800 Years of Women's Letters

by Olga Kenyon

  C. FIENNES, THROUGH ENGLAND ON A SIDE SADDLE IN THE TIME OF WILLIAM AND MARY (1888)

  FIRST VISIT TO A TURKISH BATH

  After her first visit to a Turkish bath, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu wrote enthusiastically to her sister. Unlike most male travellers, she did not take her culture’s ideas to an ‘exotic’ east, but studied what she saw.

  Adrianople 1 April 1717

  I must not omit what I saw remarkable at Sophia, one of the most beautiful towns in the Turkish Empire and famous for its hot baths that are resorted to both for diversion and health. I stopped here one day on purpose to see them. Designing to go incognito, I hired a Turkish coach. These voitures are not at all like ours, but much more convenient for the country, the heat being so great that glasses would be very troublesome. They are made a good deal in the manner of the Dutch coaches, having wooden lattices painted and gilded, the inside being painted with baskets and nosegays of flowers, intermixed commonly with little poetical mottoes. They are covered all over with cloth, lined with silk and very often richly embroidered and fringed. This covering entirely hides the persons in them, but may be thrown back at pleasure and the ladies peep through the lattices. They hold four people very conveniently, seated on cushions, but not raised.

  In one of these covered wagons I went to the bagnio about ten o’clock. It was already full of women. It is built of stone in the shape of a dome with no windows but in the roof, which gives light enough. There was five of these domes joined together, the outmost being less than the rest and serving only as a hall where the porteress stood at the door. Ladies of quality generally give this woman the value of a crown or ten shillings, and I did not forget that ceremony. The next room is a very large one, paved with marble, and all round it raised two sofas of marble, one above another. There were four fountains of cold water in this room, falling first into marble basins and then running on the floor in little channels made for that purpose, which carried the streams into the next room, something less than this, with the same sort of marble sofas, but so hot with steams of sulphur proceeding from the baths joining to it, ’twas impossible to stay there with one’s clothes on. The two other domes were the hot baths, one of which had cocks of cold water turning into it to temper it to what degree of warmth the bathers have a mind to.

  I was in my travelling habit, which is a riding dress, and certainly appeared very extraordinary to them, yet there was not one of ‘em that showed the least surprise or impertinent curiosity, but received me with all the obliging civility possible. I know no European court where the ladies would have behaved themselves in so polite a manner to a stranger. I believe in the whole there were two hundred women and yet none of those disdainful smiles or satiric whispers that never fail in our assemblies when anybody appears that is not dressed exactly in fashion. They repeated over and over to me, ‘Uzelle, pek uzelle’, which is nothing but, ‘Charming, very charming’. The first sofas were covered with cushions and rich carpets, on which sat the ladies, and on the second their slaves behind ’em, but without any distinction of rank by their dress, all being in the state of nature, that is, in plain English, stark naked, without any beauty or defect concealed, yet there was not the least wanton smile or immodest gesture amongst ’em. They walked and moved with the same majestic grace which Milton describes of our General Mother. There were many amongst them as exactly proportioned as ever any goddess was drawn by the pencil of Guido or Titian, and most of their skins shiningly white, only adorned by their beautiful hair divided into many tresses hanging on their shoulders, braided either with pearl or riband, perfectly representing the figures of the Graces.

  I was here convinced of the truth of a reflection that I had often made, that if ’twas the fashion to go naked the face would be hardly observed. I perceived that the ladies with the finest skins and most delicate shapes had the greatest share of my admiration, though their faces were sometimes less beautiful than those of their companions. . . .

  In short, ’tis the women’s coffee-house, where all the news of the town is told, scandal invented, etc. They generally take this diversion once a week, and stay there at least four or five hours without getting cold by immediate coming out of the hot bath into the cool room, which was very surprising to me. The lady that seemed the most considerable amongst them entreated me to sit by her and would fain have undressed me for the bath. I excused myself with some difficulty, they being all so earnest in persuading me. I was at last forced to open my skirt and show them my stays, which satisfied ’em very well, for I saw they believed I was so locked up in that machine that it was not in my own power to open it, whch contrivance they attributed to my husband. I was charmed with their civility and beauty and should have been very glad to pass more time with them.

