But now a little shadow has fallen between them, but it is a shadow. Isis is smarting at her exclusion from the gaol, while every other lady is admitted; she is evidently a little jealous, and has so expressed herself. One cannot but be impressed at the dignity and firmness of his reply. Yet how tenderly considerate of her he is. He will not let her have his reply till morning. He does not wish to spoil her night's rest or his own.
"I am as chaste towards you in mind and body and thoughts, as the infant at your breast. Toward you I have been honest and will be honest; but remember, I am not a man to be trifled with, to be jeered at, nor to be easily duped. You have seen my promptitude in resenting an insult from Mr. Taylor, and my resolution in carrying out the resentment. I shall deal with you precisely the same if you so deal with me. And I am sorry to say there is a much nearer resemblance between your temperament and Mr. Taylor's than between yours and mine. You have his weaknesses and waverings, and much of his impatient, suspicious irascibility, without his genius and study. Instead of growing in philosophical improvement you are diverging from it. You do not now act up to the promise of your Bolton letters. It is no sufficient apology to say you love me too well to be at ease; I should prefer the love that would allow you to be at ease. My soul burns with a steady and pure flame of desire to see and be with you; but I cannot degrade myself so far as to exhibit folly and madness about it, and to be food for the sport of my enemies; nor do I upbraid you on account of our separation. This letter has been all my evening's work, I shall not let it spoil my sleep, and I do not intend you to have it until the morning. After the apologised error of Saturday I did not expect another so soon. I feel nothing but love for your love, and pity for your weakness, and ill-health, and separation from me. The letter which I began about the husband was intended for a pretty letter, but the pie (the dinner) came unexpectedly, before I could finish."
In the Preface to the first volume of the Isis the Editor made the following statement in relation to the matter; it is her first statement to the public of their union:—
The Preface to the "Isis" (1st Vol.)
"When a gap was made in the philosophical business of the Rotunda by the imprisonment of Messrs. Carlile and Taylor, I volunteered the best assistance I could give to preserve the utility of that establishment. A stranger to all public business and public men, I came alone from Lancashire, fortified in my resolve by nothing more than the goodness of the principles I espoused, and the kind, generous encouragement and assistance given to me by Mr. Carlile, to whom and with whom, I rejoice to say, I have since allied myself in matrimonial engagement, and find no disappointment in the possession of happiness in the third year. I have seen Messrs. Carlile and Taylor restored to public business, and under every engagement I felt that my task was complete. If I have not done all that I might have wished, I have done my best, and should rejoice the more to see an Englishwoman doing more than I have done. I am proud in the conviction of having set a good example, somewhat proud of the success of my effort, but prouder still of the honorable and useful position which I still fill in the community in aid and assistance of the true spirit of reform for whatever is corrupt and wrong. There are those who reproach my marriage; they are scarcely worth notice, but this I have to say for myself, that nothing could have been more pure in moral, more free from venality. It was not only a marriage of two bodies, but a marriage of two congenial spirits, or two minds reasoned into the same knowledge of true principles, each seeking an object on which virtuous affection might rest, and grow, and strengthen; and though we passed over a legal obstacle, it was only because it could not be removed, and was not in the spirit of a violation of the law, nor of intended offence or injury to anyone. A marriage more pure and moral was never formed and continued in England. It is what marriage should be, though not perhaps altogether what marriage is in the majority of cases. They who are married equally morally will not find fault with mine; but where marriage is merely of the law, or for money, and not of the soul, there I look for abuse. My spirit was wedded to the spirit of my husband before I had spoken to him. My soul craved him on the love of good political principle, and for his endurance of its martyrdom through many years of imprisonment. I have not yet repented. We fairly won the bequeathed flitch of bacon to a year's happy marriage.* And long may it continue. We remembered that we were human, and have not fallen into the error of pledging love for life, hoping in the absence of that pledge to make it last the longer.
* This giving a flitch or side of bacon to that married
couple who had lived the whole year in harmony together, is
an old English custom, and was religiously carried out in
the village of Enfield, to which Carlile removed his family
immediately after leaving Giltspur Street Compter. Carlile
and Isis, or rather Mr. and Mrs. Carlile, were unanimously
voted to be the happiest married pair in the village, and
entitled to the flitch of bacon. All sorts of sports
prevailed at this festivity, and the whole village turned
out en masse.
"The contents of this volume, in conjunction with my life's career, I submit to the judgment of all charitable beings. I court not the judgment of those who have no charity; but I can boldly say I brave and defy it. I live to please myself, and to serve the cause of virtue and honesty. Rail who may, I am not to be dismayed or discouraged; praise who may, my career must still be guided by its principles, rather than by that praise, though I am neither alien to gratitude, nor do I boast of being insensible to just approbation. I have intended well, and I am satisfied, conscientiously satisfied, that whatever I have publicly done has been well and usefully done, and will not license complaint until some Englishwoman does better.
"Eliza Sharples Carlile.
"62, Fleet Street, May 29, 1834."
On another occasion Carlile said, in reply to an attack on his marriage with Isis:—