Seven long years! Which of you, my readers, has waited this time without a murmur and without a doubt? Was not this an acting of faith far higher than any letter writing of it? Let us think so, and honour it as such. Here is a letter, written when doubt almost overwhelmed, when the spleen (a disease as common now as then, though we have lost the good name for it) was upon her, when the world looked blank, and life a drifting mist of despair.
“Let me tell you that if I could help it I would not love you, and that as long as I live I shall strive against it, as against that which has been my ruin, and was certainly sent me as a punishment for my sins. But I shall always have a sense of your misfortunes equal if not above my own; I shall pray that you may obtain quiet I never hope for but in my grave, and I shall never change my condition but with my life. Yet let not this give you a hope. Nothing can ever persuade me to enter the world again; I shall in a short time have disengaged myself of all my little affairs in it and settled myself in a condition to apprehend nothing but too long a life, and therefore I wish you to forget me, and to induce you to it let me tell you freely that I deserve you should. If I remember anybody ’tis against my will; I am possessed with that strange insensibility that my nearest relations have no tie upon me, and I find myself no more concerned in those that I have heretofore had great tenderness of affection for, than if they had died long before I was born; leave me to this, and seek a better fortune: I beg it of you as heartily as I forgive you all those strange thoughts you have had of me; think me so still if that will do anything towards it, for God’s sake so, take any course that may make you happy, or if that cannot be, less unfortunate at least than
Your friend and humble servant,
D. Osborne.”
Such letters are, happily, not numerous. Here is another, of a quite different nature, in which you can read the practical English sense of our Dorothy, and her thoughts about love in a cottage:—
“I have not lived thus long in the world, and in this age of changes, but certainly I know what an estate is; I have seen my father’s reduced better than £4,000 to not £400 a year, and I thank God I never felt the change in anything that I thought necessary. I never wanted, and am confident I never shall. But yet I would not be thought so inconsiderate a person as not to remember that it is expected from all people that have sense that they should act with reason; that to all persons some proportion of fortune is necessary, according to their several qualities, and though it is not required that one should tie oneself to just so much, and something is left for one’s inclination, and the difference in the persons to make, yet still within such a compass; (a little incoherent this, meaning, I think, that Dorothy does not believe that even the world would have you choose by money and goods alone), and such as lay more upon these considerations than they will bear, shall infallibly be condemned by all sober persons. If any accident out of my power should bring me to necessity though never so great, I should not doubt with God’s assistance, but to bear it as well as anybody, and I should never be ashamed on’t if He pleased to send it me; but if by my own folly I had put it upon myself, the case would be extremely altered.” But this is Dorothy in her serious strain; often (how often?) she plays the lover, and though I disapprove of peeping into such letters, doubting if Cupid recognises any statute of limitations in these affairs, yet to complete the fabric we must play eavesdropper for once.
“It will be pleasinger to you, I am sure, to tell you how fond I am of your lock. Well, in earnest now, and setting aside all compliment I never saw finer hair, nor of a better colour; but cut no more of it. I would not have it spoiled for the world; if you love me be careful of it; I am combing and curling and kissing this lock all day, and dreaming of it all night. The ring, too, is very well, only a little of the biggest. Send me a tortoiseshell one to keep it on, that is a little less than that I sent for a pattern. I would not have the rule absolutely true without exception, that hard hairs are ill-natured, for then I should be so; but I can allow that all soft hairs are good, and so are you, or I am deceived as much as you are, if you think I do not love you enough. Tell me, my dearest, am I? You will not be if you think I am not yours.”
Space! space! how narrow, how harsh, and ungallant thou art; not ready to give place, even to Dorothy herself. We must hasten to the end. Dorothy, it appears, unlike some of her sex, does not like playing the Mrs. Bride in a public wedding. “I never yet,” she writes, “saw anyone that did not look simply and out of countenance, nor ever knew a wedding well designed but one, and that was of two persons who had time enough I confess to contrive it, and nobody to please in’t but themselves. He came down into the country where she was upon a visit, and one morning married her. As soon as they came out of the church, they took coach and came for the town, dined at an inn by the way, and at night came into lodgings that were provided for them, where nobody knew them, and where they passed for married people of seven years’ standing. The truth is I could not endure to be Mrs. Bride in a public wedding, to be made the happiest person on earth; do not take it ill, for I would endure it if I could, rather than fail, but in earnest I do not think it were possible for me.”
But her father is now dead. Her brother, Peyton, is to make the treaty for her. Here is the letter, dated for once (Oct. 2, 1654), inviting Temple to come, and she will name the day; at least, Courtenay tells us, that in this interview the preliminaries were settled. “After a long debate with myself how to satisfy you, and remove that rock (as you call it) which in your apprehensions is of no great danger, I am at last resolved to let you see that I value your affection for me at as high a rate as you yourself can set it, and that you cannot have more of tenderness for me and my interests than I shall ever have for yours. The particulars how I intend to make this good, you shall know when I see you, which, since I find them here more irresolute in point of time (though not as to the journey itself) than I hoped they would have been, notwithstanding your quarrel to me, and the apprehensions you would make me believe you have that I do not care to see you—pray come hither, and try whether you shall be welcome or not.”
And now one moment of suspense. A last trial to the lover’s constancy. The bride is taken dangerously ill. So seriously ill that the doctors rejoice when the disease pronounces itself to be small-pox. Alas! who shall now say what are the inmost thoughts of our Dorothy? Does she not now need all her faith in her lover, in herself, ay, and in God, to uphold her in this new affliction. She rises from her bed, her beauty of face destroyed; her fair looks living only on the painter’s canvas, unless we may believe that they were etched in deeply bitten lines on Temple’s heart. But this skin beauty is not the firmest hold she has on Temple’s affections; this was not the beauty that had attracted her lover, and held him enchained in her service for seven years of waiting and suspense; this was not the only light leading him through dark days of doubt, almost of despair, constant, unwavering in his troth to her. Other beauty, not outward, of which I may not write, having seen it but darkly, only through these letters; knowing it indeed to be there, but quite unable to visualise it fully, or to paint it clearly on these pages; other beauty it is, than that of face and form, that made Dorothy to Temple and to all men, in fact, as she was in name—the gift of God.