 Section 5 of Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne. Recording by Breathe. The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne. Section 5. Sir, I do not know that anybody has frightened me, or beaten me, or put me into more passion than what I usually carry about me. But yesterday I missed my fit, and am not without hope I shall hear no more on it. My father has lost his too, and my elder's brother, who we all look like people risen from the dead. Only my cousin Maul keeps his still, and in earnest I am not certain whether he would lose it or not, for it gives him a lawful occasion of being nice and cautious about himself, to which he, in his own humour, is so much inclined to a not easy firm to forbear it. You need not send me my Lady Newcastle's book at all, for I have seen it, and am satisfied that there are many soberer people in bedlam. I'll swear her friends are much too blame to let her go abroad. But I am hugely pleased that you have seen my Lady. I knew you could not choose but, like her, but yet let me tell you, you have seen but the worst of her. Her conversation has more charms than can be in mere beauty, and a humour and disposition would make a deformed person appear lovely. You had strange luck to meet my brother so soon. You went up at last Tuesday. I heard from him on Thursday, but he did not tell me yet, seeing you. Perhaps he did not think it convenient to put me in mind of you. Besides, he thought he told me enough in telling me my cousin Osborne was married. Why did you not send me that news, and a garland? Well, the best on it is that I have a squire now, that is as good as a knight. He was coming as fast as a coach, and six horses could carry him, but I desired him to stay till my angel's gone, and give me a little time to recover my good looks. For I protest, if he saw me now, he would never deem to see me again. Come, me, I can but think how I shall sit like the lady of the lobster, and give audience at Babrum. You have been there, I'm sure. Nobody that is at Cambridge escapes it, but you are never so welcome, Thither, as you shall be when I am mistress on it. In the meantime, I have sent you the first tomb of Cirrus to read, but you have done with it. Leave it at Mr. Halling's words, and I'll send you another. I have had ladies with me all afternoon that are for London tomorrow. Now I have as many letters to write as my Lord General's secretary. Forgive me that this is no longer for I am your faithful friend, and servant, Dorothy Osborne. Letter 22 Sir, you are more in my depth than you imagine. I never deserved a long letter so much as now, when you sent me a short one. I could tell you such a story, too long to be written, as would make you see what I never discovered in myself before, that I am a valiant lady. In earnest, we have had such a skirmish, and upon so foolish an occasion, as I cannot tell which is strangest. The Emperor and his proposals began it. I talked merrily on, till I saw my brother put on his sober face. I could hardly then believe he was an earnest. It seems he was, for when I spoke freely my meaning, it wrought so with him as to fetch up all that lay on his stomach. All the people that I had ever in my life refused were brought again upon the stage, like Richard III's ghosts, to reproach me with all, and all the kindness his discoveries could make I had for you was laid to my charge. My best qualities, if I have any that are good, served but for aggravations of my fault, and I was allowed to have wit and understanding and discretion in other things, that it might appear I had none in this. Well, it was a pretty lecture, and I grew warm with it after a while. In short, we came so near and absolute falling out that it was time to give over, and we said so much then that we have hardly spoken a word together since, but it is wonderful to see what curd sees in legs pass between us, and as before we were thought the kindest brother and sister. We are certainly the most complimented couple in England. It is a strange change, and I am very sorry for it, but I'll swear I know not how to help it. I look upon it as one of my great misfortunes, and I must bear it, as that which is not my first nor likely to be my last. It is but reasonable, as you say, that you should see me, and yet I know not how it can well be. I am not for disguises, it looks like guilt, and I would not do a thing I does not earn. I cannot tell whether, if there were a necessity of your coming, I should not choose to have it when he is at home, and rather expose him to the trouble of entertaining a person whose company here would not be pleasing to him. And perhaps an opinion that I did it purposely to cross him, than that your coming in his absence should be thought a concealment, chose one reason more than I told you why I resolved not to go to absent in the summer, because I knew he would imagine it an agreement between us, and that something besides my spleen carried me thither. Whether you see me or not, you may be satisfied I am safe enough, and you are in no danger to lose your prisoner, since so great a violence as this has not broke her chains. You will have nothing to thank me for after this, my whole life will not yield another occasion to let you see at what rates I value your friendship, and I have been much better than my word in doing, but what I promise to you, since I found it a much harder thing not to yield the power of a new relation, and a greater kindness than I could then imagine it. To let you see I did not repent me of the last commission, I will give you another. Here is a seal that Walker sent for me, and it has dropped out, pray give it to him to mend. If anything could be wondered at in this age, I should very much how you came by your information. To small than I know of Mr Freeman be my servant, I saw him not long since, and