800 Years of Women's Letters

by Olga Kenyon

  Your Most faithful and most Obedient Humble Servant,

  Eleanor Butler

  E. MAVOR, THE LADIES OF LLANGOLLEN: A STUDY IN ROMANTIC FRIENDSHIP (1971)

  A WIFE WRITES TO SAVE HER HUSBAND FROM BANKRUPTCY

  Waverley, 3d March 1842

  My dear Sir

  It cannot be unknown to you that the unfavourable seasons for some years past, and the almost annual ravages of the Caterpillar have cut short the crop of Sea Island cotton on the coast of Georgia, and in some locations almost destroyed it. My husband has probably been one of the greatest sufferers from these successive disasters. At a time when negroes were selling from five to six hundred dollars round in gangs – he unfortunately purchased largely; relying on the proceeds of his cotton crops to enable him to make payment, but the almost total failure in some years, short crops and low prices in others have prevented him from realizing the means to meet his engagements. The result is that his creditors have seized and taken from him all his property which in the condition of the country and at present Prices will probably not pay his debts: This may render it necessary for me to call on your friendly aid as one of my Trustees, to protect the property bequeathed in my Fathers will for the benefit of myself and the children.

  I do not impute any blame, or mismanagement to my husband, nor has his misfortunes, in the slightest degree impaired my confidence in his integrity, or his ability to manage property. Nor is it my desire to give you unnecessary trouble. I simply ask that you will stand the friend of my fathers child in case my husbands creditors shall after taking all his property attempt to seize that upon which I can alone rely for the support of a family of nine children most of them small and at that peculiar age when instruction and parental support are essential and necessary. I do not know that my husbands creditors will disturb me but in case they attempt it I desire permission to call on you and Mr Joseph Jones – my other trustee – to protect my property – as my husband cannot act and I can rely alone upon my Trustees. It is my desire that my husband be left as your or my agent, in the management of my plantations and business generally.

  If my memory serves me a copy of my Fathers will was sent to you soon after his decease. If you cannot lay your hand upon it I will send you another immediately.

  I send you enclosed, a list of the 50 negroes left to me in the will, with their increase.

  Pay let me hear from you as soon as convenient. Direct your letter to Waynesville.

  My kind regards to Mrs Couper

  Very respectfully

  Your obt Servt, Anna Matilda King

  EDS. E.O. HELLERSTEIN, ET AL., VICTORIAN WOMEN (1981)

  MONEY PROBLEMS OVER SOCIAL WORK

  Florence Nightingale received an allowance of £500 a year from her father, which she used to support her social work. Although her mother had a generous allowance and two houses, she never ceased to resent her daughter’s expenses. In this letter Florence complains to her father.

  12 Jan 1857

  In a difficult life (and mine has been more difficult than most) it is always better clearly to decide for oneself

  what grievances one will bear being unavoidable

  what grievances one will escape from

  what grievances one will try to remove

  you have mentioned and do mention to me the perpetual grievance it is to you to have such expenses in the female part of your family. . .

  . London . . . they say they do it on my account. I will just once, say it is not so. You say you spent four months in London last year. Did they stay in London on my account while I was in Russia? If they did so it must have been to buy me one bonnet. . . . Everything else was ordered through the post. . . .

  I am sure my dear mother has a dim and vague perception of this viz – that her motherly feeling owes me something more (in the way of facilities to carry out those objects which they approve, now, and which the world approves) than £500 and leave to visit at Embley and Lea Hurst. . . . She tries to smuggle my accounts into hers. She tries in various ways to do me a little contraband good – then when you complain of the confusion and extravagance, also too truly, of her accounts, she forgets this and says ‘Oh, it’s all Flo’s boys’ [Miss Nightingale was educating four orphan boys who lived at Embley] or ‘It’s all Florence’s bills.’ And she sits down and writes items against me, almost at random, often over charged. . . .