  ED. R. HALSBAND, THE COMPLETE LETTERS OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU (1965)

  Lady Mary Wortley Montagu made the most of her two years in Turkey. This letter to her sister describes both the feelings and tremendous riches of the Sultan’s favourite wife.

  10 March 1718

  I went to see the Sultana Hafise, favourite of the last Emperor Mustafa, who, you know (or perhaps you don’t know), was deposed by his brother, the reigning Sultan, and died a few weeks after, being poisoned, as it was generally believed. This lady was immediately after his death saluted with an absolute order to leave the Seraglio and choose herself a husband from the great men at the Porte. I suppose you imagine her overjoyed at this proposal. Quite contrary; these women, who are called and esteem themselves queens, look upon this liberty as the greatest disgrace and affront that can happen to them. She threw herself at the Sultan’s feet and begged him to poniard her rather than use his brother’s widow with that contempt. She represented to him in agonies of sorrow that she was privileged from this misfortune by having brought five princes into the Ottoman family, but all the boys being dead and only one girl surviving, this excuse was not received and she compelled to make her choice. She chose Ebubekir Effendi, then secretary of state, and above fourscore year old, to convince the world that she firmly intended to keep the vow she had made of never suffering a second husband to approach her bed, and since she must honour some subject so far as to be called his wife she would choose him as a mark of her gratitude, since it was he that had presented her at the age of ten years to her lost lord. But she has never permitted him to pay her one visit, though it is now fifteen year she has been in his house, where she passes her time in uninterrupted mourning with a constancy very little known in Christendom, especially in a widow of twenty-one, for she is now but thirty-six. She has no black eunuchs for her guard, her husband being obliged to respect her as a queen and not enquire at all into what is done in her apartment, where I was led into a large room, with a sofa the whole length of it, adorned with white marble pillars like a ruelle, covered with pale bleu figured velvet on a silver ground, with cushions of the same, where I was desired to repose till the Sultana appeared, who had contrived this manner of reception to avoid rising up at my entrance, though she made me an inclination of her head when I ris up to her. I was very glad to observe a lady that had been distinguished by the favour of an Emperor to whom beauties were every day presented from all parts of the world. But she did not seem to me to have ever been half so beautiful as the fair Fatima I saw at Adrianople, though she had the remains of a fine face more decayed by sorrow than time.

  But her dress was something so surprisingly rich I cannot forbear describing it to you. She wore a vest called dolaman, and which differs from a caftan by longer sleeves, and folding over at the bottom. It was of purple cloth strait to her shape and thick set, on each side down to her feet and round the sleeves, with pearls of the best water, of the same size as their buttons commonly are. You must not suppose I mean as large as those of my Lord – but about the bigness of a pea; and to these buttons, large loops of diamonds in the form of those gold loops so common upon birthday coats. This habit was tied at the waist with two large tassels of smaller pearl, and round
the arms embroidered with large diamonds; her shift fastened at the bosom with a great diamond shaped like a lozenge; her girdle as broad as the broadest English riband entirely covered with diamonds. Round her neck she wore three chains which reached to her knees, one of large pearl at the bottom of which hung a fine coloured emerald as big as a turkey egg, another consisting of two-hundred emeralds close joined together, of the most lively green, perfectly matched, every one as large as a half-crown piece, and as thick as three crown pieces, and another of small emeralds perfectly round. But her earrings eclipsed all the rest; they were two diamonds shaped exactly like pears, as large as a big hazel nut. Round her talpack she had four strings of pearl, the whitest and most perfect in the world, at least enough to make four necklaces every one as large as the Duchess of Marlborough’s, and of the same size, fastened with two roses consisting of a large ruby for the middle stone, and round them twenty drops of clean diamonds to each. Besides this, her headdress was covered with bodkins of emeralds and diamonds. She wore large diamond bracelets and had five rings on her fingers, all single diamonds, (except Mr Pitt’s) the largest I ever saw in my life. ’Tis for jewellers to compute the value of these things, but according to the common estimation of jewels in our part of the world, her whole dress must be worth above £100,000 sterling. This I am very sure of, that no European queen has half the quantity.

