Eloisa

Letter CXXVI. Mrs. Wolmar to Mrs. Orbe.

If you had been kind enough to have staid with us as long as we desired, you would have had the pleasure of embracing your friend before your departure. He came hither the day before yesterday, and wanted to visit you to day; but the fatigue of his journey confines him to his room, and this morning he was let blood. Besides, I was fully determined, in order to punish you, not to let him go so soon; and unless you will come hither, I promise you that it will be a long time before you shall see him. You know it would be very improper to let him see the inseparables asunder.

In truth, Clara, I cannot tell what idle apprehensions bewitched my mind with respect to his coming hither, and I am ashamed to have opposed it with such obstinacy. As much as I dreaded the sight of him, I should now be sorry not to have seen him, for his presence has banished those fears which yet disturbed me, and which, by fixing my attention constantly on him, might at length have given me just cause of uneasiness. I am so far from being apprehensive of the affection I feel for him, that I believe I should mistrust myself more was he less dear to me; but I love him as tenderly as ever, though my love is of a different nature. It is by comparing my present sensations with those which his presence formerly occasioned, that I derive my security, and the difference of such opposite sentiments is perceived in proportion to their vivacity.

With regard to him, though I knew him at the first glance, he nevertheless appeared to be greatly altered; and what I should formerly have thought impossible, he seems, in many respects, to be changed for the better. On the first day, he discovered many symptoms of perplexity, and it was with great difficulty that I concealed mine from him. But it was not long before he recovered that free deportment and openness of manner which becomes his character. I had always seen him timid and bashful; the fear of offending me, and perhaps the secret shame of acting a part unbecoming a man of honour, gave him an air of meanness and servility before me, which you have more than once very justly ridiculed. Instead of the submission of a slave, at present he has the respectful behaviour of a friend, who knows how to honour the object of his esteem. He now communicates his sentiments with freedom and honesty; he is not afraid lest his severe maxims of virtue should clash with his interest; he is not apprehensive of injuring himself or affecting me, by praising what is commendable in itself, and one may perceive in all that he says the confidence of an honest man, who can depend upon himself, and who derives that approbation from his own conscience, which he formerly sought for only in my looks. I find also that experience has cured him of that dogmatical and peremptory air which men are apt to contract in their closets; that he is less forward to judge of mankind, since he has observed them more; that he is less ready to establish general propositions, since he has seen so many exceptions; and that in general, the love of truth has banished the spirit of system: so that he is become less brilliant, but more rational; and one receives much more information from him, now that he does not affect to be so wise.

His figure likewise is altered, but nevertheless not for the worse; his countenance is more open; his deportment more stately; he has contracted a kind of martial air in his travels, which becomes him the better, as the lively and spirited gesture he used to express when he was in earnest, is now turned into a more grave and sober demeanour. He is a seaman, whose appearance is cold and phlegmatic, but whose discourse is fiery and impetuous. Though he is turned of thirty, he has the look of a young man, and joins all the spirit of youth to the dignity of manhood. His complexion is entirely altered; he is as black as a Negro, and very much marked with the small-pox. My dear, I must own the truth; I am uneasy whenever I view those marks, and I catch myself looking at them very often in spite of me.

I think I can discover that if I am curious in examining him, he is not less attentive in viewing me. After so long an absence, it is natural to contemplate each other with a kind of curiosity; but if this curiosity may be thought to retain any thing of our former eagerness, yet what difference is there in the manner as well as the motive of it! If our looks do not meet so often, we nevertheless view each other with more freedom. We seem to examine each other alternately by a kind of tacit agreement. Each perceives, as it were, when it is the other’s turn, and looks a different way to give the other an opportunity. Though free from the emotions I formerly felt, yet how is it possible to behold with indifference one who inspired the tenderest passion, and who, to this hour, is the object of the purest affection? Who knows whether self-love does not endeavour to justify past errors? Who knows whether, though no longer blinded by passion, we do not both flatter ourselves by secretly approving our former choice? Be it as it may, I repeat it without a blush, that I feel a most tender affection for him, which will endure to the end of my life. I am so far from reproaching myself for harbouring these sentiments, that I think they deserve applause; I should blush not to perceive them, and consider it as a defect in my character, and the symptom of a bad disposition. With respect to him, I dare believe, that next to virtue, he loves me beyond any thing in the world. I perceive that he thinks himself honoured by my esteem; I in my turn will regard his in the same light, and will merit its continuance. Ah! if you saw with what tenderness he caresses my children; if you knew what pleasure he takes in talking of you, you would find, Clara, that I am still dear to him.

What increases my confidence in the opinion we both entertain of him, is that Mr. Wolmar joins with us, and since he has seen him, believes, from his own observation, all that we have reported to his advantage. He has talked of him much these two evenings past, congratulating himself on account of the measures he has taken, and rallying me for my opposition. No, said he yesterday, we will not suffer so worthy a man to mistrust himself; we will teach him to have more confidence in his own virtue, and perhaps we may one day or other reap the fruits of our present endeavours with more advantage than you imagine. For the present, I must tell you that I am pleased with his character, and that I esteem him particularly for one circumstance which he little suspects, that is, the reserve with which he behaves towards me. The less friendship he expresses for me, the more he makes me his friend; I cannot tell you how much I dreaded lest he should load me with caresses. This was the first trial I prepared for him, there is yet another by which I intend to prove him; and after that I shall cease all farther examination. As to the circumstance you mentioned, said I, it only proves the frankness of his disposition; for he would never resolve to put on a pliant and submissive air before my father, though it was so much his interest, and I so often intreated him to do it. I saw with concern that his behaviour deprived him of the only resource, and yet could not dislike him for not being able to play the hypocrite on any occasion. The case is very different, replied my husband: there is a natural antipathy between your father and him, founded on the opposition of their sentiments. With regard to myself, who have no symptoms or prejudices, I am certain that he can have no natural aversion to me. No one can hate me; a man without passions cannot inspire any one with an aversion towards him: but I deprived him of the object of his wishes, which he will not readily forgive. He will however conceive the stronger affection for me, when he is perfectly convinced that the injury I have done him does not prevent me from looking upon him with an eye of kindness. If he caressed me now, he would be a hypocrite; if he never caresses me, he will be a monster.

Such, my dear Clara, is the situation we are in, and I begin to think that heaven will bless the integrity of our hearts, and the kind intentions of my husband. But I am too kind to you in entering into all these details; you do not deserve that I should take such pleasure in conversing with you; but I am determined to tell you no more, and if you desire farther information, you must come hitherto receive it.

P. S. I must acquaint you nevertheless with what has passed with respect to the subject of this letter. You know with what indulgence Mr. Wolmar received the late confession which our friend’s unexpected return obliged me to make. You saw with what tenderness he endeavoured to dry up my tears, and dispel my shame. Whether, as you reasonably conjectured, I told him nothing new, or whether he was really affected by a proceeding which nothing but sincere repentance could dictate, he has not only continued to live with me as before, but he even seems to have increased his attention, his confidence, and esteem, as if he meant, by his kindness, to repay the confusion which my confession cost me. My dear Clara, you know my heart; judge then what an impression such a conduct must make!

As soon as I found that he was determined to let our old friend come hither, I resolved on my part, to take the best precautions I could contrive against myself: which was to chuse my husband himself for my confident; to hold no particular conversation, which I did not communicate to him, and to write no letter which I did not shew to him. I even made it a part of my duty to write every letter as if it was not intended for his inspection, and afterwards to shew it to him. You will find an article in this which was penned on this principle; if while I was writing, I could not forbear thinking that he might read it, yet my conscience bears witness that I did not alter a single word on that account; but when I shewed him my letter, he bantered me, and had not the civility to read it.

