Louisa, I may do him justice?—Surely to esteem the virtuous cannot merit the imputation of guilt?—Who can praise him as he deserves? And can that which is right in others be wrong in me?—Yet such are the mistakes to which we are subject, I scarcely can speak or even think of him without suspecting myself of committing some culpable impropriety!

Pardon, Louisa, these wanderings of the mind! They are marauders which uniform vigilance alone can repel. They are ever in arms, and I obliged to be ever alert. But it is petty warfare, and cannot shake the dominion of truth.

My feelings have led me from the topic I intended for the chief subject of this letter.

The course of our enquiries has several times forced us upon that great question, 'the progress of mind toward perfection, and the different order of things which must inevitably be the result.' Yesterday this theme again occurred. Frank was present; and his imagination, warm with the sublimity of his subject, drew a bold and splendid picture of the felicity of that state of society when personal property no longer shall exist, when the whole torrent of mind shall unite in enquiry after the beautiful and the true, when it shall no longer be diverted by those insignificant pursuits to which the absurd follies that originate in our false wants give birth, when individual selfishness shall be unknown, and when all shall labour for the good of all.

A state so distant from present manners and opinions, and apparently so impossible, naturally gave rise to objections; and your brother put many shrewd and pertinent questions, which would have silenced a mind less informed and less comprehensive than that of our instructor.

At last a difficulty arose which to me wore a very serious form; and as what was said left a strong impression on my memory, I will relate that part of the conversation. Observe, Louisa, that Clifton and Frank were the chief speakers. Your brother began.

I confess, sir, you have removed many apparently unconquerable difficulties: but I have a further objection which I think unanswerable.

What is it?

Neither man nor woman in such a state can have any thing peculiar: the whole must be for the use and benefit of the whole?

As generally as practice will admit: and how very general that may be, imperfect as its constitution was, Sparta remained during five hundred years a proof.

Then how will it be possible, when society shall be the general possessor, for any man to say—This is my servant?

He cannot: there will be no servants.

Well but—This is my child?

Neither can he do that: they will be the children of the state.

Indeed!—And what say you to—This is my wife?—Can appropriation more than for the minute the hour or the day exist? Or, among so disinterested a people, can a man say even of the woman he loves—She is mine?

[We paused—I own, Louisa, I found myself at a loss; but Frank soon gave a very satisfactory reply.]

You have started a question of infinite importance, which perhaps I am not fully prepared to answer. I doubt whether in that better state of human society, to which I look forward with such ardent aspiration, the intercourse of the sexes will be altogether promiscuous and unrestrained; or whether they will admit of something that may be denominated marriage. The former may perhaps be the truth: but it is at least certain that in the sense in which we understand marriage and the affirmation—This is my wife—neither the institution nor the claim can in such a state, or indeed in justice exist. Of all the regulations which were ever suggested to the mistaken tyranny of selfishness, none perhaps to this day have surpassed the despotism of those which undertake to bind not only body to body but soul to soul, to all futurity, in despite of every possible change which our vices and our virtues might effect, or however numerous the secret corporal or mental imperfections might prove which a more intimate acquaintance should bring to light!

Then you think that some stipulation or bargain between the sexes must take place, in the most virtuous ages?

In the most virtuous ages the word bargain, like the word promise, will be unintelligible—We cannot bargain to do what is wrong, nor can we, though there should be no bargain, forbear to do what is right, without being unjust.

Whence it results that marriage, as a civil institution, must ever be an evil?

Yes. It ought not to be a civil institution. It is the concern of the individuals who consent to this mutual association, and they ought not to be prevented from beginning, suspending, or terminating it as they please.

Clifton addressed himself to me—What say you to this doctrine, madam?
Does it not shock, does it not terrify you?

As far as I have considered it, no. It appears to be founded on incontrovertible principles; and I ought not to be shocked that some of my prejudices are opposed, or at being reminded that men have not yet attained the true means of correcting their own vices.

Surely the consequences are alarming! The man who only studied the gratification of his desires would have a new wife each new day; and the unprotected fair would be abandoned to all the licentiousness of libertinism!

