Here have I been a-thinking I should scantly write a word when my month was come, and already, with but ten days thereof, have I filled half as much paper as either Helen or Milisent. But in good sooth, I do trust the next ten days shall not be so full of things happening as these last. Nathless, I do love to have things happen, after a fashion: but I would have them to be alway pleasant things. And when things happen, they be so oft unpleasant.
Now, if one might order one’s own life, methinks it should be a right pleasant thing. For I reckon I should not go a-fooling, like as some lasses do. Mine head is not all stuffed with gallants, nor yet with velvet and gold. But I would love to be great. Not great like a duchess, just a name and no more: but to make a name for myself, and to have folks talk of me, how good and how clever I were. That is what I would fain be thought—good and clever. I take no care to be thought fair, nor in high place; howbeit, I desire not to be ugly nor no lower down than I am. But I am quite content with mine own place, only I feel within me that I could do great things.
And how can a woman do great things, without she be rare high in place, such like as the Queen’s Majesty, or my Lady Duchess of Suffolk? Or how could I ever look to do great things, here in Derwent dale? Oh, I do envy our Wat and Ned, by reason they can go about the world and o’er the seas, and make themselves famous.
And, somehow, in a woman’s life everything seems so little. ’Tis just cooking and eating; washing linen and soiling of it; going to bed and rising again. Always doing things and then undoing them, and alway the same things over and over again. It seems as if nought would ever stay done. If one makes a new gown, ’tis but that it may be worn out, and then shall another be wanted. I would the world could give o’er going on, and every thing getting worn out and done with.
Other folks do not seem to feel thus. I reckon Helen never does, not one bit. Some be so much easier satisfied than other. I count them the happiest.
I cannot tell how it is, but I do never feel satisfied. ’Tis as though there were wings within me, that must ever of their nature be stretching upward and onward. Where should they end, an’ they might go forward? Would there be any end? Can one be satisfied, ever?
I believe Anstace and Helen are satisfied, but then ’tis their nature to be content with things as they be. I do not know about Mother and Aunt Joyce. I misdoubt if it be altogether their nature. But then neither do they seem always satisfied. Father doth so: and his nature is high enough. I think I shall ask Father. As for Cousin Bess, an’ I were to ask at her, she should conceive me never a whit. ’Tis her nature to cook and darn and scour, and to look complacently on her cake and her mended hole and her cleaned chamber, and never trouble herself to think that they shall lack doing o’er again to-morrow. Chambers are like to need cleansing, and what were women made for save to keep them clean? That is Cousin Bess, right out. For Master Stuyvesant, methinks he is right the other way, and rather counts the world a dirty place and full of holes, that there shall be no good in neither cleansing nor mending. And I look not on matters in that light. Methinks it were better to cleanse the chamber, if only one could keep it from being dirtied at after. I shall see what Father saith.
Selwick Hall, December the xii.
Yester even, as we were sat in the great chamber,—there was Mother and Helen at their wheels, and Aunt Joyce and my Lady Stafford a-sewing, and Mistress Martin and Milisent and me at the broidery,—and Father had but just beat Sir Robert in a game of the chess, and Mynheer, one foot upon his other knee, was deep in a great book which thereon rested,—and fresh logs were thrown of the fire by Kate, which sent forth upward a shower of pleasant sparkles, and methought as I glanced around the chamber, that all looked rare pleasant and comfortable, and we ought to thank God therefore. When all had been silent a short while, out came I with my question, well-nigh ere I myself wist it were out—
“Father, are you satisfied?”