I confess that I was somewhat piqued at his refusal; as if he had doubted my honour. My emotion did not escape his notice, and this most open and generous man soon removed my apprehensions. Confess, said he, that you have said less concerning me than usual in that letter. I owned it; was it decent to say much of him, when I intended to shew him what I had written? Well, he replied with a smile, I had rather that you would talk of me more, and not know what you say of me. Afterwards, he continued, in a more serious tone; Marriage, said he, is too grave and solemn a state to admit of that free communication which tender friendship allows. The latter connection often happily contributes to moderate the rigour of the former; and it may be reasonable in some cases for a virtuous and discreet woman to seek for that comfort, intelligence, and advice from a faithful confident, which it might not be proper for her to desire of her husband. Though nothing passes between you but what you would chuse to communicate, yet take care not to make it a duty, lest that duty should become a restraint upon you, and your correspondence grow less agreeable by being more diffusive. Believe me, the open-hearted sincerity of friendship is restrained by the presence of a witness, whoever it be. There are a thousand secrets of which three friends ought to participate; but which cannot be communicated but between two. You may impart the same things to your friend and to your husband, but you do not relate them in the same manner; and if you will confound these distinctions, the consequence will be, that your letters will be addressed more to me than to her, and that you will not be free from restraint either with one or the other. It is as much for my own interest as for yours, that I urge these reasons. Do not you perceive that you are already, with good reason, apprehensive of the indelicacy of praising me to my face? Why will you deprive yourself of the pleasure of acquainting your friend how tenderly you love your husband, and me of the satisfaction of supposing that in your most private intercourses, you take delight in speaking well of me? Eloisa! Eloisa! he added, pressing my hand, and looking at me with tenderness, why will you demean yourself by taking precautions so unworthy of you, and will you never learn to make a true estimate of your own worth?

My dear friend, it is impossible to tell you how this incomparable man behaves to me: I no longer blush in his presence. Spite of my frailty, he lifts me above myself, and by dint of reposing confidence in me, he teaches me to deserve it.

Letter CXXVII. Answer.

Impossible! our traveller returned, and have I not yet seen him at my feet, loaded with the spoils of America? But it is not him, I assure you, whom I accuse of this delay; for I am sensible it is as grievous to him as to me: but I find that he has not so thoroughly forgotten his former state of servility as you pretend, and I complain less of his neglect, than of your tyranny. It is very droll in you indeed, to desire such a prude as I am, to make the first advances, and run to salute a swarthy pockfretten face, which has passed four times under the line. But you make me smile to see you in such haste to scold, for fear I should begin first. I should be glad to know what pretence you have to make such an attempt? Quarrelling is my talent. I take pleasure in it, I acquit myself to a miracle, and it becomes me well; but you, my dear cousin, are a mere novice at this work. If you did but know how graceful you appear in the act of confession, how lovely you look with a supplicating eye, and an air of confusion, instead of scolding you would spend your days in asking pardon, were it only out of coquetry.

For the present, you must ask my pardon in every respect. A fine project truly, to chuse a husband for a confident, and a most obliging precaution indeed for a friendship so sacred as ours! Thou faithless friend, and pusillanimous woman! On whom can you depend, if you mistrust yourself and me? Can you, without offence to both, considering the sacred tie under which you live, suspect your own inclinations and my indulgence? I am amazed that the very idea of admitting a third person into the tittle tattle secrets of two women, did not disgust you! As for my part, I love to prattle with you at my ease, but if I thought that the eye of man ever pried into my letters, I should no longer have any pleasure in corresponding with you; such a reserve would insensibly introduce a coldness between us, and we should have no more regard for each other than two indifferent women. To what inconveniences your silly distrust would have exposed us, if your husband had not been wiser than you!

He acted very discreetly in not reading your letter. Perhaps he would have been less satisfied with it than you imagine, and less than I am myself, who am better capable of judging of your present condition, by the fate in which I have seen you formerly. All those contemplative sages who have passed their lives in the study of the human heart, are less acquainted with the real symptoms of love, than the most shallow woman, if she has any sensibility. Mr. Wolmar would immediately have observed that our friend was the subject of your whole letter, and he would not have seen the postscript, in which you do not once mention him. If you had written this postscript ten years ago, my dear, I cannot tell how you would have managed, but your friend would certainly have been crowded into some corner, especially as there was no husband to overlook it.

Mr. Wolmar would have observed farther with what attention you examined his guest, and the pleasure you take in describing his person; but he might devour Plato and Aristotle, before he would know that we look at a lover, but do not examine him. All examination requires a degree of indifference, which we never feel when we behold the object of our passion.

In short, he would imagine that all the alterations you remark might have escaped another, and I on the contrary was afraid of finding that they had escaped you. However your guest may be altered from what he was, he would appear the same, if your affections were not altered. You turn away your eyes whenever he looks at you; this is a very good symptom. You turn them away, cousin? You do not now cast them down? Surely you have not mistaken one word for another. Do you think that our philosopher would have perceived this distinction?

There is another circumstance very likely to disturb a husband; it is a kind of tenderness and affection which still remains in your stile, when you speak of the object who was once so dear to you. One who reads your letters, or hears you speak, ought to be well acquainted with you, not to be mistaken with regard to your sentiments; he ought to know that it is only a friend to whom you are speaking, or that, you speak in the same manner of all your friends; but as to that, it is the natural effect of your disposition, with which your husband is too well acquainted to be alarmed. How is it possible but that, in a mind of such tenderness, pure friendship will bear some resemblance to love? Pray observe, my dear cousin, that all I say to you on this head ought to inspire you with fresh courage: your conduct is discreet, and that is a great deal; I used to trust only to your virtue, but I begin now to rely on your reason; I consider your cure at present, though not perfect, yet as easily accomplished, and you have now made a sufficient progress, to render you inexcusable if you do not compleat it.

Before I came to your postscript, I remarked the passage which you had the sincerity not to suppress or alter, though conscious that it would be open to your husband’s inspection. I am certain, that if he had read it, it would, if possible, have doubled his esteem for you; nevertheless it would have given him no great pleasure. Upon the whole, your letter was very well calculated to make him place an entire confidence in your conduct, but at the same time it tended to give him uneasiness with respect to your inclinations. I own those marks of the small-pox, which you view so much, give me some apprehensions; love never yet contrived a more dangerous disguise. I know that this would be of no consequence to any other; but always remember, Eloisa, that she who was not to be reduced by the youth and fine figure of her lover, was lost when she reflected on the sufferings he had endured for her. Providence no doubt intended that he should retain the marks of that distemper, to exercise your virtue, and that you should be free from them, in order to put his to the proof.