  ED. R. HALSBAND (1965)

  CAMPING WITH THE ARMY IN INDIA

  Emily Eden’s experiences of camping with the Army in India made entertaining reading, but it was clearly less enjoyable for the participants. ‘G’ is George, her brother, the Governor-General.

  Camp near Allahabad, Nov. 30, 1837

  I sent off one journal to you two days ago from a place that, it since appears, was called Bheekee. Yesterday we started at half-past five, as it was a twelve miles’ march, and the troops complain if they do not get in before the sun grows hot, so we had half an hour’s drive in the dark. I came on in the carriage, as I did not feel well, and one is sick and chilly naturally before breakfast. Not but that I like these morning marches; the weather is so English, and feels so wholesome when one is well. The worst part of a march is the necessity of everybody, sick or well, dead or dying, pushing on with the others. Luckily there is every possible arrangement made for it. There are beds on poles for sick servants and palanquins for us, which are nothing but beds in boxes. G. and I went on an elephant through rather a pretty little village in the evening, and he was less bored than usual, but I never saw him hate anything so much as he does this camp life. I have long named my tent ‘Misery Hall.’

  ‘Mine,’ G. said ‘I call Foully Palace, it is so very squalid-looking.’ He was sitting in my tent in the evening, and when the purdahs are all down, all the outlets to the tents are so alike that he could not find which crevice led to his abode; and he said at last, ‘Well! it is a hard case; they talk of the luxury in which the Governor-General travels, but I cannot even find a covered passage from Misery Hall to Foully Palace.’

  This morning we are on the opposite bank of the river to Allahabad, almost a mile from it. It will take three days to pass the whole camp. Most of the horses and the body-guard are gone to-day.

  E. EDEN, UP THE COUNTRY: LETTERS FROM INDIA (1872)

  Emily Eden only went to India to keep house for her brother. Her letters give a varied picture of their life there.

  October 1838

  This day fortnight we are to be in our wretched tents – I could have a fit of hysterics when I think of it. The work of packing progresses and there are no bounds to the ardour with which everybody labours to make us uncomfortable. Already there are horrible signs of preparation with camel trunks and stores going off. A great many people have to go down to the plains this week. Poor things, it is about as rational as if a slice of bread were to get off the plate and put itself on the toasting fork.

  E. EDEN (1872)

  On 9 November 1838, after seven months in Simla, they returned to the tramping way of life. Emily’s desperation was compounded by the weather.

  We have been six days in camp and it is pouring as it only pours in India. It is impossible to describe the squalid misery; little ditches run round or through each tent with a slosh of mud that one invariably steps into; the servants look soaked and wretched, the camels slip down and die in every direction; I have to go under an umbrella to George’s tent and we are carried in palanquins to the dining tent. How people who might by economy and taking in washing and plain work have a comfortable back attic in the neighbourhood of Manchester Square, with a fireplace and a boarded floor, can come and march about India, I cannot guess.

  E. EDEN (1872)

  The meeting between the Governor-General and the Lion of the Punjab had been arranged for Ferozepore on the border between British India and the Punjab. On 26 November Lord Auckland and his party arrived to discuss averting war – unsuccessfully.

  Today was the great day. George and all the gentlemen went on their elephants to meet Ranjit who arrived on an equal number of elephants – indeed there were so many that the clash at meeting was very destructive to howdahs and hangings. George handled the Maharajah into the large tent where he sat down for a few minutes on the sofa between George and me.

  E. EDEN (1872)

  SLAVERY IN THE SOUTHERN STATES

  Harriet Martineau devoted most of her life to helping women achieve greater rights. When she visited the southern states of America in the 1850s she was appalled at what she saw.

