by Leo Damrosch
Once I had a friend that would see me sometimes, and either commend what I did or advise me what to do, which banished all my uneasiness. But now, when my misfortunes are increased by being in a disagreeable place amongst strange prying deceitful people, whose company is so far from amusement that it is a very great punishment, you fly me, and give no reason but that we are amongst fools and must submit. I am very well satisfied that we are amongst such, but know no reason for having my happiness sacrificed to their caprice. You once had a maxim, which was to act what was right and not mind what the world said. I wish you would keep to it now. Pray what can be wrong in seeing and advising an unhappy young woman, I can’t imagine. You can’t but know that your frowns make my life insupportable. You have taught me to distinguish and then you leave me miserable. Now all I beg is that you will for once counterfeit (since you can’t otherwise) that indulgent friend you once were.7
Swift had quoted the maxim about doing what was right in Cadenus and Vanessa, and clearly he didn’t appreciate having it thrown back at him yet again. In reply, he reiterated his warning about the danger of gossip:
I received your letter when some company was with me on Saturday night, and it put me in such confusion that I could not tell what to do. I here send you the paper you left me. This morning a woman who does business for me told me she heard I was in —— with one ——, naming you, and twenty particulars, that little master and I visited you, and that the A-B did so; and that you had abundance of wit, etc. I ever feared the tattle of this nasty town, and I told you so, and that was the reason why I said to you long ago that I would see you seldom when you were in Ireland. And I must beg you to be easy if for some time I visit you seldomer, and not in so particular a manner.8
The “paper” may have been one of the financial documents Swift was helping with. The “A-B” was Archbishop King, who had known Vanessa’s parents and was taking an interest in her welfare. The “woman who does business” was Swift’s housekeeper, Mrs. Brent. Scott suggested that the blank should be filled in with “she heard I was in [love],” though of course it might just be a place-name. But who on earth was “little master”? Clearly it was a boy well known to Mrs. Brent, but why would he have accompanied Swift when he went to see Vanessa? Is it conceivable that this was the boy whom the aged bell ringer believed to be a child of Stella’s?
Swift’s warnings failed to persuade Vanessa to be “easy,” and her next letter reflects a bitter encounter that must have taken place. “’Tis impossible to describe what I have suffered since I saw you last. I am sure I could have bore the rack much better than those killing, killing words of yours. Sometimes I have resolved to die without seeing you more, but those resolves, to your misfortune, did not last long. . . . The reason I write to you is because I cannot tell it you, should I see you, for when I begin to complain then you are angry, and there is something in your look so awful that it strikes me dumb.”9
Awful in those days meant “that which strikes with awe, or fills with reverence,” as Johnson defines it. Swift’s flaring anger—not the sign of a passionless man—was well known to his friends. “Dr. Swift had a natural severity of face,” Orrery recalled, “which even his smiles could scarce soften, or his utmost gaiety render placid and serene; but when that sternness of visage was increased by rage, it is scarce possible to imagine looks or features that carried in them more terror and austerity.”10
Ehrenpreis, incidentally, quotes the phrase about “killing, killing words” and then puts Vanessa in her place: “Having concentrated her desires on the middle-aged priest, Vanessa could not bear the threat of his disengagement. Drawing on a well-stocked arsenal of emotional blackmail, she enjoyed the thrill of humiliating herself before the father-lover who remained deliciously out of reach.” The index to Ehrenpreis’s book cites this passage under two different headings, “emotional extortion” and “masochism.” Nokes, quoting the same phrase, says contemptuously, “Her letters become morbid, whining, and accusatory.”11
It is amazing how insensitive most biographers have been to Vanessa’s predicament and pain, beginning with Orrery, who never knew her but saw in her story “a miserable example of an ill-spent life, fantastic wit, visionary schemes, and female weakness.” Deane Swift’s retort was more generous and also more accurate: she was “worthy of an happier fate, a martyr to love and constancy.”12