I come now to the principal subject of your letter; you know that on the receipt of our friend’s, I flew to you immediately; it was a matter of importance. But at present, if you knew in what difficulties that short absence has involved me, and how many things I have to do at once, you would be sensible how impossible it is for me to leave my house again, without exposing myself to fresh inconveniencies, and putting myself under a necessity of passing the winter here again, which is neither for your interest or mine. Is it not better to deprive ourselves of the pleasure of a hasty interview of two or three days, that we may be together for six months. I imagine likewise that it would not be improper for me to have a little particular and private conversation with our philosopher: partly to found his inclinations and confirm his mind; partly to give him some useful advice with regard to the conduct he should observe towards your husband, and even towards you; for I do not suppose that you can talk to him with freedom on that subject, and I can perceive, even from your letter, that he has need of council. We have been so long used to govern him, that we are in conscience responsible for his behaviour; and till he has regained the free use of his reason, we must supply the deficiency. For my own part, it is a charge I shall always undertake with pleasure; for he has paid such deference to my advice as I shall never forget, and since my husband is no more, there is not a man in the world whom I esteem and love so much as himself. I have likewise reserved for him the pleasure of doing me some little services here. I have a great many papers in confusion, which he will help me to regulate, and I have some troublesome affairs in hand in which I shall have occasion for his diligence and understanding. As to the rest, I do not propose to detain him above five or six days at most, and perhaps I may send him to you the next day. For I have too much vanity to wait till he is seized with impatience to return, and I have too much discernment to be deceived in that case.

Do not fail therefore as soon as he is recovered, to send him to me; that is, to let him come, or I shall give over all raillery. You know very well that if I laugh whilst I cry, and yet am not the less in affliction, so I laugh likewise at the same time that I scold, and yet am not the less in a passion. If you are discreet, and do things with a good grace, I promise you that I will send him back to you with a pretty little present, which will give you pleasure, and a great deal of pleasure; but if you suffer me to languish with impatience, I assure you that you shall have nothing.

P.S. A propos; tell me, does our seaman smoak? does he swear? does he drink brandy? Does he wear a great cutlass? has he the look of a Buccaneer? O how I long to see what sort of an air a man has who comes from the Antipodes!

Letter CXXVIII. Clara to Eloisa.

Here, take back your slave, my dear cousin. He has been mine for these eight days past, and he bears his chains with so good a grace, that he seems formed for captivity. Return me thanks that I did not keep him still eight days longer; for without offence to you, if I had kept him till he began to grow tired of me, I should not have sent him back so soon. I therefore detained him without any scruple; but I was so scrupulous however, that I durst not let him lodge in my house. I have sometimes perceived in myself that haughtiness of soul, which disdains servile ceremonies, and which is so confident with virtue. In this instance however, I have been more reserved than usual, without knowing why: and all that I know for certain is, that I am more disposed to censure, than to applaud my reserve.

But can you guess what induced our friend to stay here so patiently? First, he had the pleasure of my company, and I presume that circumstance alone was sufficient to make him patient. Then he saved me a great deal of confusion, and was of service to me in my business; a friend is never tired of such offices. A third reason which you have probably conjectured, though you pretend not to know it, is that he talked to me about you; and if we subtract the time employed in this conversation from the whole time which he has passed here, you will find that there is very little remaining to be placed to my account. But what an odd whim, to leave you, in order to have the pleasure of talking of you! Not so odd as may be imagined. He is under constraint in your company; he must be continually upon his guard; the least indiscretion would become a crime, and in those dangerous moments, minds endued with sentiments of honour, never fail to recollect their duty; but when we are remote from the object of our affections, we may indulge ourselves with feasting our imaginations. If we stifle an idea when it becomes criminal, why should we reproach ourselves for having entertained it when it was not so? Can the pleasing recollection of innocent pleasures, ever be a crime? This, I imagine, is a way of reasoning, which you will not acquiesce in, but which nevertheless may be admitted. He began, as I may say, to run over the whole course of his former affections. The days of his youth passed over a second time in our conversation. He renewed all his confidence in me; he recalled the happy time, in which he was permitted to love you; he painted to my imagination, all the charms of an innocent passion——Without doubt, he embellished them!

He said little of his present condition with regard to you, and what he mentioned rather denoted respect and admiration, than love; so that I have the pleasure to think that he will return, much more confident as to the nature of his affections, than when he came hither. Not but that, when you are the subject, one may perceive at the bottom of that susceptible mind, a certain tenderness, which friendship alone, though not less affecting, still expresses in a different manner; but I have long observed that it is impossible to see you, or to think of you with indifference; and if to that general affection which the sight of you inspires, we add the more tender impression which an indelible recollection must have left upon his mind, we shall find that it is difficult and almost impossible that, with the most rigid virtue, he should be otherwise than he is. I have fully interrogated him, carefully observed him, and watched him narrowly; I have examined him with the utmost attention. I cannot read his inmost thoughts, nor do I believe them more intelligible to himself: but I can answer, at least, that he is struck with a sense of his duty and of yours, and that the idea of Eloisa abandoned and contemptible, would be more horrible than his own annihilation. My dear cousin, I have but one piece of advice to give you, and I desire you to attend to it; avoid any detail concerning what is passed, and I will take upon me to answer for the future.

With regard to the restitution which you mentioned, you must think no more of it. After having exhausted all the reasons I could suggest, I intreated him, pressed him, conjured him, but in vain. I pouted, I even kissed him, I took hold of both his hands, and would have fallen on my knees to him if he would have suffered me; but he would not so much as hear me. He carried the obstinacy of his humour so far, as to swear that he would sooner consent never to see you again, than part with your picture. At last, in a fit of passion, he made me feel it. It was next his heart. There, said he, with a sigh which almost stopped his breath, there is the picture, the only comfort I have left, and of which nevertheless you would deprive me; be assured that it shall never be torn from me, but at the expense of my life. Believe me, Eloisa, we had better be discreet, and suffer him to keep the picture. Afterall, where is the importance? His obstinacy will be his punishment.

After he had thoroughly unburthened and eased his mind, he appeared so composed that I ventured to talk to him about his situation. I found that neither time nor reason had made any alteration in his system, and that he confined his whole ambition to the passing his life in the service of Lord B——. I could not but approve such honourable intentions, so consistent with his character, and so becoming that gratitude, which is due to such unexhausted kindness. He told me that you were of the same opinion; but that Mr. Wolmar was silent. A sudden thought strikes me. From your husband’s singular conduct, and other symptoms, I suspect that he has some secret design upon our friend, which he does not disclose. Let us leave him to himself, and trust to his discretion. The manner in which he behaves, sufficiently proves that, if my conjecture is right, he meditates nothing but what will be for the advantage of the person, about whom he has taken such uncommon pains.

You gave a very just description of his figure and of his manners, which proves that you have observed him more attentively than I should have imagined. But don’t you find that his continued anxieties have rendered his countenance more expressive than it used to be? Notwithstanding the account you gave me, I was afraid to find him tinctured with that affected politeness, those apish manners which people seldom fail to contract at Paris, and which, in the round of trifles which employ an indolent day, are vainly displayed under different modes. Whether it be that some minds are not susceptible of this polish, or whether the sea air entirely effaced it, I could not discover in him the least marks of affectation; and all the zeal he expressed for me, seemed to flow entirely from the dictates of his heart. He talked to me about my poor husband; but instead of comforting me, he chose to join with me in bewailing him, and never once attempted to make any fine speeches on the subject. He caressed my daughter, but instead of admiring her as I do, he reproached me with her failings, and, like you, complained that I spoiled her; he entered into my concerns with great zeal, and was seldom of my opinion in any respect. Moreover, the wind might have blown my eyes out, before he would have thought of drawing a curtain; I might have been fatigued to death in going from one room to another, before he would have had gallantry enough to have stretched out his hand, covered with the skirt of his coat, to support me: my fan lay upon the ground yesterday for more than a second, and he did not fly from the bottom of the room, as if he was going to snatch it out of the fire. In the morning, before he came to visit me, he never once sent to inquire how I did. When we are walking together, he does not affect to have his hat nailed upon his head, to shew that he knows the pink of the mode. [52] At table, I frequently asked him for his snuff-box, which he always gave me in his hand, and never presented it upon a plate, like a fine gentleman; or rather like a footman. He did not fail to drink my health twice at least at dinner, and I will lay a wager that if he stays with us this winter, we shall see him sit round the fire with us, and warm himself like an old cit. You laugh, cousin; but shew me one of our gallants newly arrived from Paris, who preserves the same manly deportment. As to the rest, I think you must allow that our philosopher is altered for the worse in one respect, which is, that he takes rather more notice of people who speak to him, which he cannot do but to your prejudice; nevertheless, I hope that I shall be able to reconcile him to Madam Belon. For my part, I think him altered for the better, because he is more serious than ever. My dear, take great care of him till my arrival. He is just the man I could wish to have the pleasure of plaguing all day long.

