FROM CAROLINE ASHBURN
TO
ARTHUR MURDEN
How strange an animal is man! How prone to fall into habits, and how difficult it is to prescribe bounds to the growth of absurdity! I did not imagine Mr. Valmont would extend his absurdities so much on the sudden, nor do I know how far you will be inclined to follow his example, when I tell you that Sibella is so really a prisoner even my letters are denied access to her.
Yesterday I was honoured with a packet from Mr. Valmont containing my two last letters to Sibella, one written in answer to her's previous to the receipt of your's and the other written in consequence of the information you gave me of her confinement. Mr. Valmont, in his way, treats me with unusual respect; and I can only account for it, by supposing he was pleased with the freedom I used when at Valmont castle in speaking to him of his very improper seclusion of Sibella. My letters were returned unopened; and with them the following
Madam,
As long as my niece deserved the indulgence of your correspondence I, though against the principle upon which I formed her education continued to allow it. I herewith return your last letters. I would not open them, because I believe you to be incapable of abetting Sibella in the atrocity of her conduct, but I shall hold myself justified therein if you send any more letters after you receive this interdiction.
Truly sorry am I to say that Miss Valmont proves herself unworthy of the long illustrious line from whom she claims her name, and of whom she is almost the only surviving descendant. Unfortunate that house whose dignity is left to be supported by a female! Whether in solitude or society, I find the female mind still a mere compound of folly and mischief: greatly do I now regret I ever undertook its guardianship.
I have the honour to be, madam
Your humble servant,
G. VALMONT
Mr. Valmont scorns to flatter. Would you have been so candid with respect to the female mind? though once, perhaps, you enrolled yourself among those who endeavour strictly to check the growth of every seed therein except mischief and folly. My patience exhausts itself when I see men of even tolerable talents aiding to sink lower than the brute in value the fairest of God's creatures.—A horse!—Oh, a laborious horse deserves to be canonized in preference to the woman whose sole industry consists in the active destruction of her understanding, who smiles, moves, and speaks, as it were only to prove herself unlike every production of wisdom and nature.
The principle which moves this mischief is the error males and females partake concerning softness.—Bid them form a woman of an enlightened understanding, and with the learning of a scholar they never fail to associate the manners of a porter.—Talk of one, who scorns to sink in apprehensions, who would rather protect herself than sacrifice herself, who can stand unpropped in the creation, they expect a giant in step and a monster in form.—If reason and coarseness were thus inseparable, it were better to take both than to abandon both. But it is the reverse. Wherever coarseness exists with talent, it is because the talent is contracted; let it expand, and the dignified grace and softness of active virtue takes its place.—More of this hereafter. I wish rather to reason than declaim; and I have, at present, a heat of feeling that effectually precludes investigation, for the ebulitions of resentment.
Doubtless you have already exclaimed against my seeming unconcern for Sibella's situation.—You, who cannot detach yourself a moment from the concerns of your heart, can you forgive such a lapse in another. Of what avail, in our present darkness, to canvass it for an age? I must do something more. To-morrow morning, I set out for Valmont castle; and if at my desire you keep your station, you may depend on the speediest information from, Your sincere friend
CAROLINE ASHBURN