At this point there is a gap of over four years in the letters, almost certainly destroyed by the executors. As a result, we know nothing about emotional ups and downs, or about how and where Swift and Vanessa met. It appears that his taboo against Celbridge was relaxed, for a gardener who had worked there as a boy remembered Vanessa’s attractive bosom and her habit of planting a laurel or two whenever she expected a visit from Swift. They would sit together in an arbor overlooking the Liffey, with books and writing materials on a table in front of them.13
One brief note survives from the middle of the four-year gap. Swift must have sent it to Vanessa’s Dublin house, warning her not to let one of his colleagues suspect a prearranged assignation—“He will think it was on purpose to meet me; and I hate anything that looks like a secret.” It was a secret, of course, that Vanessa and Swift were arranging to meet, which is why it mustn’t look like one.14
When the letters resume in 1719, there is a startling change in tone. Vanessa has evidently written to Swift in French, and he responds in the same language, though protesting that he’s not really good at it. The protest turns into what, for him, is an extravagant series of compliments. Here is what he says, translated:
As for me, I’m a fool to reply in the same language to you, who are incapable of any folly, unless it’s the esteem that it pleases you to feel for me; for it is no merit or proof of my good taste to find in you everything that Nature has given to a mortal: I mean honor, virtue, good sense, wit, sweetness, agreeableness, and firmness of soul. But concealing yourself as you do, the world doesn’t know you, and you lose the praise of millions of people. Since I’ve had the honor of knowing you, I have always observed that never, in private or in public conversation, has a single word come from your lips that could have been better expressed. And I swear to you that in often making the severest critique, I could never find any fault in your actions or your words. Coquetry, affectation, and prudishness are imperfections that you have never known. And with all of that, do you believe it’s possible not to esteem you above the rest of humankind? What beasts in skirts [bêtes en jupes] are the most excellent of those whom I see dispersed through the world, in comparison with you.15
So was there a sexual relationship? A comment by the younger Sheridan is persuasive: “When it is known that he carried on a secret intercourse with the lady during the space of eight or nine years; that he passed many hours alone with a young and charming woman, who loved him to adoration, and for whom he himself was first inspired with the passion of love; it will be hardly credible that thus circumstanced they should not, in some unguarded moment, have given way to the frailty of human nature.”16 More probably, not unguarded at all.
At this point the coded references to “coffee,” which had begun in London, reappear insistently. “Without health,” Swift tells Vanessa, “you will lose all desire of drinking your coffee.” And at another time, “I wish I were to walk with you fifty times about your garden, and then—drink your coffee.” To this he adds, “The Governor was with me at six o’clock this morning, but did not stay two minutes, and deserves a chiding which you must give when you drink your coffee next.”17 Swift sometimes called Vanessa “Governor Huff,” for her imperious manner, and surely he’s hinting that he woke up in the midst of an erotic dream.
It may be relevant that coffee had a well-known association with sex at the time. A Swiss visitor reported that some London coffeehouses were frequented by wits and politicians, but others were “temples of Venus; you can easily recognize the latter, because they frequently have as sign a woman’s arm or hand holding a coffee pot.” An English
writer said the same thing: “Where the sign is painted with a woman’s hand in’t, ’tis a bawdy house.”18
One remarkable letter by Swift combines warm protestations in French with an even more suggestive allusion to coffee: “Soyez assurée que jamais personne du monde a été aimée honorée estimée adorée par votre ami que vous” (Be assured that no one on earth has ever been loved, honored, esteemed, adored by your friend but yourself). He then reverts to English: “I drank no coffee since I left you, nor intend till I see you again, there is none worth drinking but yours, if my self may be the judge—adieu.”19 The emphasis is Swift’s.