Admire my discretion; I have taken no notice yet of the present I send you, and which is an earnest of another to come. But you have received it before you opened my letter, and you know how much, and with what reason I idolize it; you, whose avarice is so anxious about this present, you must acknowledge that I have performed more than I promised. Ah! the dear little creature! While you are reading this, she is already in your arms; she is happier than her mother; but in two months time I shall be happier than she, for I shall be more sensible of my felicity. Alas! dear cousin, do not you possess me wholly already? Where you and my daughter are, what part of me is wanting? There she is, the dear little infant; take her as your own; I give her up; I put her into your hands: I consign all maternal authority over to you; correct my failings; take that charge upon yourself, of which I acquitted myself so little to your liking: henceforward be as a mother to her, who is one day to be your daughter-in-law, and to render her dearer to me still, make another Eloisa of her if possible. She is like you in the face already; as to her temper, I guess that she will be grave and thoughtful; when you have corrected those little caprices which I have been accused of encouraging you will find that my daughter will give herself the airs of my cousin; but she will be happier than Eloisa in having less tears to shed, and less struggles to encounter. Do you know that she can’t be any longer without her little M——, and that it is partly for that reason I send her back? I had a conversation with her yesterday, which made our friends ready to die with laughing. First, she leaves me without the least regret, I, who am her humble servant all day long, and can deny her nothing she asks for; and you, of whom she is afraid, and who answer her, No, twenty times a day; you, by way of excellence, are her little mamma, whom she visits with pleasure, and whose denials she likes better than all my fine presents: when I told her that I was going to send her to you, she was transported as you may imagine; but to perplex her, I told her that you, in return was to send me little M.——in her stead, and that was not agreeable to her. She was quite at a non-plus, and asked what I would do with him. I told her that I would take him to myself: she began to pout. Harriot, said I, won’t you give up your little M——to me? No, said she, somewhat coldly. No? But if I won’t give him up neither, who shall settle it between us? Mamma, my little mamma shall settle it. Then I shall have the preference, for you know she will do whatever I desire. Oh, but mamma will do nothing but what’s right! And do you think I should desire what’s wrong? The sly little jade began to smile. But after all, I continued, for what reason should she refuse to give me little M——? Because he is not fit for you. And why is he not fit for me? Another arch smile as full of meaning as the former. Tell me honestly, is it not because you think me too old for him? No, mamma, but he is too young for you... This from a child but seven years old...

I amused myself with piquing her still farther. My dear Henriette, said I, assuming a serious air, I assure you that he is not fit for you neither. Why so? she cried, as if she had been suddenly alarmed. Because he is too giddy for you. Oh, mamma, is that all? I will make him wise. But if unfortunately he should make you foolish? Then, mamma, I should be like you. Like me, impertinence? Yes, mamma, you are saying all day that you are foolishly fond of me. Well then, I will be foolishly fond of him, that’s all.

I know you don’t approve of this pretty prattle, and that you will soon know how to check it. Neither will I justify it, though I own it delights me; but I only mention it to convince you, that my daughter is already in love with her little M——, and that if he is two years younger than her, she is not unworthy of that authority, which she may claim by right of seniority. I perceive likewise, by opposing your example and my own to that of your poor mother’s, that where the woman governs, the house is not the worse managed. Farewell, my dear friend; farewell, my constant companion! The time is approaching, and the vintage shall not be gathered without me.

Letter CXXIX. To Lord B——.

What pleasures, too late enjoy’d, (alas, enjoy’d too late) have I tasted these three weeks past! How delightful to pass one day in the bosom of calm friendship, secure from the tempests of impetuous passion! What a pleasing and affecting scene, my Lord, is a plain and well-regulated family, where order, peace, and innocence reign throughout; where, without pomp or retinue, everything is assembled, which can contribute to the real felicity of mankind! The country, the retirement, the season, the vast body of water which opens to my view, the wild prospect of the mountains, everything conspires to recall to my mind the delightful island of Tinian. I flatter myself that the earnest prayers, which I there so often repeated, are now accomplished. I live here agreeably to my taste, and enjoy society suitable to my liking. I only want the company of two persons to compleat my happiness, and I hope to see them here soon.

In the mean time, till you and Mrs. Orbe come to perfect those charming and innocent pleasures, which I begin to relish here, I will endeavour, by way of detail, to give you an idea of that domestic economy, which proclaims the happiness of the master and mistress, and communicates their felicity to every one under their roof. I hope that my reflections may one day be of use to you, with respect to the project you have in view, and this hope encourages me to pursue them.

I need not give you a description of Clarens house. You know it. You can tell how delightful it is, what interesting recollections it presents to my mind; you can judge how dear it must be to me, both on account of the present scenes it exhibits, and of those which it recalls to my mind. Mrs. Wolmar, with good reason, prefers this abode to that of Etange, a superb and magnificent castle, but old, inconvenient, and gloomy, its situation being far inferior to the country round Clarens.

Since Mr. and Mrs. Wolmar have fixed their residence here, they have converted to use every thing which served only for ornament: it is no longer a house for shew, but for convenience. They have shut up a long sweep of rooms, to alter the inconvenient situation of the doors; they have cut off some over-sized rooms, that the apartments might be better distributed. Instead of rich and antique furniture, they have substituted what is neat and convenient. Every thing here is pleasant and agreeable; every thing breathes an air of plenty and propriety, without any appearance of pomp and luxury. There is not a single room, in which you do not immediately recollect that you are in the country, but in which, nevertheless, you will find all the conveniences you meet with in town. The same alterations are observable without doors. The yard has been enlarged at the expense of the coach-houses. Instead of an old tattered billiard-table, they have made a fine press, and the spot which used to be filled with screaming peacocks, which they have parted with, is converted into a dairy. The kitchen-garden was too small for the kitchen; they have made another out of a flower garden, but so convenient and so well laid out, that the spot, thus transformed, looks more agreeable to the eye than before. Instead of the mournful yews which covered the wall, they have planted good fruit-trees. In the room of the useless Indian black-berry, fine young mulberry-trees now begin to shade the yard, and they have planted two rows of walnut-trees quite to the road, in the place of some old linden trees which bordered the avenue. They have throughout substituted the useful in the room of the agreeable, and yet the agreeable has gained by the alteration. For my own part, at least, I think that the noise of the yard, the crowing of the cocks, the lowing of the cattle, the harness of the carts, the rural repasts, the return of the husband-men, and all the train of rustic economy, give the house a more rural, more lively, animated and gay appearance, than it had in its former state of mournful dignity.

