Neither change of place nor situation can alienate my affections from you, or obliterate my grateful remembrance of your kindness.
Your admonitions and counsels have been the guide of my youth. The many advantages which I have already received from them, and the condescending readiness with which they were always administered, embolden me to solicit your direction and advice in a still more important sphere. The recommendation of my parents and friends, seconded by my own inclination, have induced me to yield my heart and engage my hand to Mr. Sylvanus Farmington, with whose character you are not unacquainted. Next Thursday is the era fixed for our union. O madam, how greatly shall I need a monitor like you! Sensible of my own imperfections, I look forward with diffidence and apprehension, blended with pleasing hopes, to this new and untried state!
Your experienced pen can teach me how to discharge the duties, divide the cares, and enjoy the pleasures, peculiar to the station on which I am entering. Pray extend your benevolence, and communicate your sentiments on female deportment in the connubial relation. Practising upon such a model, I may still be worthy the appellation, which it will ever be my ambition to deserve, of your affectionate friend and pupil,
HARRIOT HENLY.
To Miss HARRIOT HENLY.
Harmony-Grove.
Indeed, my dear Harriot, you are making an important change of situation; a change interesting to you and your friends; a change which involves not only your own happiness, but the happiness of the worthy man whom you have chosen; of the family, over which you are to preside; and perhaps, too, of that with which you are to be connected.
I rejoice to hear that this connexion, on which so much depends, is not hastily formed; but that it is the result of long acquaintance, is founded on merit, and consolidated by esteem. From characters like yours, mutually deserving and excellent, brilliant examples of conjugal virtue and felicity may be expected. Yet as human nature is imperfect, liable to errors, and apt to deviate from the line of rectitude and propriety, a monitorial guide may be expedient and useful. Your partiality has led you to request this boon of me; but diffidence of my own abilities compels me to decline the arduous task. Nevertheless, I have it happily in my power to recommend an abler instructor, who has written professedly upon the subject. The American Spectator, or Matrimonial Preceptor, lately published by Mr. David West, of Boston, contains all you can wish. The judicious compiler has collected and arranged his materials with admirable skill and address. Peruse this book, and you will be at no loss for counsels to direct, and cautions to guard you through the intricate cares and duties of the connubial life. The essays are, chiefly, extracted from the most approved English writers. The productions of so many able pens, properly disposed, and exhibited in a new and agreeable light, must not only be entertaining, but useful to every reader of taste and judgment. I wish this publication to be considered as a necessary piece of furniture by every housekeeper. The editor has certainly deserved well of his country; and Hymen should crown him with unfading garlands.
I shall visit you, my dear Harriot, after the happy knot (for such I flatter myself it will prove) is tied. In the mean time, I subscribe myself, with the most ardent wishes for your prosperity and happiness, your sincere friend,
MARY WILLIAMS.