Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Lewis Melville
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Here is another malicious story that appealed to Lady Mary's wayward
fancy,
"Mrs. Braithwayte, a Yorkshire beauty," she wrote to the same
correspondent in March, 1712, "who had been but two days married to a
Mr. Coleman, ran out of bed _en chemise_, and her husband followed her
in his, in which pleasant dress they ran as far as St. James's Street,
where they met with a chair, and prudently crammed themselves both into
it, observing the rule of dividing the good and bad fortune of this
life, resolved to run all hazards together, and ordered the chairmen to
carry them both away, perfectly representing, both in love and
nakedness, and want of eyes to see that they were naked, our first happy
parents. Sunday last I had the pleasure of hearing the whole history
from the lady's own mouth."
Love-affairs, other people's love-affairs anyhow, had an attraction for
Lady Mary. "You talk of the Duke of Leeds," she wrote. "I hear that he
has placed his heroic love upon the bright charms of a pewterer's wife;
and, after a long amour, and many perilous adventures, has stolen the
fair lady, which, in spite of his wrinkles and grandchild, persuade
people of his youth and gallantry." The nobleman in question, Peregrine
Osborne, second Duke of Leeds, was then fifty-six--which, after all,
regarded from the standpoint of to-day, is not such a great age as is
suggested by the story.
If Montagu objected to the indiscretions of Lady Mary, it does not
appear that he was in any hurry to get married to her. Of course, it may
be--it is only fair to him to say--that Lady Mary held him temporarily
at bay, preferring the frivolities of those of her own age to the
austere attentions of one who acted as if he might have been her father.
For some years she and Montagu were apparently content with writing long
letters to each other when they were not both in town. When the
correspondence started is uncertain. The first letter of Lady Mary that
has been preserved is dated Thoresby, May 2, 1709; but there can be no
doubt that they had been in regular communication before then.
It is specially to be noted that the earlier letters of Lady Mary were
addressed to Montagu's sister, Anne. It is evident, however, that they
were definitely written for his perusal, and it is equally clear that
Anne's replies were inspired, and sometimes, if not always, drafted by
him. This practice continued until the death of Anne Wortley in March,
1710. Yet there seems to have been no reason for this camouflage. In
1709 Lady Mary was twenty years of age, and Montagu was a very eligible
_parti_.
The respectful, highfalutin gallantry that is the key-note of the
correspondence recalls the correspondence that presently was exchanged
between Henrietta Howard, Countess of Suffolk, and the octogenarian Earl
of Peterborough.
Some typical passages from the letters to "My dear Mrs. Wortley" may be
given--it should be mentioned that it was the social custom of the day
to address as "Mrs." maiden ladies as well as married women.
"Thoresby, August 8, 1709.
"I know no pretence I have to your good opinion but my hearty desiring
it; I wish I had that imagination you talk of, to render me a fitter
correspondent for you, who can write so well on every thing. I am now so
much alone, I have leisure to pass whole days in reading, but am not at
all proper for so delicate an employment as choosing you books. Your own
fancy will better direct you. My study at present is nothing but
dictionaries and grammars. I am trying whether it be possible to learn
without a master; I am not certain (and dare hardly hope) I shall make
any great progress; but I find the study so diverting I am not only
easy, but pleased with the solitude that indulges it. I forget there is
such a place as London, and wish for no company but yours. You see, my
dear, in making my pleasures consist of these unfashionable diversions,
I am not of the number who cannot be easy out of the mode. I believe
more follies are committed out of complaisance to the world, than in
following our own inclinations--Nature is seldom in the wrong, custom
always; it is with some regret I follow it in all the impertinencies of
dress; the compliance is so trivial it comforts me; but I am amazed to
see it consulted even in the most important occasions of our lives; and
that people of good sense in other things can make their happiness
consist in the opinions of others, and sacrifice every thing in the
desire of appearing in fashion. I call all people who fall in love with
furniture, clothes, and equipage, of this number, and I look upon them
as no less in the wrong than when they were five years old, and doated
on shells, pebbles, and hobby-horses: I believe you will expect this
letter to be dated from the other world, for sure I am you never heard
an inhabitant of this talk so before. I suppose you expect, too, I
should conclude with begging pardon for this extreme tedious and very
nonsensical letter; quite contrary, I think you will be obliged to me
for it. I could not better show my great concern for your reproaching me
with neglect I knew myself innocent of, than proving myself mad in three
pages."