Their estate is not out upon lease, but they are their own farmers, and the cultivation of it employs a great deal of their time, and makes a great part both of their pleasure and profit. The manor of Etange is nothing but meadow, pasture and wood: but the produce of Clarens consists of vineyards, which are considerable objects, and in which, the difference of culture produces more sensible effects than in corn; which is a farther reason why, in point of economy, they should prefer the latter as a place of residence. Nevertheless, they generally go to Etange every year at harvest time, and Mr. Wolmar visits it frequently. It is a maxim with them, to cultivate their lands to the utmost they will produce, not for the sake of extraordinary profit, but as a means of employing more hands. Mr. Wolmar maintains that the produce of the earth is in proportion to the number of hands employed; the better it is tilled, the more it yields; and the surplus of its produce furnishes the means of cultivating it still farther; the more it is stocked with men and cattle, the greater abundance it yields for their support. No one can tell, says he, where this continual and reciprocal increase of produce and of labour may end. On the contrary, land neglected loses its fertility; the less men a country produces, the less provisions it furnishes. The scarcity of inhabitants is the reason why it is insufficient to maintain the few it has, and in every country which tends to depopulation, the people will sooner or later die of famine.

Therefore having a great deal of land, which they cultivate with the utmost industry, they require, besides the servants in the yard, a great number of day labourers, which procures them the pleasure of maintaining a great number of people without any inconvenience to themselves. In the choice of their labourers, they always prefer neighbours and those of the same place, to strangers and foreigners. Though by this means they may sometimes be losers in not choosing the most robust, yet this loss is soon made up by the affection which this preference inspires in those whom they chuse, by the advantage likewise of having them always about them, and of being able to depend on them at all times, though they keep them in pay but part of the year.

They always make two prices with these labourers. One is a strict payment of right, the current price of the country, which they engage to pay them when they hire them. The other, which is more liberal, is a payment of generosity; it is bestowed only as they are found to deserve it, and it seldom happens that they do not earn the surplus: for Mr. Wolmar is just and strict, and never suffers institutions of grace and favour to degenerate into custom and abuse. Over these labourers there are overseers, who watch and encourage them. These overseers work along with the rest; and are interested in their labour, by a little augmentation which is made to their wages, for every advantage that is reaped from their industry. Besides, Mr. Wolmar visits them almost every day himself, sometimes often in a day, and his wife loves to take these walks with him. In times of extraordinary business, Eloisa every week bestows some little gratifications to such of the labourers, or other servants, as, in the judgment of their master, shall have been most industrious for eight days past. All these means of promoting emulation, though seemingly expensive, when used with justice and discretion, insensibly make people laborious and diligent, and in the end bring in more than is disbursed; but as they turn to no profit, but by time and perseverance, few people know any thing of them, or are willing to make use of them.

But the most effectual method of all, which is peculiar to Mrs. Wolmar, and which they who are bent on economy seldom think of, is that of gaining the hearts of those good people, by making them the objects of her affection. She does not think it sufficient to reward their industry, by giving them money, but she thinks herself bound to do farther services to those who have contributed to hers. Labourers, domestics, all who serve her, if it be but for a day, become her children; she takes part in their pleasures, their cares, and their fortune; she inquires into their affairs, and makes their interests her own; she engages in a thousand concerns for them, she gives them her advice, she composes their differences, and does not shew the affability of her disposition in smooth and fruitless speeches, but in real services, and continual acts of benevolence. They, on their parts, leave everything to serve her, on the least motion. They fly when she speaks to them; her look alone animates their zeal; in her presence they are contented; in her absence they talk of her, and are eager to be employed. Her charms, and her manner of conversing do a great deal, but her gentleness and her virtues do more. Ah! my Lord, what a powerful and adorable empire is that of benevolent beauty!

With respect to their personal attendants, they have within doors eight servants, three women and five men, without reckoning the baron’s valet de chambre, or the servants in the out-houses. It seldom happens that people, who have but few domestics, are ill served; but, from the uncommon zeal of these servants, one would conclude that each thought himself charged with the business of the other seven, and from the harmony among them, one would imagine that the whole business was done by one man. You never see them in the out-houses idle and unemployed, or playing in the court-yard, but always about some useful employment; they help in the yard, in the cellar, and in the kitchen; The gardener has nobody under him but them, and what is most agreeable, you see them do all this chearfully and with pleasure.

They take them young, in order to form them to their minds. They do not follow the maxim here, which prevails at Paris and London, of choosing domestics ready formed, that is to say, compleat rascals, runners of quality, who in every family they go through, catch the failings both of master and man, and make a trade of serving every body, without being attached to any one. There can be neither honesty, fidelity, or zeal among such fellows, and this collection of rabble serves to ruin the masters and corrupt the children in all wealthy families. Here, the choice of domestics is considered as an article of importance. They do not regard them merely as mercenaries, from whom they only require a stipulated service, but as members of a family, which, should they be ill chosen, might be ruined by that means. The first thing they require of them is to be honest, the next is to love their master, and the third to serve him to his liking; but where a master is reasonable, and servant intelligent, the third is the consequence of the two first. Therefore they do not take them from town, but from the country. This is the first place they live in, and it will assuredly be the last if they are good for any thing. They take them out of some numerous family overstocked with children, whose parents come to offer them of their own accord. They chuse them young, well made, healthy, and of a pleasant countenance. Mr. Wolmar interrogates and examines them, and then presents them to his wife. If they prove agreeable to both, they are received at first upon trial, afterwards they are admitted among the number of servants, or more properly the children of the family, and they employ some days in teaching their duty with a great deal of care and patience. The service is so simple, so equal and uniform, the master and mistress are so little subject to whims and caprice, and the servants so soon conceive an affection for them, that their business is soon learned. Their condition is agreeable; they find conveniences which they had not at home; but they are not suffered to be enervated by idleness, the parent of all vice. They do not allow them to become gentlemen, and to grow proud in their service. They continue to work as they did with their own family; in fact, they do but change their father and mother, and get more wealthy parents. They do not therefore hold their old rustic employments in contempt. Whenever they leave this place, there is not one of them who had not rather turn peasant, than take any other employment. In short, I never saw a family, where every one acquits himself so well in his service, and thinks so little of the trouble of servitude.

Thus by training up their servants themselves, in this discreet manner, they guard against the objection which is so very trifling, and so frequently made, viz. “I shall only bring them up for the service of others.” Train them properly, one might answer, and they will never serve any one else. If in bringing them up, you solely regard your own benefit, they have a right to consult their own interest in quitting you; but if you seem to consider their advantage, they will remain constantly attached to you. It is the intention alone which constitutes the obligation, and he who is indirectly benefited by an act of kindness, wherein I meant to serve my self only, owes me no obligation whatever.