  FAWCETT LIBRARY

  A WRITER’S WINTER WORK

  The difficulties of writing for money while nursing children are described by Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women.

  November 1872

  Work is my salvation. H.W. Beecher sent one of the editors of the ‘Christian Union’ to ask for a serial story. They have asked before, and offered $2,000, which I refused; now the offered $3,000, and I accepted.

  Got out the old manuscript of ‘Success,’ and called it ‘Work.’ Fired up the engine, and plunged into a vortex, with many doubts about getting out. Can’t work slowly; the thing possesses me, and I must obey till it’s done. One thousand dollars was sent as a seal on the bargain, so I was bound, and sat at the oar like a galley-slave.

  F. wanted eight little tales, and offered $35 apiece; used to pay $10. Such is fame! At odd minutes I wrote the short ones, and so paid my own expenses. ‘Shawl Straps,’ Scrap-Bag, No. 2, came out, and went well.

  Great Boston fire; up all night. Very splendid and terrible sight.

  December – Busy with ‘Work.’ Write three pages at once on impression paper, as Beecher, Roberts, and Low of London all want copy at once.

  (This was the cause of the paralysis of my thumb, which disabled me.)

  Roberts Brothers paid me $2,022 for books. S.E.S. invested most of it, with the $1,000 F. sent. Gave C.M. $100 – a thank-offering for my success. I like to help the class of ‘silent poor’ to which we belonged for so many years – needy, but respectable, and forgotten because too proud to beg. Work difficult to find for such people, and life made very hard for want of a little money to ease the necessary needs.

  – Anna very ill with pneumonia; home to nurse her. Father telegraphed to come home, as we thought her dying. She gave me her boys; but the dear saint got well, and kept the lads for herself. Thank God!

  Back to my work with what wits nursing left me.

  Had Johnny for a week, to keep all quiet at home. Enjoyed the sweet little soul very much, and sent him back much better.

  Finished ‘Work,’ – twenty chapters. Not what it should be – too many interruptions. Should like to do one book in peace, and see if it wouldn’t be good.

  The job being done I went home to take Mary’s place. Gave her $1,000, and sent her to London for a year of study. She sailed on the 26th, brave and happy and hopeful. I felt that she needed it, and was glad to be able to help her.

  I spent seven months in Boston; wrote a book and ten tales; earned $3,250 by my pen, and am satisfied with my winter’s work.

  ED. E.D. CHENEY, LOUISA MAY ALCOTT: HER LIFE, LETTERS AND JOURNALS (1889)

  WORK AS A WRITER

  We have many letters about the work of writing, because women writers were skilled at penning their problems, and had occasional free moments, denied to servants and labourers. Hildegard in the twelfth century expressed humility at the task of describing her visions. She dictated many of her letters, as did Margaret Paston during the Wars of the Roses. These first letters in English are direct, about the affairs of the family and the estate. She mentioned no worries about self-expression nor did the skilful Elizabeth I, whose letters were obviously the product of much thought – she needed skill with words to save her own life, and others. I include the first letter we have about a governess. It is Elizabeth’s plea for her beloved governess to be released from the Tower of London. Though only fifteen she had been so well taught that K. Ashley was released.

  By the seventeenth century women were beginning to be published. Lady Margaret Cavendish had sufficient means not to worry about sales, and could addres
s her audience with assurance. Aphra Behn, dependent on her pen to make a living, had to use it to persuade, in an amazing range of ways. I include three: to her Spymaster, who failed to pay her; to a ‘sugar-candied reader’; and to a patron. A patron was an essential social and financial support during tough times.

  Women were accepted a trifle less ruefully as professional writers by the nineteenth century. George Eliot analyses her work as an editor, and its many drawbacks. Louisa May Alcott gives us invaluable details of the daily life and the financial rewards for a worker-mother. They include being able to send ‘Mary to London for a year of study’ and ‘money to ease the necessary needs’ of the ‘needy and respectable, forgotten because too proud to beg’.