he told me no such thing. Do you know him? In earnest, he is a pretty gentleman, and has a great deal of good nature, I think, which may oblige him perhaps to speak well of his acquaintances without desire. Mr Fish is a squire of dames, and has so many mistresses that anybody may pretend fair in him and be believed. Though I have the honour to be his near neighbour, to speak freely, I cannot brag much that he makes any court to me, and I know no young woman in a country that he does not visit often. I have sent you another tomb of Cirrus, pray send me the first to Mr Hollingsworth for my lady. My cousin Moe went from Hens to Cambridge on Thursday, and there is an end of Mr Bennett. I have no company now, but my niece Payton and my brother will be shortly for the tomb, but will make no long stay in town. I think my youngest brother comes down with him. Remember that you or me a long letter and something for forgiving your last. I have no room for Moe than your faithful friend and servant Dorothy Osborne. Letter 23. Sir, I will tell you no more of my servants. I can no sooner give you some little hints whereabout they live, but you know them presently, and I meant you should be beholding to me for your acquaintance. But it seems this gentleman is not so easy access, but you may acknowledge something due to me. If I incline him to look graciously upon you, and therefore there is not much harm done. What has kept him from marrying all this time, or how the humour comes so furiously upon him now, I know not. But if he may be believed, he is resolved to be a most romance squire, and go in quest of some enchanted damsel, whom if he likes as to her person, for fortune is a thing below him, and we do not read in history that any knight or squire was ever so discourteous as to inquire what portions their ladies had. Then he comes with the power of the county to demand her, which for the present he may dispose of being sheriff. So I do not see who is able to resist him. All that is to be hoped is that since he may reduce whosoever he pleases to his obedience, he will be very curious in his choice, and then I am secure. It may be I dreamt it that you had met my brother, or else it was one of the reveries of my ink, if so I hope I shall fall in to know more of them. I have missed four fits, and have had but five, and have recovered so much strength as made me venture to meet your letter on Wednesday, a mile from home. Yet my recovery will be nothing towards my leaving this place, where many reasons will oblige me to stay at least all this summer, unless some great alteration should happen in this family, that which I most own is my father's ill health. Which, though it be not in that extremity it has been, yet keeps him still a prisoner in his chamber, and for the most part to his bed, which is reason enough. But, besides, I can give you others. I am here much more out of people's way than in town, where my aunt in such as pretend and interest in me, and a power over me, do so persecute me with dear good nature, and take it so ill that they are not accepted as I would live in a hollow tree to avoid them. Here I have nobody but my brother to torment me, whom I can take the liberty to dispute with, whom I have prevailed with hitherto, to bring none of his pretenders to this place. But because of the noise all such people make in a country, and a tittle-tattle and breeds among neighbors, I have nothing to do but to inquire who marries and who makes love. If I can, but keep him still in that humour, Mr. Bennett and I are likely to preserve our state and treat at distance like princes, that we have not sent one another our pictures yet. Though my cousin Maul, who was his agent here, begged mine very earnestly. But, thank God, an imagination took him one morning that he was falling into a dropsy, and made him in such haste to go back to Cambridge to his doctor that he never remembers anything he has to ask of me, but a coach to carry him away. I learnt it most willingly, and gone he is. My elder's brother goes up to town on Monday too, perhaps you may see him, but I cannot direct you where to find him, for he is not yet resolved himself where to lie. Only to slightly nann may tell you when he is there. He will make no stay, I believe. You will think him altered, and, if it be possible, more melancholy than he was. If marriage agrees no better with other people than it does with him, I shall pray that all my friends may escape it. Yet, if I were my cousin, H. Danvers, my Lady Diana should not, if I could help it, as well as her love her. I would try if ten thousand pounds a year with a husband that doted on her, as I should do, could not keep her from being unhappy. Well, in earnest, if I were a prince, that lady should be my mistress, but I can give no rule to anyone else, and perhaps those that are in no danger of losing their hearts to her may be infinitely taken with one I should not value for, so says the Justinian, wise providence has ordained it that by their different humours everybody might find something to please themselves without envying their neighbours. And now I have begun to talk gravely and wisely. I'll try, if I can, go a little further without being out. No, I cannot. For I forgot already what was I would have said. But, tis no matter, for, as I remember, it was not much to the purpose. And, besides, I have paper little enough left to chide you for asking so unkind a question as whether you were still the same in my thoughts. Have you deserved to be otherwise? That is, am I no more in yours? For, till that be, it's impossible the other should, but that will never be, and I shall always be the same I am. My heart tells me so, and I believe it. For, were it otherwise, fortune would not persecute me thus. No, me. She is cruel. And how far her power may reach I know not. Only, I am