800 Years of Women's Letters

by Olga Kenyon

  She envied her sister Jane who had no children and was able to concentrate. This letter of 1817 expresses the contradictory longings of many creative mothers:

  Dear Jane,

  If your fame, and leisure for the improvement of your mind, could be combined with the comfort and pleasures of a larger domestic circle; and if, with a husband and children, I could share a glimmer of your fame, and a portion of your reading, we should both perhaps be happier than it is the usual lot . . .

  Alice Walker took these longings into the epistolary The Color Purple and allowed her protagonist to build a cottage industry, sewing, while waiting for her children to be restored to her, offering a symbolic possibility to mothers outside the capitalist system.

  Hard work was a necessity for the lower middle class unable to afford much help. The three letters from Mary Abell in 1870s America reveal the difficulties of a mother forced to turn her hand to every household task, from emptying the excrement, and nursing a sick husband while trying to entertain children, to cooking in a tiny room. She was an educated woman married to a preacher (who was also a farmer) but she expresses the difficulties of many working-class mothers.

  The poet Marina Tsvetayeva in twentieth-century Russia describes the painful attempts of a mother to find enough food for her two small daughters. Her husband was ‘missing’, she was their sole support, a situation undergone by so many mothers in war-time.

  The really hard labour of domestic servants has rarely been communicated in letters. It was Arthur Munby who asked the servant he loved to describe her working life to him, with its dirt and small joys.

  Women’s lives have been unnecessarily restricted for centuries. Yet, in the last section of this chapter, we have much evidence of their making the most of their limited existence. A letter from Mrs Delany, a friend of Fanny Burney, recounts her enjoyment of aristocratic entertainments, attitudes and dress. Burney expresses the pleasures of everyday occupations during a visit to friends in the country. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu goes much further and builds an almost ideal garden for herself in Italy. She had gone there hoping to live with her lover. When he let her down, she decided to remake her life beside the beautiful river Oglio. She plans fulfilling days, supervising her smallholding, reading in her retreat, ‘where I enjoy every moment that solitude can afford’. Her positive approach to apparent limitations is also echoed in the more recent final letter in this section.

  MARGARET PASTON MANAGES HER HUSBAND’S ESTATE

  While her husband was away, Margaret Paston forced to take power, appealed to male authority, though she showed herself resourceful and courageous in the war, demanding crossbows to defend her home against rebels, during the Wars of the Roses.

  Right worshipful husband, I commend myself to you. This is to let you know I sent you a letter by Berney’s man from Witchingham, which was written on St Thomas’s day at Christmas, and I have had no news or letter from you since the week before Christmas, which surprises me very much. I am afraid that all is not well with you, because you have not come home or sent news up to now. I had indeed hoped that you would be home by Twelfth Night at the latest. I beg you with all my heart to be so kind as to send me word how you are as quickly as you can, because my mind will never be easy until I have news from you.

  The people in this part of the world are beginning to grow wild, and it is said here that my lord Clarence and the duke of Suffolk, and certain judges with them, shall come down and try such people as are reputed to be causing riots around here. And it is also said that a new release has been made cancelling what was done at the last shire court. I expect that such talk comes from evil men who want to start a rumour in the country. People here say that they would rather all go up to the king together and complain of the evildoers who have wronged them, than be complained against without good reason and hanged outside their own doors. Indeed, men are very afraid here of a rising of the common people, unless a better way is quickly found of calming the people, and men are sent down to settle matters whom the people like and who will be impartial. They do not in the least like the duke of Suffolk or his mother. They say that all the traitors and extortioners in this country are maintained by them and by those whose support they buy in order to maintain the kind of extortion that their underlings have practised before. Men think that if the duke of Suffolk comes, things will go badly unless others come with him who are more popular than him. People are much more afraid of being hurt because you and my cousin Berney have not come home. They say they are sure that all is not well with you, and if things are not well with you, they are sure that the men who want to harm you, will soon do them some hard, and that makes them furious. God in his holy mercy give grace that a good and sober government is soon set up in these parts, because I never heard of so much robbery and manslaughter here as there has been recently.

  As for gathering money, I never saw a worse season, for Richard Calle says he can get little of the substance of what is owing, either on your estates or Fastolf’s. And John Paston [III] says that those who are best able to pay, pay worst. They behaved as though they hoped to have a new world.

  The blessed Trinity have you in their keeping and send us good news of you. Yelverton is a good friend in hard times for you and others in these parts, so I am told.

  Written in haste on Thursday after Twelfth Night.

  By your Margaret Paston

  ED. ALICE D. GREENWOOD, SELECTIONS FROM THE PASTON LETTERS (1920)

  WORK FOR THE LADY OF THE MANOR

  Margery Paston, daughter-in-law of the indefatigable Margaret, not only supervised the large estate in Norfolk, for which she needed ‘gold’ to be sent from her lawyer husband in London, but also superintended his growing fleet and kept accounts for him. Like many wives she seems to be blamed when a piece of clothing is mislaid, here a ‘tippet of velvet’. Note her postscript: they often tell us more than the letter, according to Fanny Burney.