  A lady from New-England, staying in Baltimore, was one day talking over slavery with me, her detestation of it being great, when I told her I dreaded seeing a slave. ‘You have seen one,’ said she. ‘You were waited on by a slave yesterday evening.’ She told me of a gentleman who let out and lent out his slaves to wait at gentlemen’s houses, and that the tall handsome mulatto who handed the tea at a party the evening before was one of these. I was glad it was over for once; but I never lost the painful feeling caused to a stranger by intercourse with slaves. No familiarity with them, no mirth and contentment on their part, ever soothed the miserable restlessness caused by the presence of a deeply-injured fellow-being. No wonder or ridicule on the spot avails anything to the stranger. He suffers, and must suffer from this, deeply and long, as surely as he is human and hates oppression. . . .

  There is something inexpressibly disgusting in the sight of a slave woman in the field. I do not share in the horror of the Americans at the idea of women being employed in outdoor labour. It did not particularly gratify me to see the cows always milked by men (where there were no slaves); and the hay and harvest fields would have looked brighter in my eyes if women had been there to share the wholesome and cheerful toil. But a negro woman behind the plough presents a very different object from the English mother with her children in the turnip-field, or the Scotch lassie among the reapers. In her pre-eminently ugly costume, the long, scanty, dirty woollen garment, with the shabby large bonnet at the back of her head, the perspiration streaming down her dull face, the heavy tread of the splay foot, the slovenly air with which she guides her plough, a more hideous object cannot well be conceived, unless it be the same woman at home, in the negro quarter, as the cluster of slave dwellings is called.

  ED. MARIA W. CHAPMAN, HARRIET MARTINEAU’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND MEMORIALS OF HARRIET MARTINEAU (1877)

  THE LIVES OF SLAVES

  Barbara Bodichon also dedicated much of her time to reform, even when travelling. She visited the southern states of America soon after Harriet Martineau, and felt impelled to record her varied reactions:

  Letter to Albany Fonblanque 4 March 1853

  The happiness of these niggers is quite a curiosity to witness. I don’t mean that Slavery is right but that if you want to move your bowels with compassion for human unhappiness, that sort of aperient is to be found in such plenty at home that it’s a wonder people won’t seek it there. Every person I have talked to here about it deplores it and owns that it is the most costly do
mestic machinery ever devised. In a house where four servants would do with us (servants whom we can send about their business too, when they get ill and past work, like true philanthropists as we are) there must be a dozen blacks here. The hire of a house slave from his master is 120 dollars – £25 – besides of course his keep, clothing etc. To be sure that leaves the great question untouched that Slavery is wrong. Of course they feel the cruelty of flogging and enslaving a negro – Of course they feel here the cruelty of starving an English labourer, or of driving an English child into a mine. Brother, Brother, we are kin.

  ENGLISH WOMAN’S JOURNAL 8, DECEMBER 1861

  Letter from Savannah Sunday 7th March 1858

  I have been to the Methodist Church. It is a pleasant-looking, white, Noah’s ark kind of building, very large, very white, very cheerful, with windows all round. As I approached I heard singing. The minister, a slave and a very black negro, gave a good sermon on the Communion. In the evening I went to my Baptist Church close by, and heard another slave preach. I asked a few questions of a very old man who seemed to be an authority. He said the minister could read and write and had studied. I asked how he could study if he worked all day and I was told: ‘He studied at night. Of course he can’t do as well as white men who have all their time, but he worries so gets a little learning.’

  I found the congregation as polite as usual. I have talked to a good many and cannot say they look unhappy even when their circumstances would naturally have made them so. For instance a woman told me today that she is the property of a gentleman in the country who hires her out – to a white washerwoman. Here she always stays unless she is going to have a child, and then she goes to the plantation till her child can toddle; then out to work again. She has had five children, but never sees them except under these circumstances. ‘Well’, I said, ‘How do you get along?’ ‘Splendidly; of course I must get along. You see there ain’t no other way.’ Sometimes, it is true I meet faces which are tragedies to look on; but these are generally mulattoes.