sure, she cannot call back time that is past. And it is long since we resolve to be forever those faithful friends. Dorothy Osborn, Letter 24. Sir, you amaze me with your story of Tom Cheek. I am certain he could not have had it where you imagine. It is a miracle to me that he remember that there is such a one in the world as his cousin D.O. I am sure he has not seen her this six years, and I think, but once in his life, if he has spread in his opinion in that family, I shall quickly hear on it. For my cousin Maul is now gone to Kimberlton to my Lord Manchester, and from there he goes to Moore Park to my cousin Franklin's. And in one, or both, he will be sure to meet with it. The matter is not great, for I confess, I do naturally hate the noise and talk of the world, and should be best pleased never to be known in upon any occasion whatsoever. Yet, since it can never be wholly avoided, one must satisfy oneself by doing nothing, that one need care who knows. I do not think, I propose, to tell anybody that you and I are very good friends, and it were better, sure, if nobody knew it but we ourselves. But if, in spite of all our caution, it be discovered, tis no treason or anything else that's ill, and if anybody should tell me that I have had a greater kindness and esteem for you than for anyone besides, I do not think I should deny it. Howsoever you do, oblige me by not owning any such thing, for as you say, I have no reason to take it ill that you endeavour to preserve me a liberty, though I am never likely to make use on it. Besides that, I agree with you too, that certainly tis much better you should owe my kindness to nothing but your own merit and my inclination, than that there should lie any other necessity upon me of making good my words to you. For God's sake, do not complain so that you do not see me. I believe I do not suffer less in it than you, but tis not to be helped. If I had a picture that would fit for you, you should have it. I have but one that's anything like, and that's a great one, but I will send it some time or other to Cooper or Hoskins and have a little one drawn by it if I cannot be in town to sit myself. You undo me by but dreaming how happy we might have been when I consider how far we are from it in reality. Lass, how can you talk of defying fortune? Nobody lives without it, and therefore why should you imagine you could? I know not how my brother comes to be so well informed as you say, but I am certain he knows yet most of the injuries you have received from her. It is not possible she should have used you worse than he says. We have had another debate, but much more calmly. It was just upon his going up to town, and perhaps he thought it not fit to pardon anger. Not to wrong him, he never said to me whatever he thought, a word in prejudice of you and your own person, and I never heard him accuse any but your fortune and my indiscretion. And whereas I did expect that, at least in compliment to me, he should have said we had been a couple of fools well met. He says by his truth he does not blame you, but bids me not deceive myself to think you have any great passion for me. If you have done with the first part of Ceres, I should be glad Mr. Hollingsworth had it, because I mentioned some such thing in my last to my lady, but there is no haste of restoring the other unless she should send to me for it, which I believe she will not. I have a third tomb here against you have done with that second. To encourage you, let me assure you that the more you read of them, you will like them still better. Hold me, whilst I think on it. Let me ask you one question seriously, and pray it resolve me truly. Do I look so stately as people apprehend? I vow to you. I made nothing on it when Sir Emperor said so, because I had no great opinion of his judgment. But Mr. Freeman makes me mistrust myself extremely. Not that I am sorry I did appear so to him, since it kept me from the displeasure of refusing an offer which I do not perhaps deserve. But that it is a scurvy quality in itself, and I am afraid I have it in great measure if I showed any of it to him, for whom I have so much respect and esteem. If it be so, you must need know it, for though my kindness will not let me look so upon you, you can see what I do to other people. And besides, there was a time when we ourselves were indifferent to one another. Did I do so then, or have I learned it since? For God's sakes tell me that I may try to mend it. I could wish, too, that you would lay your commands on me to forebear fruit. Here is enough to kill a thousand such as I am. It's so extremely good that nothing but your power can secure me, therefore forbid it me, that I may live to be your faithful friend and servant, Dorothy Osborne. So you have furnished me now with arguments to convince my brother if he should ever enter on the dispute again. In earnest I believed all this before, but to a something and ignorant kind of faith in me. I was satisfied myself, but could not tell how to persuade another of the truth on it, and to speak indifferently. There are such multitudes that abuse the names of love and friendship, and so very few that either understand or practice it in reality, that it may raise great doubts whether there is any such thing in a world or not, and such as do not find it in themselves will hardly believe to us anywhere. But it will easily be granted that most people make haste to be miserable, that they put on their fetters as inconsiderately as a woodcock runs into a noose, and are carried by the weakest considerations imaginable to do a thing of the greatest consequence of anything that concerns this world. I was told by one who pretends to know him very well that nothing tempted my cousin Osborne to marry his lady so much as that she was an Earl's daughter, which we thought was the prettiest fancy, and had