As a double preventive against this inconvenience, Mr. and Mrs. Wolmar take another method, which appears to me extremely prudent. At the first establishment of their houshold, they calculated what number of servants their fortune would allow them to keep, and they found it to amount to fifteen or sixteen; in order to be better served they made a reduction of half that number; so that with less retinue, their service is more exactly attended. To be more effectually served still, they have made it the interest of their servants to continue with them a long time. When a domestic first enters into their service, he receives the common wages; but those wages are augmented every year by a twentieth part: so that at the end of twenty years, they will be more than doubled, and the charge of keeping these servants will be nearly the same, in proportion to the master’s circumstances. But there is no need of being a deep algebraist to discover that the expense of this augmentation is more in appearance than reality, that there will be but few to whom double wages will be paid, and that if they were paid to all the servants, yet the benefit of having been well served for twenty years past, would more than compensate the extraordinary expense. You perceive, my Lord, that this is a certain expedient of making servants grow continually more and more careful, and of attaching them to you, by attaching yourself to them. There is not only prudence, but justice in such a provision. Is it reasonable that a new-comer, who has no affection for you, and who is perhaps an unworthy object, should receive the same salary, at his first entrance into the family, as an old servant, whose zeal and fidelity have been tried in a long course of services, and who besides, being grown in years, draws near the time when he will be incapable of providing for himself? The latter reason, however, must not be brought into the account, and you may easily imagine that such a benevolent master and mistress do not fail to discharge that duty, which many, who are devoid of charity, fulfill out of ostentation; and you may suppose that they do not abandon those whose infirmities or old age render them incapable of service.

I can give you a very striking instance of their attention to this duty. The Baron D’Etange being desirous to recompense the long services of his valet de chambre, by procuring him an honourable retreat, had the interest to obtain for him the L.S.E.E. an easy and lucrative post. Eloisa has just now received a most affecting letter from this old servant, in which he intreats her to get him excused from accepting this employment. “I am in years, says he, I have lost all my family; I have no relations but my master and his family; all my hope is to end my days quietly in the house where I have passed the greatest part, of them. Often, dear madam, as I have held you in my arms when but an infant, I prayed to heaven that I might one day hold your little ones in the same manner. My prayers have been heard; do not deny me the happiness of seeing them grow and prosper like you. I who have been accustomed to a quiet family, where shall I find such another place of rest in my old age? Be so kind to write to the Baron in my behalf. If he is dissatisfied with me, let him turn me off, and give me no employment; but if I have served him faithfully for these forty years past, let him allow me to end my days in his service and yours; he cannot reward me better.” It is needless to enquire whether Eloisa wrote to the Baron or not. I perceive that she would be as unwilling to part with this good man, as he would be to leave her. Am I wrong, my Lord, when I compare a master and mistress, thus beloved, to good parents, and their servants to obedient children? You find that they consider themselves in this light.

There is not a single instance in this family of a servant’s giving warning. It is even very seldom that they are threatened with a dismission. A menace of this kind alarms them in proportion as their service is pleasant and agreeable. The best subjects are always the soonest alarmed, and there is never any occasion to come to extremities but with such as are not worth regretting. They have likewise a rule in this respect. When Mr. Wolmar says, I discharge you, they may then implore Mrs. Wolmar to intercede for them, and through her intercession may be restored; but if she gives them warning, it is irrevocable, and they have no favour to expect. This agreement between them is very well calculated both to moderate the extreme confidence which her gentleness might beget in them, and the violent apprehensions they might conceive from his inflexibility. Such a warning nevertheless is excessively dreaded from a just and dispassionate master; for besides that they are not certain of obtaining favour, and that the same person is never pardoned twice, they forfeit the right which they acquire from their long service, by having had warning given, and when they are restored, they begin a new service as it were. This prevents the old servants from growing insolent, and makes them more circumspect, in proportion as they have more to lose.

The three maid-servants are, the chamber-maid, the governess, and the cook. The latter is a country girl, very proper and well qualified for the place, whom Mrs. Wolmar has instructed in cookery: for in this country, which is as yet in some measure in a state of simplicity, young ladies learn to do that business themselves, that when they keep house, they may be able to direct their servants; and consequently are less liable to be imposed upon by them. B——is no longer the chambermaid; they have sent her back to Etange, where she was born; they have again entrusted her with the care of the castle, and the superintendence of the receipts, which makes her in some degree comptroller of the houshold. Mr. Wolmar intreated his wife to make this regulation; but it was a long time before she could resolve to part with an old servant of her mother’s, though she had more than one reason to be displeased with her. But after their last conference, she gave her consent, and B——is gone. This girl is handy and honest, but babbling and indiscreet. I suspect that she has, more than once, betrayed the secrets of her mistress, that Mr. Wolmar is sensible of it, and to prevent her being guilty of the same indiscretion with respect to a stranger, he has prudently taken this method to avail himself of her good qualities, without running any hazard from her imperfections. She who is taken in her room, is that same Fanny, of whom you have often heard me speak with so much pleasure. Notwithstanding Eloisa’s prediction, her favours, her father’s kindness and yours, this deserving and discreet woman has not been happy in her connection. Claud Anet, who endured adversity so bravely, could not support a more prosperous state. When he found himself at ease, he neglected his business, and his affairs being quite embarrassed, he fled the country, leaving his wife with an infant whom she has since lost. Eloisa having taken her home, instructed her in the business of a chamber-maid, and I was never more agreeably surprized than to find her settled in her employment, the first day of my arrival. Mr. Wolmar pays great regard to her, and they have both entrusted her with the charge of superintending their children, and of having an eye likewise over their governess, who is a simple credulous country lass, but attentive, patient, and tractable; so that in short, they have omitted no precaution to prevent the vices of the town from creeping into a family, where the master and mistress are strangers to them, and will not suffer them under their roof.

Though there is but one table among all the servants, yet there is but little communication between the men and women, and this they consider as a point of great importance. Mr. Wolmar is not of the same opinion with those masters, who are indifferent to every thing which does not immediately concern their interests, and who only desire to be well served, without troubling themselves about what their servants do beside. He thinks, on the contrary, that they who regard nothing but their own service, cannot be well served. Too close a connection between the two sexes, frequently occasions mischief. The disorders of most families arise from the rendezvous which are held in the chamber-maid’s apartment. If there is one whom the steward happens to be fond of, he does not fail to seduce her at the expense of his master. A good understanding among the men, or among the women, is not alone sufficiently firm to produce any material consequences. But it is always between the men and the women that those secret monopolies are established, which in the end ruin the most wealthy families. They pay a particular attention therefore to the discretion and modesty of the women, not only from principles of honesty and morality, but from well-judged motives of interest. For whatever some may pretend, no one who does not love his duty, can discharge it as he ought; and none ever loved their duty, who were devoid of honour.

They do not, to prevent any dangerous intimacy between the two sexes, restrain them by positive rules which they might be tempted to violate in secret, but without any seeming intention, they establish good customs, which are more powerful than authority itself. They do not forbid any intercourse between them, but ’tis contrived in such a manner that they have no occasion or inclination to see each other. This is effectuated by making their business, their habits, their tastes, and their pleasures entirely different. To maintain the admirable order which they have established, they are sensible that in a well-regulated family there should be as little correspondence as possible between the two sexes. They, who would accuse their master of caprice, was he to enforce such a rule by way of injunction, submit, without regret, to a manner of life which is not positively prescribed to them, but which they themselves conceive to be the best and most natural. Eloisa insists that it must be so in fact; she maintains that neither love nor conjugal union is the result of a continual commerce between the sexes. In her opinion, husband and wife were designed to live together, but not to live in the same manner. They ought to act in concert, but not to do the same things. The kind of life, says she, which would delight the one, would be insupportable to the other; the inclinations which nature has given them, are as different as the occupations she has assigned them: they differ in their amusements as much as in their duties. In a word, each contributes to the common good by different ways, and the proper distribution of their several cares and employments, is the strongest tie that cements their union.

