Dear Papa,—Lady Darcy has found out that I want to leave her, but she has kindly promised to do what she can to find something else for me. I wish you would say what you think, and it would be as well, perhaps, if you would be so good as to drop a line to her ladyship to thank her. I have written to you several times, but got no answer, so people here say that you don’t care very much for me. Would you please send me a handsome bonnet and some handkerchiefs? Best love to mamma and all at home.
Your affectionate daughter,
Dorothy Plumpton.
This, I think, is not an unfair specimen of a modern letter.[28] The expressions of worship, of humble respect, have disappeared, and so far it may be thought that there is improvement, yet that respect was not incompatible with tender feeling; on the contrary, it was closely associated with it, and expressions of sentiment have lost strength and vitality along with expressions of respect. Tenderness may be sometimes shown in modern letters, but it is rare; and when it occurs it is generally accompanied by a degree of familiarity which our ancestors would have considered in bad taste. Dorothy Plumpton’s own letter is far richer in the expression of tender feeling than any modern letter of the courteous and ceremonious kind, or than any of those pale and commonplace communications from which deep respect and strong affection are almost equally excluded. Please observe, moreover, that the young lady had reason to be dissatisfied with her father for his neglect, which does not in the least diminish the filial courtesy of her style, but she chides him in the sweetest fashion,—“Show now by your fatherly kindness that I am your child.” Could anything be prettier than that, though the reproach contained in it is really one of some severity?
Dorothy’s father, Sir Robert, puts the following superscription on a letter to his wife, “To my entyrely and right hartily beloved wife, Dame Agnes Plumpton, be this Letter delivered.” He begins his letter thus, “My deare hart, in my most hartily wyse, I recommend mee unto you;” and he ends tenderly, “By your owne lover, Robert Plumpton, Kt.” She, on the contrary, though a faithful and brave wife, doing her best for her husband in a time of great trial, and enjoying his full confidence, begins her letters, “Right worshipful Sir,” and ends simply, “By your wife, Dame Agnes Plumpton.” She is so much absorbed by business that her expressions of feeling are rare and brief. “Sir, I am in good health, and all your children prays for your daly blessing. And all your servants is in good health and prays diligently for your good speed in your matters.”
The generally courteous tone of the letters of those days may be judged of by the following example. The reader will observe how small a space is occupied with the substance of the letter in comparison with the expressions of pure courtesy, and how simply and handsomely regret for the trespass is expressed:—
To his worshipful Cosin, Sir Robart Plompton, Kt.
Right reverend and worshipful Cosin, I commend me unto you as hertyly as I can, evermore desiring to heare of your welfare, the which I besech Jesu to continew to his pleasure, and your herts desire. Cosin, please you witt that I am enformed, that a poor man somtyme belonging to mee, called Umfrey Bell, hath trespased to a servant of youres, which I am sory for. Wherefore, Cosin, I desire and hartily pray you to take upp the matter into your own hands for my sake, and rewle him as it please you; and therein you wil do, as I may do that may be plesur to you, and my contry, the which I shalbe redy too, by the grace of God, who preserve you.
By your own kynsman,
Robart Warcopp, of Warcoppe.
The reader has no doubt by this time enough of these old letters, which are not likely to possess much charm for him unless, like the present writer, he is rather of an antiquarian turn.[29]
The quotations are enough to show some of the forms used in correspondence by our forefathers, forms that were right in their own day, when the state of society was more ceremonious and deferential, but no one would propose to revive them. We may, however, still value and cultivate the beautifully courteous spirit that our ancestors possessed and express it in our own modern ways.