"August 21, 1709.
"I am infinitely obliged to you, my dear Mrs. Wortley, for the wit,
beauty, and other fine qualities, you so generously bestow upon me. Next
to receiving them from Heaven, you are the person from whom I would
chuse to receive gifts and graces: I am very well satisfied to owe them
to your own delicacy of imagination, which represents to you the idea of
a fine lady, and you have good nature enough to fancy I am she. All this
is mighty well, but you do not stop there; imagination is boundless.
After giving me imaginary wit and beauty, you give me imaginary
passions, and you tell me I'm in love: if I am, 'tis a perfect sin of
ignorance, for I don't so much as know the man's name: I have been
studying these three hours, and cannot guess who you mean. I passed the
days of Nottingham races, [at] Thoresby, without seeing or even wishing
to see one of the sex. Now, if I am in love, I have very hard fortune to
conceal it so industriously from my own knowledge, and yet discover it
so much to other people. 'Tis against all form to have such a passion as
that, without giving one sigh for the matter. Pray tell me the name of
him I love, that I may (according to the laudable custom of lovers) sigh
to the woods and groves hereabouts, and teach it to the echo. You see,
being I am _[sic]_ in love, I am willing to be so in order and rule: I
have been turning over God knows how many books to look for precedents.
Recommend an example to me; and, above all, let me know whether 'tis
most proper to walk in the woods, encreasing the winds with my sighs, or
to sit by a purling stream, swelling the rivulet with my tears; may be,
both may do well in their turns:--but to be a minute serious, what do
you mean by this reproach of inconstancy? I confess you give me several
good qualities I have not, and I am ready to thank you for them, but
then you must not take away those few I have. No, I will never exchange
them; take back the beauty and wit you bestow upon me, leave me my own
mediocrity of agreeableness and genius, but leave me also my sincerity,
my constancy and my plain dealing; 'tis all I have to recommend me to
the esteem either of others or myself. How should I despise myself if I
could think I was capable of either inconstancy or deceit! I know not
how I may appear to other people, nor how much my face may belie my
heart, but I know that I never was or can be guilty of dissimulation or
inconstancy--you will think this vain, but 'tis all that I pique myself
upon. Tell me you believe me and repent of your harsh censure. Tell it
me in pity to my uneasiness, for you are one of those few people about
whose good opinion I am in pain. I have always took so little care to
please the generality of the world, that I am never mortified or
delighted by its reports which is a piece of stoicism born with me; but
I cannot be one minute easy while you think ill of
"Your faithful--"
"This letter is a good deal grave, and, like other grave things, dull;
but I won't ask pardon for what I can't help."
Was the sentiment expressed in the following letter, written about the
same time as that printed above, intended for Anne or her brother, or
both?
"When I said it cost nothing to write tenderly, I believe I spoke of
another sex; I am sure not of myself: 'tis not in my power (I would to
God it was!) to hide a kindness where I have one, or dissemble it where
I have none. I cannot help answering your letter this minute, and
telling you I infinitely love you, though, it may be, you'll call the
one impertinence, and the other dissimulation; but you may think what
you please of me, I must eternally think the same things of you."
Lady Mary was occasionally wearisome owing to the reiteration of the
assurance that she believed her letters to be dull, the more so as she
certainly was conscious of the skill with which she composed them. "What
do you mean by complaining I never write to you in the quiet situation
of mind I do to other people?" she asks Anne Wortley. "My dear, people
never write calmly, but when they write indifferently."
After a letter dated September 5, 1709, a passage from which has been
printed here, there is a break in the (preserved) correspondence. In the
spring of the following year Anne Wortley died, and Lady Mary, on March
28, paid tribute to her departed friend, addressing herself for the
first time direct to Montagu.
"Perhaps you'll be surprized at this letter; I have had many debates
with myself before I could resolve on it. I know it is not acting in
form, but I do not look upon you as I do upon the rest of the world, and
by what I do for _you_, you are not to judge my manner of acting with
others. You are brother to a woman I tenderly loved; my protestations of
friendship are not like other people's, I never speak but what I mean,
and when I say I love, 'tis for ever. I had that real concern for Mrs.
Wortley, I look with some regard on every one that is related to her.