Sheridan’s suggestion is plausible: “This declaration seems to have been drawn from him by some desperate state of mind in which he had left her, probably occasioned by her jealousy of Stella.” Woolley takes too many liberties when, in his edition of Swift’s letters, he inserts an unnecessary word, “a été [plus] aimée.” That would mean “No one on earth has ever been loved more than yourself,” which it’s hard to imagine Swift saying. Besides, it would obliterate the implication that he loves Vanessa in a different way from Stella—in short, romantically and erotically. The passage in French immediately follows this piece of advice: “Settle your affairs, and quit this scoundrel island, and things will be as you desire.” Is Swift hinting that he has renewed hopes of an appointment in England, and that Vanessa might join him there?20
There are also repeated references to Vanessa’s insistent “questions.” On one occasion Swift says, “The questions which you were used to ask me, you may suppose to be all answered, just as they used to be after half an hour debate. . . . So drink your coffee, and remember you are a desperate chip; and that the lady who calls you bastard will be ready to answer all your questions.” The “lady” is probably the Venus of Cadenus and Vanessa, who tells Athena that Vanessa is a daughter of Apollo; “chip” may be a teasing reference to diminutive size. At any rate, Vanessa replied tartly, “I have asked you all the questions I used ten thousand times, and don’t find them answered at all to my satisfaction.”21
Sometimes the coffee and the questions show up as a pair in Swift’s letters.
It would have been infinitely better once a week to have met Kendall, and so forth, where one might pass three or four hours in drinking coffee in the morning, or dining tête à tête, and drinking coffee again until seven. I answer all the questions you can ask me in the affirmative. . . . Remember that riches are nine parts in ten of all that is good in life, and health is the tenth. Drinking coffee comes long after, and yet it is the eleventh, but without the two former you cannot drink it right. . . . I hope you will let me have some of your money when I see you, which I will pay you honestly again; répondez-moi si vous entendez bien tout cela, et croyez que je serai toujours tout ce que vous désirez [tell me whether you understand all of this well, and believe that I will always be all that which you desire].22
Kendall was a bookbinder in the neighborhood of Vanessa’s Dublin house, and apparently he provided a hideaway where they could meet. Are riches really nine-tenths of what matters in life? Can money actually be meant in the talk about Swift repaying what he receives? And will he really be all that she desires? At any rate the allusions are deliberately veiled, as the comment in French confirms.
Finally, Swift offers a philosophical remark about trying to be satisfied with what one can get. “The best maxim I know in this life is to drink your coffee when you can, and when you cannot, to be easy without it. While you continue to be spleenatic, count upon it I will always preach. Thus much I sympathize with you, that I am not cheerful enough to write, for I believe coffee once a week is necessary to do that.”23
In one letter, after reproving Vanessa for her eruptions of temper—“I am confident you came chiding into the world, and will continue so while you are in it”—Swift suggests using dashes to signify endearments that shouldn’t be written down. “A stroke thus —— —— —— —— signifies everything that may be said to Cad—at beginning or conclusion. It is I who ought to be in a huff, that anything written by Cad—should be difficult to Skinage.” “Cad” is “Cadenus,” of course, and “Skinage” is a teasing allusion to Vanessa’s skinny frame (he sometimes combined it with her first name as “Heskinage”).24
Overjoyed, Vanessa replied, “—— —— —— —— Cad—you are good beyond expression and I will never quarrel again if I can help it. . . . I am now as happy as I can be without seeing —— —— —— Cad I beg you’ll continue my happiness to your own Skinage.”25
A further, and indeed surprising, sign of intimacy is that Swift shared the “little language” with Vanessa, and she used it when demanding that he treat her better. If all human arts should fail, she said, “I am resolved to have recourse to the black one . . . but there is one thing falls out very ruckily for you, which is that of all the passions, revenge hurries me least, so that you have it yet in your power to turn all this fury into good humor.” Swift accepted this as playful “raillery” and replied, “You need make use of no other black art besides your ink. ’Tis a pity your eyes are not black, or I would have said the same of them; but you are a white witch, and can do no mischief.”26 According to the OED, a white witch “uses witchcraft for beneficent purposes; one who practices ‘white magic.’”
