“J. Strutt to Elizabeth Woollatt.
“Blackwell
“Feby 3rd 1755
“Dear Betty,
“Since our first acquaintance, which is now many years ago, I have often wrote to you but never in a strain like this; nor did I think I ever should for though we were then more intimately acquainted than since and though then I thought you had some degree of kindness for me, yet as my conduct and behaviour to you has been such as could neither raise nor continnue your regard, together with the years that have passed since then, (for time often puts a period to love as well as all other events) I did not think you could remember me with the least pleasure or satisfaction but rather the contrary; but when I was at London and had the opportunity of seeing you something or other told me (though perhaps nothing more than the last glance of your eye when I bade you farewell) that you looked on me with an eye of tenderness nay, one is so apt to speak as they wish I had liked to have said love; and if so that one generous instance of truth and constancey has made a greater and more lasting impression on my mind than all the united claims of beauty wit and fortune of your sex so far as I have had opportunity of conversing, were ever able to make; therefore it is upon this foundation I promise to tell you that from a wandering inconstant and roving swain I am become entirely yours!
“I am ready to become all that you could wish me to be if you loved me and which is all I wish your husband. But suppose I should have gone too far in this declaration, and my fond observation prove a mistake, how will you wish, nay rather how impossible would it then be for you to wish even to call me by that tender name. But let me still suppose it is not so.... Yet what argument can I use to induce you to leave London with all the delights it affords, or how persuade you to leave so good a master who I know values you and whom you both esteem and love. Here I am at a loss and if you should be indifferent with regard to me it will be impossible to say anything that will be sufficient. And indeed I am not inclined to flatter nor to fill your imagination with fine words only; and this is one of all the realities I can think of, that it is not impossible but that you may be happy here even tho’ it is true you cannot behold the splendour and the gaiety of a great city nor the noise and hurry of its inhabitants; yet the London air is not half so sweet, nor the pleasures half so lasting and sincere. Here inocense and health more frequently reside; here the beauties of nature are ever presenting themselves both to our senses and imaganations; here you may view the rising and the setting sun which many in London are strangers to; here it is that you may have the morning and the evening song of many warbling larks and linnets and as Milton expresses it ‘The shrill matin song of birds on everry bough.’ As to myself fortune has not placed me among the number of the rich and great and so not subjected me to the many temptations and follies that attend great men some of which perhaps I should not have been able to withstand, and others that I should have been loth to bear; yet by the blessing of heaven I have more then enough for happiness, and by that means at this season of the year I enjoy many leisure hours (and all the blessings of leisure and retirement) some of which I spend in reading and meditation, the rest I dedicate to love and you.
“But I shall forget myself and learn to do a thing I never loved that is to write long letters, and yet methinks I have a thousand things to say; but as I had rather you wished I had said more than less nay if I could have told you all my heart in one word, I should not now have troubled you with so many; but I have no apology to make, only my sincerity, and if you read with candour and with the same simplicity with which I write you will certainly find it sincere. I hope that will recomment it to your kind reception and obtain if possible an answer of kindness.
“I saw your brother as I passed through Derby but I did not take him the books you desired me. I heard from my brother last week and rejoyce to hear he has been abroad (i e out of the house).
“My father often talks of the Doctor and you and withall knows that I love you, nay he himself loves you and will be glad to see you here; and now if ever you had any kindness for me, if ever I did or said anything to give you either delight or pleasure, let it not be in vain that I now ask, nor torture me with silence and suspense; by so doing you will lay the highest obligations on one who is in every sense of the word
“Your sincere lover
“J Strutt.”
This proposal elicited the following equally characteristic reply:—
“Elizabeth Woollatt to Jedediah Strutt.
“addressed to
“Mr Jedediah Strutt at Blackwell
“to be left at the Bull Inn, Mansfield
“London Feby 15th
“1755