This and my long acquaintance with you may in some measure excuse what I
am now doing. I am surprized at one of the 'Tatlers' you send me; is it
possible to have any sort of esteem for a person one believes capable of
having such trifling inclinations? Mr. Bickerstaff has very wrong
notions of our sex. I can say there are some of us that despise charms
of show, and all the pageantry of greatness, perhaps with more ease than
any of the philosophers. In contemning the world, they seem to take
pains to contemn it; we despise it, without taking the pains to read
lessons of morality to make us do it. At least I know I have always
looked upon it with contempt, without being at the expense of one
serious reflection to oblige me to it. I carry the matter yet farther;
was I to choose of two thousand pounds a year or twenty thousand, the
first would be my choice. There is something of an unavoidable
_embarras_ in making what is called a great figure in the world; [it]
takes off from the happiness of life; I hate the noise and hurry
inseparable from great estates and titles, and look upon both as
blessings that ought only to be given to fools, for 'tis only to them
that they are blessings. The pretty fellows you speak of, I own
entertain me sometimes; but is it impossible to be diverted with what
one despises? I can laugh at a puppet-show; at the same time I know
there is nothing in it worth my attention or regard. General notions are
generally wrong. Ignorance and folly are thought the best foundations
for virtue, as if not knowing what a good wife is was necessary to make
one so. I confess that can never be my way of reasoning; as I always
forgive an _injury_ when I think it not done out of malice, I never
think myself _obliged_ by what is done without design."
Lady Mary, who was now one-and-twenty, was no bread-and-butter miss. She
knew her mind and had the gift to express herself, and in this same
letter she very prettily rebukes her laggard lover.
"Give me leave to say it, (I know it sounds vain,) I know how to make a
man of sense happy; but then that man must resolve to contribute
something towards it himself. I have so much esteem for you, I should be
very sorry to hear you was unhappy; but for the world I would not be the
instrument of making you so; which (of the humour you are) is hardly to
be avoided if I am your wife. You distrust me--I can neither be easy,
nor loved, where I am distrusted. Nor do I believe your passion for me
is what you pretend it; at least I am sure was I in love I could not
talk as you do. Few women would have spoke so plainly as I have done;
but to dissemble is among the things I never do. I take more pains to
approve my conduct to myself than to the world; and would not have to
accuse myself of a minute's deceit. I wish I loved you enough to devote
myself to be for ever miserable, for the pleasure of a day or two's
happiness. I cannot resolve upon it. You must think otherwise of me, or
not at all."
"I don't enjoin you to burn this letter," she said in conclusion. "I
know you will. 'Tis the first I ever writ to one of your sex, and shall
be the last. You must never expect another. I resolve against all
correspondence of the kind--my resolutions are seldom made and never
broken."
Whatever happened to most of Lady Mary's resolutions, this one, at
least, was not kept. Actually, Lady Mary was not quite so emancipated at
this time of her life as she may have imagined. She never sent a letter,
except in fear and trembling. "I hazard a great deal if it falls
into other hands, and I write for all that," was her constant cry. Yet,
there was nothing in the correspondence, save the fact of it, to offend
even a most austere maiden aunt of the day.
The correspondence, of course, continued. The lovers, if so they can be
called, now indulged in a slightly acid academic discussion, or rather a
number of slightly acid academic discussions, about marriage. It is
evident that Montagu held strong views as to the duty of a wife; so
undoubtedly did Lady Mary--only, the trouble was, the views were by no
means identical. If he were determined to set himself up as the strong
loquacious man, his _fiancee_ was certainly not prepared meekly to obey
his behests in silence. They indulged in a somewhat candid examination
of each other's character--and of their own. It is really rather
amusing, this careful cold-blooded dissection of their feelings. It is a
safe guess that at this game Lady Mary scored heavily.