  Edith Wharton, friend of Henry James, and with many of his qualities as novelist, gained fame in her own time, which involved answering letters from other writers, which she did sympathetically. In the letter included here she comforts Bernard Berenson on his writer’s block. I end with Dorothy Richardson (novelist and lesbian) on the difficulties of a woman writer, spiritual as well as social.

  ELIZABETH I DEFENDS HER GOVERNESS

  Elizabeth I was one of the first daughters to have had her own governess in Britain. In 1536, when Henry VIII’s second daughter was three years old, Katheryn Ashley was appointed to govern Princess Elizabeth’s household. Later she became Elizabeth’s tutor. After Henry VIII’s death in 1547, the Court was full of intrigue and suspicion. The power-seeking Protector Somerset wished to prevent a marriage between Seymour and Catherine Parr – or Elizabeth. He considered, erroneously, that Katheryn Ashley supported his rival for the highest office, and had her imprisoned with her husband. Elizabeth promptly wrote to Somerset in Ashley’s defence. She was fifteen.

  I am the bolder to speak for another thing; the other was because peradventure your Lordship and the Council will think that I favour her evil doing whom I shall speak for, which is for Katherine Ashley, that it will please your Grace and the Council to do good unto her. Which think I do not favour her in any evil (for that I would be sorry to do) but for these considerations which follow . . . First because she hath been a long time with me, and many years, and hath taken great labour, and pain in bringing me up in learning and honesty – therefore I ought of my duty to speak for her, for Saint Gregory sayeth that we are more bound to them that bring us up well, than to our parents, for our parents do that which is natural to them, that is, bringeth us into the world, but our bringers up are a cause to make us live well in it . . .

  R. WEIGALL, AN ELIZABETHAN GENTLEWOMAN (1911)

  They were both released.

  POORLY PAID WORK AS A SPY

  Aphra Behn was the first professional woman writer in England. When her husband died, she was asked to go to Antwerp, to obtain information for Whitehall. Not even her expenses were paid. She was forced to borrow, and sent these pleas to Whitehall.

  16 Aug 1666

  I protest to you, sir, I am and was as frugal as possibly I could be, and have many times refused to eat as I would, only to save charges.

  WILLIAMSON’S STATE PAPERS, P.R.O., S.P. 29/167 No. 160, 16 AUGUST 1666.NS

  I do therefore intreat you, Sir, to let me have some more money . . . Pray, sir, be pleased to consider me very speedily for the longer I stay without it the more time I waste in vain for want of it, and if I did not really believe I should accomplish my business, I would not stay here, it being no delight at all for me so to do, but much the contrary, pray sir, let me not want the main and only thing that is to further my design.

  29/169, No. 38, 27 AUGUST

  I confess I carried no more upon bill but fifty pounds, and I have not only spent all that upon mere eating and drinking, but in borrowing of money to accomplish my desires of seeing and speaking with this man. I am as much more in debt, having pawned my very rings rather than want supplies for getting him hither.

  29/170, No. 75, 15 SEPTEMBER

  No money was forthcoming, and by 11 March 1667, when she returned to England, she was forced to borrow £150 from Edward Butler, to help pay her debts. Compare this letter with her completely different discourse in the next, where she defends her comedies from unkind male critics, and with her epistolary poem, where she is attempting to please a potential patron.

  PROBLEMS FOR A RESTORATION PLAYWRIGHT

  Aphra Behn became an extremely popular playwright during the reign of Charles II. A widow, she lived on her earnings, which even helped her support her lover when necessary. She wrote witty comedies about sexual encounters which often ran foul of critics nurtured under the puritanical Commonwealth. Her third play The Dutch Lover, produced in 1673 was so disparaged by academics that she defended comedies in this prefatory epistle to woo potential readers.