the lease of sense in it, Havenia had heard on, considering that it was no addition to her person that he had honour enough before for his fortune and how little it is esteemed in this age. If it be anything in a better, which for my part I'm not more satisfied in. Beside that, in this particular it does not sound so handsomely, my lady Bridget Osborne makes a worse name a great deal, than plain my lady Osborne would do. I have been studying how Tom Cheek might come by his intelligence, and I very believe he has it from my cousin, Peters. She lives near the menesics and in all likelihood for want of other discourse to entertain him with her, she has come out with all she knows. The last time I saw her she asked me for you before she had spoke six words to me, and I, who of all things do not love to make secrets of trifles, told her I had seen you that day. She said no more, nor I neither, but perhaps it worked in her little brain. The best on it, as the matter is not great, for the way confess I had rather nobody knew it, yet just I shall never be ashamed to own. How kindly do I take the civilities of your fathers? In earnest you cannot imagine how his letter pleased me. I used to respect him merely as he was your father, but I begin now to owe it to himself. Although he says it so kind and so obliging, so natural and so easy, that one may see just perfectly his disposition, there's nothing to disguise in it. Just long since then I knew how well he'd writ. Perhaps you have forgot that you had showed me a letter of his to a French marquee, I think, or some such man of his acquaintance. When I first knew you, I remember it very well, and that I thought it handsome a letter as I had seen, but I have not skilled it seems, for I like yours too. I can pardon all my cousin Franklin's little plots of discovery if she believed herself when she said she was confident our humours would agree extremely well. In earnest I think they do, for I mark that I am always of your opinion, unless it be when you will not allow that you write well. For there I am too much concerned. Jane told me the other day, very soberly, that we write very much alike. I think she said it with an intent to please me and did not fail in it, but if you write ill, it was no great compliment to me. Apropos the Jane, she bids me to tell you that if you liked your marmalade of quints she would send you more, and she thinks better that has been made since. Trust the strange caprices you say of Mrs. Harrison, but there is fate as well as love in those things. To Queen to greatest pains to persuade her from it that could be and as somebody says I know not who, Majesty is no ill orator, but all that would not too. When she had nothing to say for herself she told her she had rather beg with Mr. Howard than live in the greatest plenty that could be with either my Lord Broghill, Charles Rich or Mr. Neville, for all these were dying for her then. I am afraid she has altered her opinion since it was too late, for I do not take Mr. Howard to be a person that can deserve one should neglect all the world for him. And where there is no reason to uphold a passion it will sink of itself, but where there is it may last eternally. I am your faithful friend and servant, Dorothy Osborn. End of Section 5 Recording by Breathe, Malaysia Section 6 Letter 26 Sir, the day I should have received your letter I was invited to dine at a rich widow's whom I think I once told you of and offered my service in case you thought fit to make addresses there. And she was so kind and in so good humour that if I had had any commission I should have thought it a very fit time to speak. We had a huge dinner though the company was only of her own kindred that are in the house with her and what I brought. But she has broke loose from an old miserable husband that lived so long she thinks if she does not make haste she shall not have time to spend what he left. She is old and was never handsome and yet has courted a thousand times more than the greatest beauty in the world would be that had not a fortune. We could not eat in quiet for the letters and presents that came in from people that would not have looked upon her when they had met her if she had been left poor. I could not but laugh to myself at the meanness of their humour and was merry enough all day for the company was very good and besides I expected to find when I came home a letter from you that would be more a feast and company to me than all that was there but never anybody was so defeated as I was to find none. I could not imagine the reason only I assured myself it was no fault of yours but perhaps a just punishment upon me for having been too much pleased in a company where you were not. After supper my brother and I fell into dispute about riches and the great advantages of it he instanced in the widow that it made one respected in the world. I said it was true but that was a respect I should not at all value when I owed it only to my fortune and we debated it so long till we had both talked to ourselves weary enough to go to bed yet I did not sleep so well but that I should my maid for waking me in the morning till she stopped my mouth with saying I had not patience to stay till I could rise but made her tie up all the curtains to let in light and among some others I found my dear letter that was first to be read and which made all the rest not worth the reading. I could not but wonder to find in it that my cousin Franklin should want a true friend when to start she has the best husband in the world. He was so passionate for her before he had her and so pleased with her since that in earnest I did not think it possible she could have anything wish for that she had not already in such a husband with such a fortune but she can best tell whether she is happy or not. Only if she be not I do not see how