"I wish, with all my soul, I thought as you do," she wrote on April 25,
1710. "I endeavour to convince myself by your arguments, and am sorry my
reason is so obstinate, not to be deluded into an opinion, that 'tis
impossible a man can esteem a woman. I suppose I should then be very
easy at your thoughts of me; I should thank you for the wit and beauty
you give me, and not be angry at the follies and weaknesses; but, to my
infinite affliction, I can believe neither one nor t'other. One part of
my character is not so good, nor t'other so bad, as you fancy it. Should
we ever live together, you would be disappointed both ways; you would
find an easy equality of temper you do not expect, and a thousand faults
you do not imagine. You think, if you married me, I should be
passionately fond of you one month, and of somebody else the next:
neither would happen. I can esteem, I can be a friend, but I don't know
whether I can love. Expect all that is complaisant and easy, but never
what is fond, in me. You judge very wrong of my heart, when you suppose
me capable of views of interest, and that anything could oblige me to
flatter any body. Was I the most indigent creature in the world, I
should answer you as I do now, without adding or diminishing. I am
incapable of art, and 'tis because I will not be capable of it. Could I
deceive one minute, I should never regain my own good opinion; and who
could bear to live with one they despised? If you can resolve to live
with a companion that will have all the deference due to your
superiority of good sense, and that your proposals can be agreeable to
those on whom I depend, I have nothing to say against them."
CHAPTER III
COURTSHIP, ELOPEMENT, AND MARRIAGE (1710-1712)
A lengthy courtship--Montagu a laggard lover--Lady Mary and Montagu
exchange views on married life--Montagu proposes for her to Lord
Dorchester--Dorchester refuses, since Montagu will not make
settlements--Montagu's views on settlements expressed (by Steele) in the
_Tatler_--Although not engaged, the young people continue to
correspond--Lord Dorchester produces another suitor for his
daughter--She consents to an engagement--The preparations for the
wedding--She confides the whole story to Montagu--She breaks off the
engagement--She and Montagu decide to elope--She runs up to
London--Marriage--Lady Mary's diary destroyed by her sister, Lady
Frances Pierrepont.
After seven years or so of acquaintance, matters at last looked like
coming to a head. It would appear that Montagu, tentatively at least,
had put the question, because Lady Mary gives her views as to the life
they should lead after marriage. She is not averse from travelling; she
has no objection to leaving London; in fact, she would be willing to
spend a few months in the country, if it so pleased him. It is all so
extraordinarily unloverlike. There is too much philosophy about it. Love
does not see so clearly.
"Where people are tied for life, 'tis their mutual interest not to grow
weary of one another," she wrote on April 25, 1710. "If I had all the
personal charms that I want, a face is too slight a foundation for
happiness. You would be soon tired with seeing every day the same thing.
Where you saw nothing else, you would have leisure to remark all the
defects; which would increase in proportion as the novelty lessened,
which is always a great charm. I should have the displeasure of seeing a
coldness, which, though I could not reasonably blame you for, being
involuntary, yet it would render me uneasy; and the more, because I know
a love may be revived which absence, inconstancy, or even infidelity,
has extinguished; but there is no returning from a _degout_ given by
satiety."
Perhaps Lady Mary believed that, while it is well to hope for the best,
it is sound policy to prepare for the worst.
Montagu may have found some comfort in the lady's assurance that if she
had a choice between two thousand a year or twenty thousand a year she
would choose the smaller income.
An apartment in London would satisfy Lady Mary. She would not choose to
live in a crowd, but would like to have a small circle of agreeable
people--she was very precise as to her desires: actually she wants to
see eight or nine pleasant folk. She does not believe that she can find
entire happiness in solitude, not even (or perhaps especially not) in a
solitude of two; and she is at least as sure that he would not either.
Anyhow she has not the slightest intention of taking the chance.
It becomes increasingly clear that she had had about enough of this
epistolary philandering, and she indicated this in no uncertain manner.
"I will never think of anything without the consent of my family," she
wrote. "Make no answer to this, if you can like me on my own terms. 'Tis
not to me you must make the proposals; if not, to what purpose is our
correspondence?"
And now comes a touch of the spur: "However, preserve me your
friendship, which I think of with a great deal of pleasure. If ever you
see me married, I flatter myself you'll see a conduct you would not be
sorry your wife should imitate."
Even this did not bring Montagu to the point of asking Lord Dorchester
for the hand of his daughter. The correspondence, however, still
continued, and soon they were hard at it again.
