DESPONDENCY. CHRISTMAS 1653
This chapter of letters is a sad note, sounding out from among its fellows with mournful clearness. There had seemed a doubt whether all these letters must be regarded as of one series, or whether, more correctly, it was to be assumed that Dorothy and Temple had their lovers' quarrels, for the well-understood pleasure of kissing friends again. But you will agree that these lovers were not altogether as other lovers are, that their troubles were too real and too many for their love to need the stimulus of constant April shower quarrels; and these letters are very serious in their sadness, imprinting themselves in the mind after constant reading as landmarks clearly defining the course and progress of an unusual event in these lovers' history—a misunderstanding.
The letters are written at Christmastide, 1653. Dorothy had returned from London to Chicksands, and either had not seen Temple or he had left London hurriedly whilst she was there. There is a letter lost. Dorothy's youngest brother is lately dead; her niece has left her; her companion Jane is sick; her father, growing daily weaker and weaker, was sinking into his grave before her eyes. No bright chance seemed to open before her, and their marriage seemed an impossibility. For a moment she loses faith, not in Temple, but in fortune; faith once gone, hope, missing her comrade, flies away in search of her. She is alone in the old house with her dying father, and with her brother pouring his unkind gossip into her unwilling ear, whilst the sad long year draws slowly to its close, and there is no sign of better fortune for the lovers; can we wonder, then, that Dorothy, lonely and unaided, pacing in the damp garden beneath the bare trees, with all the bright summer changed into decay, lost faith and hope?
Temple, when Dorothy's thoughts reach him, must have replied with some impatience. There are stories, too, set about concerning her good name by one Mr. B., to disturb Temple. Temple can hardly have given credence to these, but he may have complained of them to Dorothy, who is led to declare, "I am the most unfortunate woman breathing, but I was never false," though she forgives her lover "all those strange thoughts he has had" of her. Whatever were the causes of the quarrel, or rather the despondency, we shall never know accurately. Dorothy was not the woman to vapour for months about "an early and a quiet grave." When she writes this it is written in the deepest earnest of despair; when this mood is over it is over for ever, and we emerge into a clear atmosphere of hope and content. The despondency has been agonizing, but the agony is sharp and rapid, and gives place to the wisdom of hope.
Temple now comes to Chicksands at an early date. There is a new interchange of vows. Never again will their faith be shaken by fretting and despair; and these vows are never broken, but remain with the lovers until they are set aside by others, taken under the solemn sanction of the law, and the old troubles vanish in new responsibilities and a new life.
Letter 41.—Lady Anne Blunt was a daughter of the Earl of Newport. Her mother had turned Catholic in 1637, which had led to an estrangement between her and her husband, and we may conclude poor Lady Anne had by no means a happy home. There are two scandals connected with her name. She appears to have run away with one William Blunt,—the "Mr. Blunt" mentioned by Dorothy in her next letter; and on April 18, 1654, she petitioned the Protector to issue a special commission upon her whole case. Mr. Blunt pretended that she was contracted to him for the sake, it is said, of gaining money thereby. There being no Bishop's Court at this time, there are legal difficulties in the way, and we never hear the result of the petition. Again, in February 1655, one Mr. Porter finds himself committed to Lambeth House for carrying away the Lady Anne Blunt, and endeavouring to marry her without her father's consent.