anybody else can hope it. I know her the least of all the sisters and perhaps it is to my advantage that she knows me no more since she speaks so obligingly of me. But do you think it was altogether without design she spoke it to you? When I remember she is Tom Cheek's sister I am apt to think she might have heard his news and to try whether there was anything of truth in it. My cousin Molly I think meant to end the summer there. They say indeed it is a very fine seat but if I did not mistake Sir Tom Cheek he told me there was never a good room in the house. I was wondering how you came by an acquaintance there because I had never heard you speak that you knew them. I never saw him in my life but he is famous for a kind husband. Only it was found fault with that he could not forbear kissing his wife before company a foolish trick that young married men are apt to. He has left it long since I suppose but seriously it is as ill a sight as one would wish to see and appears very rude meetings to the company. What is strange fellow this goldsmith is he has a head fit for nothing but horns I cheated him once for a seal he set me just of this fashion and the same colors if you were to make 20 they should be also his invention can stretch no further than blue and red it makes me think of the fellow that could paint nothing but a flower deluce who when he met with one that was so firmly resolved to have a lion for his sign that there was no persuading him out on it well says the painter let it be a lion then but it shall be as like a flower deluce as ever you saw so because you would have it a dolphin he consented to it but it is like an ill-favored knot of ribbon I did not say anything of my father's being ill of late I think I told before he kept his chamber ever since his last sickness and so he does still yet I cannot say that he is at all sick but has so generally weakness upon him that I am much afraid their opinion of him has too much of truth in it and do extremely apprehend how the winter may work upon him will you pardon the strange scribble letter and the disorderliness on it I know you would though I should not tell you that I'm not so much at leisure as it used to be you can forgive your friends anything and when I'm not the faithfulest of those never forgive me you may direct your letters how you please here will be nobody to receive it but your faithful friend and servant Dorothy Osborne letter 27 sir your last came safe and I shall follow your direction for the address of this though as you say I cannot imagine what should tempt anybody to so severe a search for them unless it be that he is not yet fully satisfied to what degree our friendship has grown and thinks he may best inform himself from them in earnest should not be unpleasant to hear our discourse he forms his with so much art and design and is so pleased with the hopes of making some discovery and I who know him as well as he does himself cannot but give myself the recreation sometimes of confounding him and destroying all that his busy head had been working on since the last conference he gives me some trouble with the suspicions yet on my conscience he is a greater to himself and I deal with so much franchise as to tell himself and yet he has no more the heart to ask me directly what he would so feign know than a jealous man has to ask one that might tell him whether he were a cuckold or not for fear of being resolved of that which is yet a doubt to him my eldest brother is not so inclusive he satisfies himself with persuading me earnestly to marry and take no notice of anything that may hinder me but a callousness of my fortune or perhaps an aversion to a kind of life that appears to have less of freedom in it than that which at present I enjoy but sure he gives himself another reason for it is not very long since he took occasion to inquire for you very kindly of me and though I could then give but little account of you he smiled as if he did not altogether believe me and afterwards maliciously said he wonder you did not marry and I seem to do so too and said if I knew any woman that had a great fortune and were a person worthy of you I should wish her you with all my heart but sister says he would you have him love her do you doubt it did I say he were not happy in it else he laughed and said my humor was pleasant but he made some question whether it was natural or not he cannot be so unjust as to let me lose him sure I was kind to him though I had some reason not to take it very well when he made that a secret to me which was known to so many that did not know him but we shall never fall out I believe we are not apt to it neither of us if you have come back from Epsom I may ask you how you like drinking water I have wished it might agree as well with you as it did with me and if it were as certain that the same thing would do it as this that the same thing would please us I should not need to doubt it otherwise my wishes do not signify much but I am for bit complaints or to express my fears and be it so only you must pardon me if I cannot agree to give you false hopes I must be deceived myself before I can deceive you and I have so accustomed myself to tell you all that I think that I must either say nothing or that which I believe to be true I cannot say but that I have wanted Jane but it has been rather to have somebody to talk with of you than that I needed anybody to put me in mind of you and with all her diligence I should have often prevented her in that discourse where you at Altorp when you saw my lady Thunderland and Mr. Smith or are they in town I have heard indeed that they are very happy but with all that as she is a very extraordinary person herself so she aimed at doing extraordinary things and when she had married Mr. Smith because some people were so bold as to think she did it because she loved