"Kindness, you say, would be your destruction," she wrote in August,
1710. "In my opinion, this is something contradictory to some other
expressions. People talk of being in love just as widows do of
affliction. Mr. Steele has observed, in one of his plays, the most
passionate among them have always calmness enough to drive a hard
bargain with the upholders. I never knew a lover that would not
willingly secure his interest as well as his mistress; or, if one must
be abandoned, had not the prudence (among all his distractions) to
consider, a woman was but a woman, and money was a thing of more real
merit than the whole sex put together. Your letter is to tell me, you
should think yourself undone if you married me; but if I would be so
tender as to confess I should break my heart if you did not, then you'd
consider whether you would or no; but yet you hoped you should not. I
take this to be the right interpretation of--even your kindness can't
destroy me of a sudden--I hope I am not in your power--I would give a
good deal to be satisfied, &c.
"As to writing--that any woman would do that thought she writ well. Now
I say, no woman of common sense would. At best, 'tis but doing a silly
thing well, and I think it is much better not to do a silly thing at
all. You compare it to dressing. Suppose the comparison just: perhaps
the Spanish dress would become my face very well; yet the whole town
would condemn me for the highest extravagance if I went to court in it,
though it improved me to a miracle. There are a thousand things, not ill
in themselves, which custom makes unfit to be done. This is to convince
you I am so far from applauding my own conduct, my conscience flies in
my face every time I think on't. The generality of the world have a
great indulgence to their own follies: without being a jot wiser than my
neighbours, I have the peculiar misfortune to know and condemn all the
wrong things I do.
"You beg to know whether I would not be out of humour. The expression is
modest enough; but that is not what you mean. In saying I could be easy,
I have already said I should not be out of humour: but you would have me
say I am violently in love; that is, finding you think better of me than
you desire, you would have me give you a just cause to contemn me. I
doubt much whether there is a creature in the world humble enough to do
that. I should not think you more unreasonable if you was in love with
my face, and asked me to disfigure it to make you easy. I have heard of
some nuns that made use of that expedient to secure their own happiness;
but, amongst all the popish saints and martyrs, I never read of one
whose charity was sublime enough to make themselves deformed, or
ridiculous, to restore their lovers to peace and quietness. In short, if
nothing can content you but despising me heartily, I am afraid I shall
be always so barbarous to wish you may esteem me as long as you live."
At last Montagu formally approached Lord Dorchester, who had no
objection whatever to him as a suitor for the hand of Lady Mary. They
could not come to terms in the matter of settlements. Dorchester
demanded that the estates should be put into entail. Also he desired
that his future son-in-law should provide a town residence for Lady
Mary. This did not seem unreasonable, but Montagu did not see his way to
agree to them. He was willing enough to make all proper provision for
his wife, but he declined absolutely to settle his landed property upon
a son who, as he put it, for aught he knew, might prove unworthy to
inherit it, who might be a spendthrift, an idiot, or a villain--as a
matter of fact, the only son of the marriage turned out most things he
should not. Anyhow, Montagu held strong views on the subject, and these
he expounded to Richard Steele, who presented them in No. 223 of the
_Tatler_ (September 12, 1710).
"That this method of making settlements was first invented by a griping
lawyer, who made use of the covetous tempers of the parents of each
side, to force two young people into these vile measures of diffidence
for no other end, but to increase the skins of parchment, by which they
were put into each other's possession out of each other's power. The law
of our country has given an ample and generous provision for the wife,
even the third of her husband's estate, and left to her good-humour and
his gratitude the expectation of farther provision, but the fantastical
method of going farther, with relation to the heirs, has a foundation in
nothing but pride, and folly: for as all men with their children as like
themselves, and as much better as they can possibly, it seems monstrous
that we should give out of ourselves the opportunities of rewarding and
discouraging them according to their defects. The wife institution has
no more sense in it, than if a man should begin a deed with 'Whereas no
man living knows how long he shall continue to be a reasonable creature,
or an honest man, and whereas I.B. am going to enter into the state of
matrimony with Mrs. D., therefore I shall from henceforth make it
indifferent to me whether from this time forward I shall be a fool or
knave. And therefore, in full and perfect health of body, and a sound
mind, not knowing which of my children will prove better or worse, I
give to my first-born, be he perverse, ungrateful, impious, or cruel,
the lump and bulk of my estate, and leave one year's purchase only to
each of my younger children, whether they shall be brave or beautiful,
modest or honourable, from the time of the date hereof, wherein I resign
my senses, and hereby promise to employ my judgment no farther in the
distribution of my worldly goods from the date hereof, hereby farther
confessing and covenanting, that I am henceforth married, and dead in
law....'