  1486

  To my master, John Paston, be this delivered

  Right reverend and worshipful sir, in my most humble wise I recommend me to you, desiring to hear of your welfare, the which I beseech God to preserve to His pleasure and to your heart’s desire. Sir, I thank you for the venison that ye sent me; and your ship is sailed out of the haven as this day.

  Sir, I send you by my brother William your stomacher of damask. As for your tippet of velvet, it is not here; Anne saith that ye put it in your casket at London.

  Sir, your children be in good health, blessed be God.

  Sir, I pray you send me the gold, that I spake to you of, by the next man that cometh to Norwich.

  Sir, your mast that lay at Yarmouth is letten to a ship of Hull, 13s. and 4d., and if there fall any hurt thereto, ye shall have a new mast therefor.

  No more to you at this time, but Almighty God have you in His keeping. Written at Caister Hall, the 21st day of January, in the first year of King Henry VII.

  By your servant,

  Margery Paston

  I pray God no ladies no more overcome you, that you give no longer respite in your matters.

  ED. ALICE D. GREENWOOD (1920)

  DIFFICULTIES IN MANAGING A TUDOR HOUSEHOLD

  Lord and Lady Lisle moved to Calais in 1533. Their unmarried step-daughter kept an eye on their property. Here she complains to Lady Lisle of Sir John Bonde, vicar of the parish, who was responsible for overseeing the estate and the accounts. He had brought a lady of reprehensible reputation into the family manor house. Jane Basset had only a tiny income to live on, so earns her place in the household by overseeing its management – and morals.

  13 September 1535

  I pray you heartily, good Madam, have me heartily recommended unto my special good lord as a poor maiden may be. . . .

  And also it may please you to be advertised, that through the counsel of Mr Vicar, and divers others, that my sister Thomasine is gone from me unto my brother Marys, without any manner knowledge given unto me, in the morning early before my risin
g, and, to say the very truth, asleep; and so there did ride with her the Smith, a little boy, and Mistress Thomasyne, sometime Thomas Seller his harlot, and now God’s holy vicar here in earth, as he may be, without devotion, as all the whole country says; and here the said Thomasyne is covered underneath John Bremelcomb, the which men think her well near as unthrifty as the other. Wherefore they have rid away my sister in hope and trust to rid me also, because they might the bolder keep forth their bawdy and unthrifty rule without any further trouble. And sithens my sister’s departing, she hath sent for part of her clothing, the which she left behind her, the which I do retain in my keeping, and will do, until such time that I may know your further pleasure herein.

  And also the vicar shewed me that your ladyship had written unto him that she should depart, and go from me whither that she would; and also he says, that I have written many and divers letters unto your ladyship, the which you shall never have knowledge thereof, or else I shall never have answer again: the which I never had indeed, as he hath said. And also he will not suffer me to have the looking upon none of your stuff, the which putrefieth for lack of good governance. And, further, he says that I do covet to have my brother’s evidence, and none thing else regarding your profit.

  . . . And as for your fishing, he hath utterly dispraised it unto your ladyship and divers others, and Bremelcum also, to this intent that none body should offer for it. And now that they perceive that men will offer for it, they say that your ladyship’s mind is turned, and will not sell. Wherefore, if it be your pleasure to sell it, I pray you, madam, to call to your remembrance what ye promised me, that ye willed me divers times to desire one thing of you when I should espy my time; and you of your own goodness promised me that I should obtain therein. Wherefore I heartily pray you, madam, that I may be your farmer thereunto, as there is or shall be offered for with reason, so that I may be somewhat the better therefore, as my special trust is in you. For I ensure you it is very necessary for me, dwelling here under your goodness, towards the augmentation and amendment of my poor living, as in apparelling and welcoming your Ladyship’s friends whensoever they come, for your sake and honour, the which is chargeable unto me in buying all things, as corn, flesh and fish.

  And I pray you send me word whether I shall maintain your taper in the chapel of our Lady of Alston, the which hitherto I have done; and as for the cleanly keeping of your house, the which is very uncleanly. I pray you, good madam, send me some good works.

  By your daughter, Jane Basset

  ED. M. ST CLARE BYRNE, THE LISLE LETTERS (1985)

  HELP TO FOUND A CONVENT

  Saint Teresa of Avila, in the sixteenth century, displayed spiritual and entrepreneurial qualities. Here she writes to her brother in the Indies, where he prospered, about help he sent to found a convent.

  Avila 23 December 1561

  Sir,

  May the Holy Spirit be ever with you. Amen. And may He repay you for the trouble you have taken in helping us all and the great diligence you have shown about it. I hope in God’s Majesty that it will profit you much in His sight, for it is certain that all those to whom you are sending money have received it just at the right moment, and personally I found it a very great comfort. And I believe it was an inspiration from God that moved you to send me so much.

  I have written to you already, at great length, about something which, for many reasons and causes, I have been unable to avoid doing, because the inspiration came from God. I ought not to write about such things in a letter; I will only say that, in the opinion of holy and learned persons, I must not be cowardly, but put all I can into this task, which is the foundation of a convent. There are to be only fifteen nuns in it, and this number is never to be added to; they will live in the strictest enclosure, never going out, and seeing no one without having veils over their faces, and the foundation of their lives will be prayer and mortification.