For my own part, I confess that my observations are much in favour of this maxim. In fact, is it not the general practice, except among the French, and those who imitate them, for the men and women to live separately? If they see each other, it is rather by short interviews, and as it were by stealth, as the Spartans visited their wives, than by an indiscreet and constant intercourse, sufficient to confound and destroy the wisest bounds of distinction which nature has set between them. We do not, even among the savages, see men and women intermingle indiscriminately. In the evening, the family meet together; every one passes the night with his wife; when the day begins, they separate again, and the two sexes enjoy nothing in common, but their meals at most. This is the order, which, from its universality, appears to be most natural, and even in those countries where it is perverted, we may perceive some vestiges of it remaining. In France, where the men have submitted to live after the fashion of the women, and to be continually shut up in a room with them, you may perceive from their involuntary motions that they are under confinement. While the ladies, sit quietly, or loll upon their couch, you may perceive the men get up, go, come, and sit down again, perpetually restless, as if a kind of mechanical instinct continually counteracted the restraint they suffered, and prompted them, in their own respite, to that active and laborious life for which nature intended them. They are the only people in the world where the men stand at the theatre, as if they went into the pit to relieve themselves of the fatigue of having been sitting all day in a dining room. In short, they are to sensible of the irksomeness of this effeminate and sedentary indolence, that in order to checquer it with some degree of activity at least, they yield their places at home to strangers, and go to other mens’ wives in order to alleviate their disgust!

The example of Mrs. Wolmar’s family contributes greatly to support the maxim she establishes. Every one, as it were, being confined to their proper sex, the women there live in a great measure apart from the men. In order to prevent any suspicious connections between them, her great secret is to keep both one and the other constantly employed; for their occupations are so different, that nothing but idleness can bring them together. In the morning, each apply to their proper business, and no one is at leisure to interrupt the other. After dinner, the men are employed in the garden, the yard, or in some other rural occupation: the women are busy in the nursery till the hour comes at which they take a walk with the children, and sometimes indeed with the mistress, which is very agreeable to them, as it is the only time in which they take the air. The men, being sufficiently tired with their day’s work, have seldom any inclination to walk, and therefore rest themselves within doors.

Every Sunday, after evening service, the women meet again in the nursery, with some friend or relation whom they invite in their turns by Mrs. Wolmar’s consent. There, they have a little collation prepared for them by Eloisa’s direction; and she permits them to chat, sing, run or play at some little game of skill, fit to please children, and such as they may bear a part in themselves. The entertainment is composed of syllabubs, cream, and different kinds of cakes, with such other little viands as suit the taste of women and children. Wine is almost excluded, and the men, who are rarely admitted of this little female party, never are present at this collation, which Eloisa seldom misses. I am the only man who has obtained this privilege. Last Sunday, with great importunity, I got leave to attend her there. She took great pains to make me consider it as a very singular favour. She told me aloud that she granted it for that once only, and that she had even refused Mr. Wolmar himself. You may imagine whether this difficulty of admission does not flatter female vanity a little, and whether a footman would be a welcome visitor, where his master was excluded.

I made a most delicious repast with them. Where will you find such cream-cakes as we have here? Imagine what they must be, made in a dairy where Eloisa presides, and eaten in her company. Fanny presented me with some cream, some seed cake, and other little comfits. All was gone in an instant. Eloisa smiled at my appetite. I find, said she, giving me another plate of cream, that your appetite does you credit every where, and that you make as good a figure among a club of females, as you do among the Valaisians. But I do not, answered I, make the repast with more impunity; the one may be attended with intoxication as well as the other; and reason may be as much distracted in a nursery, as in a wine cellar. She cast her eyes down without making any reply, blushed, and began to play with her children. This was enough to sting me with remorse. This, my Lord, was my first indiscretion, and I hope it will be the last.

There was a certain air of primitive simplicity in this assembly, which affected me very sensibly. I perceived the same chearfulness in every countenance, and perhaps more openness than if there had been men in company. The familiarity which was observable between the mistress and her servants, being founded on sincere attachment and confidence, only served to establish respect and authority; and the services rendered and received, appeared like so many testimonies of reciprocal friendship. There was nothing, even to the very choice of the collation, but what contributed to make this assembly engaging. Milk and sugar are naturally adapted to the taste of the fair sex, and may be deemed the symbols of innocence and sweetness, which are their most becoming ornaments. Men, on the contrary, are fond of high flavours, and strong liquors; a kind of nourishment more suitable to the active and laborious life for which nature has designed them; and when these different tastes come to be blended, it is an infallible sign that the distinction between the two sexes is inordinately confounded. In fact, I have observed that in France, where the women constantly intermix with the men, they have entirely lost their relish for milk meats, and the men have in some measure lost their taste for wine; and in England, where the two sexes are better distinguished, the proper taste of each is better preserved. In general, I am of opinion, that you may very often form some judgment of people’s disposition, from their choice of food. The Italians, who live a great deal on vegetables, are soft and effeminate. You Englishmen, who are great eaters of meat, have something harsh in your rigid virtue, and which favours of barbarism. The Swiss, who is naturally of a calm, gentle and cold constitution, but hot and violent when in a passion, is fond both of one and the other, and drinks milk and wine indiscriminately. The Frenchman, who is pliant and changeable, lives upon all kinds of food, and conforms himself to every taste. Eloisa herself may serve as an instance: for though she makes her meals with a keen appetite, yet she does not love meat, ragouts, or salt, and never yet tasted wine by itself. Some excellent roots, eggs, cream and fruit, compose her ordinary diet, and was it not for fish, of which she is likewise very fond, she would be a thorough Pythagorean.

To keep the women in order would signify nothing, if the men were not likewise under proper regulations; and this branch of domestic economy, which is not of less importance, is still more difficult; for the attack is generally more lively than the defence: the guardian of human nature intended it so. In the common wealth, citizens are kept in order by principles of morality and virtue; but how are we to keep servants and mercenaries under proper regulations, otherwise than by force and restraint? The art of a master consists in disguising this restraint under the veil of pleasure and interest, that what they are obliged to do, may seem the result of their own inclination. Sunday being a day of idleness, and servants having a right of going where they please, when business does not require their duty at home, that one day often destroys all the good examples and lessons of the other six. The habit of frequenting public houses, the converse and maxims of their comrades, the company of loose women, soon render them unserviceable to their masters, and unprofitable to themselves; and by teaching them a thousand vices, make them unfit for servitude, and unworthy of liberty.

To remedy this inconvenience, they endeavour to keep them at home by the same motives which induce them to go abroad. Why do they go abroad? To drink and play at a public house. They drink and play at home. All the difference is, that the wine costs them nothing, that they do not get drunk, and that there are some winners at play, without any losers. The following is the method taken for this purpose.

Behind the house is a shady walk, where they have fixed the lifts. There, in the summertime, the livery servants and the men in the yard meet every Sunday after sermon time, to play in little detached parties, not for money, for it is not allowed, nor for wine, which is given them; but for a prize furnished by their master’s generosity: which is generally some piece of goods or apparel fit for their use. The number of games is in proportion to the value of the prize, so that when the prize is somewhat considerable, as a pair of silver buckles, a neckcloth, a pair of silk stockings, a fine hat, or any thing of that kind, they have generally several bouts to decide it. They are not confined to one particular game, but they change them, that one man, who happens to excel in a particular game, may not carry off all the prizes, and that they may grow stronger and more dextrous by a variety of exercises. At one time, the contest is who shall first reach a mark at the other end of the walk; at another time it is who shall throw the same stone farthest; then again it is who shall carry the same weight longest. Sometimes they contend for a prize by shooting at a mark. Most of these games are attended with some little preparations, which serve to prolong them; and render them entertaining. Their master and mistress often honour them with their presence; they sometimes take their children with them; nay even strangers resort thither, excited by curiosity, and they desire nothing better than to bear a share in the sport; but none are ever admitted without Mr. Wolmar’s approbation and the consent of the players, who would not find their account in granting it readily. This custom has imperceptibly become a kind of shew, in which the actors, being animated by the presence of the spectators, prefer the glory of applause to the lucre of the prize. As these exercises make them more active and vigorous, they set a greater value on themselves, and being accustomed to estimate their importance from their own intrinsic worth, rather than from their possessions, they prize honour, notwithstanding they are footmen, beyond money.