Sir,—Having tired myself with thinking, I mean to weary you with reading, and revenge myself that way for all the unquiet thoughts you have given me. But I intended this a sober letter, and therefore, sans raillerie, let me tell you, I have seriously considered all our misfortunes, and can see no end of them but by submitting to that which we cannot avoid, and by yielding to it break the force of a blow which if resisted brings a certain ruin. I think I need not tell you how dear you have been to me, nor that in your kindness I placed all the satisfaction of my life; 'twas the only happiness I proposed to myself, and had set my heart so much upon it that it was therefore made my punishment, to let me see that, how innocent soever I thought my affection, it was guilty in being greater than is allowable for things of this world. 'Tis not a melancholy humour gives me these apprehensions and inclinations, nor the persuasions of others; 'tis the result of a long strife with myself, before my reason could overcome my passion, or bring me to a perfect resignation to whatsoever is allotted for me. 'Tis now done, I hope, and I have nothing left but to persuade you to that, which I assure myself your own judgment will approve in the end, and your reason has often prevailed with you to offer; that which you would have done then out of kindness to me and point of honour, I would have you do now out of wisdom and kindness to yourself. Not that I would disclaim my part in it or lessen my obligation to you, no, I am your friend as much as ever I was in my life, I think more, and I am sure I shall never be less. I have known you long enough to discern that you have all the qualities that make an excellent friend, and I shall endeavour to deserve that you may be so to me; but I would have you do this upon the justest grounds, and such as may conduce most to your quiet and future satisfaction. When we have tried all ways to happiness, there is no such thing to be found but in a mind conformed to one's condition, whatever it be, and in not aiming at anything that is either impossible or improbable; all the rest is but vanity and vexation of spirit, and I durst pronounce it so from that little knowledge I have had of the world, though I had not Scripture for my warrant. The shepherd that bragged to the traveller, who asked him, "What weather it was like to be?" that it should be what weather pleased him, and made it good by saying it should be what weather pleased God, and what pleased God should please him, said an excellent thing in such language, and knew enough to make him the happiest person in the world if he made a right use on't. There can be no pleasure in a struggling life, and that folly which we condemn in an ambitious man, that's ever labouring for that which is hardly got and more uncertainly kept, is seen in all according to their several humours; in some 'tis covetousness, in others pride, in some stubbornness of nature that chooses always to go against the tide, and in others an unfortunate fancy to things that are in themselves innocent till we make them otherwise by desiring them too much. Of this sort you and I are, I think; we have lived hitherto upon hopes so airy that I have often wondered how they could support the weight of our misfortunes; but passion gives a strength above nature, we see it in mad people; and, not to flatter ourselves, ours is but a refined degree of madness. What can it be else to be lost to all things in the world but that single object that takes up one's fancy, to lose all the quiet and repose of one's life in hunting after it, when there is so little likelihood of ever gaining it, and so many more probable accidents that will infallibly make us miss on't? And which is more than all, 'tis being mastered by that which reason and religion teaches us to govern, and in that only gives us a pre-eminence over beasts. This, soberly consider'd, is enough to let us see our error, and consequently to persuade us to redeem it. To another person, I should justify myself that 'tis not a lightness in my nature, nor any interest that is not common to us both, that has wrought this change in me. To you that know my heart, and from whom I shall never hide it, to whom a thousand testimonies of my kindness can witness the reality of it, and whose friendship is not built upon common grounds, I have no more to say but that I impose not my opinions upon you, and that I had rather you took them up as your own choice than upon my entreaty. But if, as we have not differed in anything else, we could agree in this too, and resolve upon a friendship that will be much the perfecter for having nothing of passion in it, how happy might we be without so much as a fear of the change that any accident could bring. We might defy all that fortune could do, and putting off all disguise and constraint, with that which only made it necessary, make our lives as easy to us as the condition of this world will permit. I may own you as a person that I extremely value and esteem, and for whom I have a particular friendship, and you may consider me as one that will always be
Your faithful.
This was written when I expected a letter from you, how came I to miss it? I thought at first it might be the carrier's fault in changing his time without giving notice, but he assures me he did, to Nan. My brother's groom came down to-day, too, and saw her, he tells me, but brings me nothing from her; if nothing of ill be the cause, I am contented. You hear the noise my Lady Anne Blunt has made with her marrying? I am so weary with meeting it in all places where I go; from what is she fallen! they talked but the week before that she should have my Lord of Strafford. Did you not intend to write to me when you writ to Jane? That bit of paper did me great service; without it I should have had strange apprehension, and my sad dreams, and the several frights I have waked in, would have run so in my head that I should have concluded something of very ill from your silence. Poor Jane is sick, but she will write, she says, if she can. Did you send the last part of Cyrus to Mr. Hollingsworth?
Letter 42.