LETTER CXIV.116.
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.