Frank again replied—Then you think the security of women would increase with their imagined increase of danger; and that an unprincipled man, who even at present if he be known is avoided and despised, would then find a more ready welcome, because as you suppose he would have more opportunities to injure?

I must own that the men fit to be trusted with so much power are in my opinion very few indeed.

You are imagining a society as perverse and vitiated as the present: I am supposing one wholly the contrary. I know too well that there are men who, because unjust laws and customs worthy of barbarians have condemned helpless women to infamy, for the loss of that which under better regulations and in ages of more wisdom has been and will again be guilt to keep, I know, sir, I say that the present world is infested by men, who make it the business and the glory of their lives to bring this infamy upon the very beings for whom they feign the deepest affection!—If ever patience can forsake me it will be at the recollection of these demons in the human form, who come tricked out in all the smiles of love, the protestations of loyalty, and the arts of hell, unrelentingly and causelessly to prey upon confiding innocence! Nothing but the malverse selfishness of man could give being or countenance to such a monster! Whatever is good, exquisite, or precious, we are individually taught to grasp at, and if possible to secure; but we have each a latent sense that this principle has rendered us a society of detestable misers, and therefore to rob each other seems almost like the sports of justice.

For which reason, sir, were I a father, I think I should shudder to hear you instructing my daughters in your doctrines.

I perceive you wholly misconceive me; and I very seriously request, pray observe, sir, I very seriously request you to remember that I would not teach any man's daughters so mad a doctrine as to indulge in sensual appetites, or foster a licentious imagination. I am not the apostle of depravity. While men shall be mad, foolish, and dishonest enough to be vain of bad principles, women may be allowed to seek such protection as bad laws can afford—It is an eternal truth that the wisdom of man is superior to the strength of lions; but I would not therfore turn an infant into a lion's den.

I am glad to be undeceived. I thought it was scarcely possible you should mean what your words seemed to imply—At present I understand you; and I again confess my surprise to find so much consistency, and so many powerful arguments on a question in favour of which I thought nothing rational could be advanced. You have afforded me food for reflection, and I thank you. I shall not easily forget what has been said.

Tell me, my dear Louisa, are you not delighted with this dialogue; and with the candour, the force of thinking, and what is still better the virtuous fears of your brother? His mind revolted at the mischief which it seemed to forbode he was happy at being undeceived. And, with respect to argument, I doubt whether he forgot any one of the most apparently formidable objections to what is called the levelling system. But he was pleased to learn that this is only giving a good cause a bad name. Such a system is infinitely more opposite to levelling than the present; since the very essence of it is that merit shall be the only claimant, and shall be certain of pre-eminence.

The satisfaction I feel, my friend, is beyond expression. To have my hopes revived and daily strengthened, after fearing they must all be relinquished, increases the pleasure. It is great and would be unmixed but for—Well, well!—Let Clifton but proceed and Frank will no longer say—'To the end of time'—! You know the rest, Louisa—All good be with you!

A. W. ST. IVES

P.S. I thought I had forgotten something. When Frank had retired, your brother with delightful candour praised the great perspicuity as well as strength with which he argued. He added there was one circumstance in particular in his principles concerning marriage, although they had at first appeared very alarming, which was highly satisfactory: and this was the confidence they inspired. 'Nothing, he said, gave his nature so much offence as the suspicions with which, at present, our sex view the men. About two years ago he had a partiality for a Neapolitan lady, and thought himself in love with her: but in this he was mistaken; it was rather inclination than passion. He knew not at that time what it was to love. Neither this Neapolitan lady, though beautiful and highly accomplished, nor any other woman his feelings told him could inspire pure affection, who was incapable of confiding in herself; and, wanting this self-confidence, of confiding in her lover. Suspicion originates in a consciousness of self defect. Those who cannot trust themselves cannot be induced to trust others.'

Thus justly, Louisa, did he continue to reason. Nor could I forbear to apply the doctrine to myself: I have been too distrustful of him; my conscience accused me, and I am resolved to remedy the fault. I have always held suspicion to be the vice of mean and feeble minds: but it is less difficult to find rules by theory than to demonstrate them by practice.

I am sorry, my dear Louisa, to hear that the infirmities of Mrs. Clifton increase. But these are evils for which we can at present find no remedy; and to which we must therefore submit with patience and resignation.