By now there was a long history of shared experiences, and Swift pours out an irresistible catalogue of them.
What would you give to have the history of Cad—and—exactly written through all its steps from the beginning to this time? I believe it would do well in verse, and be as long as the other [Cadenus and Vanessa is nearly nine hundred lines long]. I hope it will be done. It ought to be an exact chronicle of 12 years, from the time of spilling the coffee to drinking of coffee, from Dunstable to Dublin with every single passage since. There would be the chapter of the blister, the chapter of Madam going to Kensington, the chapter of the colonel’s going to France, the chapter of the wedding with the adventure of the lost key. Of the strain, of the joyful return, two hundred chapters of madness. The chapter of long walks. The Berkshire surprise. Fifty chapters of little times; the chapter of Chelsea. The chapter of swallow, and cluster; a hundred books of my self and so low. The chapter of hide, and whisper. The chapter of who made it so.27
The blister must be the agonizing attack of shingles that Swift endured in London; the strain was caused by moving a heavy box of books, mentioned elsewhere. The wedding was probably that of a close friend of Vanessa’s, though the story of the key is lost. What was the much-reiterated “madness”? Was it amorous? We do know what the Berkshire surprise was: Vanessa’s unannounced and potentially gossip-causing appearance at Wantage in 1712, which by now is an event to cherish in memory. As for the “hide, and whisper,” and “who made it so,” we have no way of knowing anything about that.28 But it would be impossible to read all of this without feeling intense intimacy. How could this not have been love?
But the recriminations always return. A few months later Vanessa complains that she has heard almost nothing from Swift for “ten long weeks.” Discreetly but unmistakably, she insists that her feelings are sexual as well as spiritual: “Nor is the love I bear you only seated in my soul, for there is not a single atom of my frame that is not blended with it.” In another letter from this autumn or winter (they are undated) she tries even more eloquently to express her loneliness. Reproduced as she wrote it, without punctuation, her anguish is embodied in an unstoppable outpouring of words, with dashes in place of endearments as they had agreed:
Tell me sincerely if you have once wished with earnestness to see me since I wrote to you No so far from that you have not once pitied me though I told you how I was distressed solitude is insupportable to a mind which is not easy I have worn out my days in sighing and my nights with watching and thinking of ——, ——, ——, —— who thinks not of me how many letters must I send you before I shall receive an answer can you deny me in my misery the only comfort which I can expect at prese
nt oh that I could hope to see you here or that I could go to you I was born with violent passions which terminate all in one that unexpressible passion I have for you consider the killing emotions which I feel from your neglect of me and show some tenderness for me or I shall lose my senses.29
It is hard to understand how Ehrenpreis and Nokes could interpret this kind of appeal as mere neurotic harassment. Nor is the claim plausible that Swift, in simple kindness, was remaining attentive in order to let Vanessa down gently. Ehrenpreis says, “I pass over the many piquant or touching sentences from Swift’s letters to Vanessa because they would misrepresent the general effect of a man straining to transform a romantic obsession into a placid, playful intimacy.”30
For anyone interested in this relationship, there is a special thrill in holding the actual sheets of paper with which they communicated. There is also a sense of illicit prying. How appalled Swift would have been to know that these deeply private documents would be open to the world, in the reading room of the British Library! Vanessa, on the other hand, would probably have been delighted.
66. Vanessa to Swift.
Here is the very last letter of Vanessa’s that we have: “All other disappointments in life I can bear with ease, but that of being neglected by ——, ——, ——, Cad. He has often told me that the best maxim in life, and always held by the wisest in all ages, is to seize the moments as they fly. But those happy moments always fly out of the reach of the unfortunate.”31 One of Blake’s lyrics reads, in its entirety:
He who binds to himself a joy
Does the wingèd life destroy,
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sunrise.