  6 February 1673

  Good Sweet, Honey, Sugar-Candied Reader,

  Which I think is more than anyone has called you yet, I must have a word or two with you before you do advance into the treatise; but ’tis not to beg your pardon for diverting you from your affairs by such an idle pamphlet as this is . . . for I have dealt pretty fairly in the matter, told you in the title page what you are to expect within. Indeed, had I hung a sign of the immortality of the soul, or the mystery of godliness, or of ecclesiastical policie, and then had treated you with indiscerpibility and essential spissitude (words, though I am no competent judge, for want of languages, yet I fancy strongly ought to mean just nothing) . . . or had presented you with two of three of the worst principles transcribed out of the peremptory and ill-natured, though pretty ingenious Doctor Hobbes, I were then sufficiently in fault; but having inscribed comedy on the beginning of my book, you may guess pretty near what penny-worths you are like to have, and ware your money and your time accordingly.

  I would not yet be understood to lessen the dignity of plays, for surely they deserve among the middle if not the better sort of books; for I have heard the most of that which bears the name of learning, and which has abused such quantities of ink and paper, and continually employs so many ignorant, unhappy souls for ten, twenty, years in the University (who yet poor wretches think they are doing something all the while) as logick etc, & several other things that shall be nameless lest I misspell them, are much more absolutely nothing than the errantest play that was ever writ.

  A. BEHN, PREFATORY LETTER TO THE DUTCH LOVER

  PRAISE FOR A PATRON

  Letters sometimes took the form of poems. Here Aphra Behn successfully uses the verse stanza of the ode in order to praise a patron, Dr Burnet. Patrons were needed by many artists in the way subsidies, and good reviews, are today.

  (1)

  When Old Rome’s Candidates aspir’d to Fame,

  And did the Peoples Suffrages obtain

  For some great Consul, or a Caesar’s Name;

  The Victor was not half so Pleas’d and Vain,

  As I, when given the Honour of your Choice,

  And Preference had in that one single Voice;

  That Voice, from whence Immortal Wit still flows;

  Wit that at once is Solemn all and Sweet,

  Where Noblest Eloquence and Judgment shows

  The Inspiring Mind Illustrious, Rich, and Great;

  A Mind that can inform your wound’rous Pen

  In all that’s Perfect and Sublime:

  And with an Art beyond the Wit of Men,

  On what e’re Theam, on what e’re great Design,

  It carries a Commanding Force, like that of Writ Divine.

  (2)

  With Pow’rful Reasoning drest in finest Sence,

  A thousand ways my Soul you can Invade,

  And spight of my Opinions weak Defence,

  Against my Will, you Conquer and Perswade.

  Your Language soft as Love, betrays the Heart,

  And at each Period fixes a Resistless Dart,

  While the fond Listner, like a Maid undone,

  Inspir’d with Tenderness she fears to own;

  In vain essays her Freedom to Regain:
<
br />   The fine Ideas in her Soul remain,

  And Please, and Charm, even while they Grieve and Pain.

  (3)

  But yet how well this Praise can Recompense

  For all the welcome Wounds (before) you’d given!

  Scarce any thing but You and Heaven

  Such Grateful Bounties can dispense,

  As that Eternity of Life can give;

  So fam’d by you my Verse Eternally shall live:

  Till now, my careless Muse no higher strove

  T’inlarge her Glory, and extend her Wings;

  Than underneath Parnassus Grove,

  To Sing of Shepherds, and their humble, Love;

  But never durst, like Cowly, tune her Strings,

  To sing of Heroes and of Kings.

  EDS. D. SPENDER AND J. TODD, ANTHOLOGY OF BRITISH WOMEN WRTIERS (1989)

  GEORGE ELIOT AS EDITOR

  For two years George Eliot worked virtually unpaid, as assistant editor of the Westminster Review, helping her friend J. Chapman. This letter to him shows how conscientiously she tried to keep the standards of J.S. Mill.