It would be tedious to enumerate all the advantages which they derive from a practice so trifling in appearance, and which is always despised by little minds; but it is the prerogative of true genius to produce great effects by inconsiderable means. Mr. Wolmar has assured me that these little institutions which his wife first suggested, scares stood him in fifty crowns a year. But, said he, how often do you think I am repaid this sum in my housekeeping and my affairs in general, by the vigilance and attention with which I am served by these faithful servants, who derive all their pleasures from their master; by the interest they take in a family which they consider as their own; by the advantage I reap, in their labours, from the vigour they acquire at their exercises; by the benefit of keeping them always in health, in preserving them from those exercises which are common to men in their station, and from those disorders which frequently attend such excesses; by securing them from any propensity to knavery, which is an infallible consequence of irregularity, and by confirming them in the practice of honesty; in short, by the pleasure of having such agreeable recreations within ourselves at such a trifling expense? If there are any among them, either man or woman, who do not care to conform to our regulations, but prefer the liberty of going where they please on various pretences, we never refuse to give them leave; but we consider this licentious turn as a very suspicious symptom, and we are always ready to mistrust such dispositions. Thus these little amusements which furnish us with good servants, serve also as a direction to us in the choice of them.——I must confess my Lord, that, except in this family, I never saw the same men made good domestics for personal service, good husbandmen for tilling the ground, good soldiers for the defence of their country, and honest fellows in any station into which fortune may chance to throw them.

In the winter, their pleasures vary as well as their labours. On a Sunday, all the servants in the family and even the neighbours, men and women indiscriminately, meet after service-time in a hall where there is a good fire, some wine, fruits, cakes, and a fiddle to which they dance. Mrs. Wolmar never fails to be present for some time at least, in order to preserve decorum and modesty by her presence, and it is not uncommon for her to dance herself, though among her own people. When I was first made acquainted with this custom, it appeared to me not quite conformable to the strictness of Protestant morals. I told Eloisa so; and she answered me to the following effect.

Pure morality is charged with so many severe duties, that if it is over burthened with forms which are in themselves indifferent they will always be of prejudice to what is really essential. This is said to be the case with the monks in general, who being slaves to rules totally immaterial, are utter strangers to the meaning of honour and virtue. This defeat is less observable among us, though we are not wholly exempt from it. Our churchmen, who are as much superior to other priests in knowledge, as our religion is superior to all others in purity, do nevertheless maintain some maxims, which seem to be rather founded on prejudice than reason. Of this kind, is that which condemns dancing and assemblies, as if there were more harm in dancing than singing, as if each of these amusements were not equally a propensity of nature, and as if it were a crime to divert ourselves publicly with an innocent and harmless recreation. For my own part, I think, on the contrary, that every time there is a concourse of the two sexes, every public diversion becomes innocent, by being public; whereas the most laudable employment becomes suspicious in a tete a tete party. [53] Man and woman were formed for each other, their union by marriage is the end of nature. All false religion is at war with nature, ours which conforms to and rectifies natural propensity, proclaims a divine institution which is most suitable to mankind. Religion ought not to increase the embarrassment which civil regulations throw in the way of matrimony, by difficulties which the gospel does not create, and which are contrary to the true spirit of Christianity. Let any one tell me which young people can have an opportunity of conceiving a mutual liking, and of seeing each other with more decorum and circumspection, than in an assembly where the eyes of the spectators being constantly upon them, oblige them to behave with peculiar caution? How can we offend God by an agreeable and wholesome exercise, suitable to the vivacity of youth, an exercise which consists in the art of presenting ourselves to each other with grace and elegance, and wherein the presence of the spectator imposes a decorum, which no one dares to violate? Can we conceive a more effectual method to avoid imposition with respect to person at least, by displaying ourselves with all our natural graces and defects before those whose interest it is to know us thoroughly, ere they oblige themselves to love us? Is not the obligation of reciprocal affection greater than that of self-love, and is it not an attention worthy of a pious and virtuous pair who propose to marry, thus to prepare their hearts for that mutual love, which heaven prompts.

What is the consequence, in those places where people are under a continual restraint, where the most innocent gaiety is punished as criminal, where the young people of different sexes dare not meet in public, and where the indiscreet severity of the pastor preaches nothing, in the name of God, but servile constraint, sadness and melancholy? They find means to elude an insufferable tyranny, which nature and reason disavow. When gay and sprightly youth are debarred from lawful pleasures, they substitute others more dangerous in their stead. Tete a tete parties artfully concerted, supply the place of public assemblies. By being obliged to concealment as if they were criminal, they at length become so in fact. Harmless joy loves to display itself in the face of the world, but vice is a friend to darkness; and innocence and secrecy never subsist long together. My dear friend, said she, grasping my hand, as if she meant to convey her repentance, and communicate the purity of her own heart to mine; who can be more sensible of the importance of this truth than ourselves? What sorrow and troubles, what tears and remorse we might have prevented for so many years past, if we could, but have foreseen how dangerous a tete a tete intercourse was to that virtue which we always loved!

Besides, said Mrs. Wolmar, in a softer tone, it is not in a numerous assembly, where we are seen and heard by all the world, but in private parties, where secrecy and freedom is indulged, that our morals are in danger. It is from this principle, that whenever my domestics meet, I am glad to see them all together. I even approve of their inviting such young people in the neighbourhood whose company will not corrupt them; and I hear with pleasure, that, when they mean to commend the morals of any of our young neighbours, they say——He is admitted at Mr. Wolmar’s. We have a farther view in this. Our men servants are all very young, and, among the women, the governess is yet single; it is not reasonable that the retired life they lead with us, should debar them of an opportunity of forming an honest connection. We endeavour therefore, in these little meetings, to give them this opportunity, under our inspection, that we may assist them in their choice; and thus by endeavouring to make happy families, we increase the felicity of our own.

I ought now to justify myself for dancing with these good people; but I rather chuse to pass sentence on myself in this respect, and I frankly confess that my chief motive is the pleasure I take in the exercise. You know that I always resembled my cousin in her passion for dancing; but after the death of my mother, I bade adieu to the ball and all public assemblies; I kept my resolution, even to the day of my marriage, and will keep it still, without thinking it any violation to dance now and then in my own house with my guests and my domestics. It is an exercise very good for my health during the sedentary life which we are obliged to live here in winter. I find it an innocent amusement; for after a good dance, my conscience does not reproach me. It amuses Mr. Wolmar likewise, and all my coquetry in this particular is only to please him. I am the occasion of his coming into the ball room; the good people are best satisfied when they are honoured with their master’s presence; and they express a satisfaction when they see me amongst them. In short, I find that such occasional familiarity forms an agreeable connection and attachment between us, which approaches nearer the natural condition of mankind, by moderating the meanness of servitude, and the rigour of authority.