  I am being helped by that lady, Doña Guiomar, who is writing to you. She is the wife of Francisco Dávila, of Salobralejo, if you remember. Her husband died nine years ago, leaving a million maravedís a year. She has a family estate of her own, as well as her husband’s, and, although she was only twenty-five when left a widow, she has not married again but has given herself devotedly to God’s service. She is an extremely spiritual person. For over four years we have been closer friends than if we were sisters; but, although she is helping me a great deal by giving me a large part of the income for the convent, she has no money available just now, so the purchase of the house and everything that needs to be done to it has to be seen to by me. By the goodness of God I have been given two dowries in advance, so I have bought the house, keeping the purchase secret, but I can find no way of getting the necessary work done on it. However, as God wants it done, He will provide for me, so I have put all my trust in Him and am engaging the workmen. It seemed a foolish thing to do – but now His Majesty comes and moves you to provide the money; and what amazed me most was that you added those forty pesos, of which I had the very greatest need. I think St Joseph, whose name the house is to bear, was not going to let me want for them: I know he will repay you. Poor and small though the house is, it has lovely views and grounds. So that settles the matter of money.

  Your servant

  Teresa

  TRANS. ALLISON PEERS, COMPLETE WORKS OF SAINT TERESA OF AVILA (1946)

  FRANCE IN THE INTELLECTUAL MIDDLE CLASS, AT THE END OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

  Mary Wollstonecraft went to live in France at the time of the Revolution. She met the revolutionary Madame Roland, who told her of the qualities and attractions of life up to 1789, especially for women. We can hear the enthusiasm in this feminist’s voice in this letter.

  It is a mistake to suppose that there was no such thing as domestic happiness in France, or even in Paris. For many French families, on the contrary, exhibited an affectionate urbanity of behaviour to each other, seldom to be met with where a certain easy gaiety does not soften the difference of age and condition. The husband and wife, if not lovers, were the civilest friends and tenderest parents in the world; the only parents, perhaps, who really treated their children like friends; and the most affable masters and mistresses. Mothers were also to be found, who after suckling their children, paid a degree of attention to their education, not thought compatible with the levity of character attributed to them; whilst they acquired a portion of taste and knowledge rarely to be found in the women of other countries. Their hospitable boards were constantly open to relations and acquaintances, who, without the formality of an invitation, enjoyed their cheerfulness free from restraint; whilst more select circles closed the evening, by discussing literary subjects. In the summer, when they retired to their mansion houses, they spread gladness around, and partook of the amusements of the peasantry, whom they visited with paternal solicitude. These were, it is true, the rational few, not numerous in any country – and where is led a more useful or rational life?

  . . . Besides, in France, the women have not those factitious supercilious manners, common to the English; and acting more freely, they have more decision of character, and even more generosity. Rousseau has taught them also a scrupulous attention to their personal cleanliness, not generally to be seen elsewhere: their coquetry is not only more agreeable, but more natural: and not left a prey to unsatisfied sensations, they were less romantic indeed than the English; yet many of them possessed delicacy of sentiment.

  CLAIRE TOMALIN, THE LIFE AND DEATH OF MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT (1974)

  A WELL-TO-DO FAMILY AT THE BEGINNING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

  After her widowed mother’s death, Nellie Weeton found she could not make a living by running their small school, so looked for a job as a governess, at 30 guineas a year. Here she writes to her friend Bessy Winkley, 28 December 1809, describing her first evening at her new employers, the Pedders’ Home, Dove’s Nest.

  Mr and Mrs Pedder were seated at their wine after dinner, Mrs P. dressed in a pink muslin, with a very becoming
head dress of the same. At supper we had two servants in livery attending, and some display of plate, silver nutcrackers, &c., and some things of which poor ignorant I knew not the use. I felt a little awkward, but as you may suppose, strove not to let it appear. I now feel much more at home, and quite comfortable. For more than a week I was far otherwise, not knowing exactly what was expected of me. I am now better acquainted with the task I have undertaken, and find it both an easy and agreeable one. Mr and Mrs Pedder treat me in a most pleasing, flattering manner. So far from making me feel any dependence, I am treated with so much deference, that I must endeavour to be cautious lest I thoughtlessly assume too much. Mr P. is very good tempered in general, a little passionate sometimes. Mrs P. is a most sweet tempered woman, and of a disposition upright and amiable in the extreme. I have had some instances of it that have delighted and astonished me. I am fortunate to have such an one under my care, for she is my pupil as well as Miss Pedder. The latter is not a pleasing child; far otherwise. Her fits, I think, have an effect upon her disposition. She has them very frequently, sometimes five in a day; seldom a whole day without. I don’t feel so much alarmed with them as I expected. I have frequently to hold her in them. They seldom last five minutes.

  I have to attend to the direction of the House, the table, &c., as well as literary studies; to assist in entertaining company in the parlour; and give directions to the servants. I am studying the art of carving, and learning, as far as books will teach me, as well as giving instructions. Mr P. has a most excellent library.