him she undertook to convince the world that what she had done was in mere pity to his sufferings and that she could not go a step lower to meet anybody than that led her though when she thought there were no eyes on her she was more gracious to him but perhaps this might not be true or it may be that she is now grown weary of the constraints she put upon herself I should have been sadder than you if I had been their neighbour to have seen them so kind as I must have seen if I had married the emperor he used to brag to me always of a great acquaintance he had there what an esteem my lady had for him and had the vanity not to call it impudence to talk sometimes as if he would have had me believe he might have had her and would not I swear I blushed for him when I saw he did not he told me too that though he had carried his addresses to me with all the privacy that was possible because he saw I liked it best and that was partly his own humour too yet she had discovered it and could tell that there had been such a thing and that it was broke off again she knew not why which certainly was a lie as well as the other for I do not think she ever heard there was such a one in the world as your friend and servant Dorothy Osborn Letter 28 Sir, I did not lay it as a false-tier charge that you are not good at disguise if it be one I am too guilty on it myself to accuse another and though I have been told it shows an untractedness in the world and betrays to all that understand it better yet since it is a quality I was not born with nor even liked to get I have always thought good to maintain that it was better not to need it than to have it I have always thought good to maintain that it was better not to need it than to have it I give you many thanks for your care of my Irish dog but I am extremely out of countenance your father should be troubled with it sure he will think I have a most extravagant fancy but do me the right as to let him know I am not so possessed with it as to consent he should be employed in such a commission your opinion of my eldest brother is I think very just and when I said maliciously I meant a French malice which you know does not signify the same with an English one I know not whether I told it to you or not but I concluded from what you said of your indisposition that it was very like the spleen but perhaps I foresaw you would not be willing to own a disease that the severe part of the world holds to be merely imaginary and affected and therefore proper only to women however I cannot but wish you had stayed longer at Epsom and drunk the waters with more order though in a less proportion but did you drink them immediately from the well I remember I was forbidden and me thought with a great deal of reason for especially at this time of year the well is so low and there is such a multitude to be served out on it that you can hardly get any but what is thick and troubled and I have marked that when it stood all night for that was my direction the bottom of the vessel it stood in would be covered an inch thick with a white clay which sure has no great virtue in it and is not very pleasant to drink what a character of a young couple you give me would you would ask someone who knew him to be not much more of an ass since his marriage than he was before I have some reason to doubt that it alters people strangely I made a visit the other day to welcome a lady into this country whom her husband had newly brought down and because I knew him, though not her and she was a stranger here it was a civility I owed them but you cannot imagine how I was surprised to see a man that I had known so handsome so capable of being made a pretty gentleman for though he was no proud philosopher as the Frenchman say he was that which good company and the little knowledge of the world would have made equal to many that think themselves very well and are thought so transformed into the direct shape of a great boy newly come from school to see him wholly taken up with running on runs for his wife and teaching her little dog tricks and this was the best of him for when he was at leisure to talk he would suffer no one else to do it and what he said and the noise he made if you had heard it you would have concluded him drunk with joy that he had a wife and a pack of hounds I was so weary on it that I made haste home and could not but think of the change all the way till my brother who was with me thought me sad and so to put me in better humor said he believed I repented me I had not this gentleman now I saw how absolutely his wife governed him but I assured him that though I thought it very fit such as he should be governed yet I should not like the employment by no means it becomes no woman and it so ill with this lady that in my opinion it spoiled a good face and a very fine gown yet the woman you met upon the way governed her husband and did it handsomely it was as you say a great example of friendship and much for the credit of our sex you are too severe to walk her I'll undertake he would set me 20 seals for nothing rather than undergo your wrath I'm in no haste for it and so he does it well we will not fall out perhaps he is not in the humor of keeping his word at present and nobody can blame him if he be often in an ill one but though I'm merciful to him as to one that has suffered enough already I cannot excuse you that profess to be my friend and yet our content to let me live in such ignorance right to me every week and yet never sent me any of the new phrases of the town I could tell you without abandoning the truth that it is part of your devourer to correct the imperfections under my hand and that my troubled resembles my wonder you can let me be dissatisfied I should never have learnt any of these fine things from you and to say truth I know not whether I shall from anybody else if to learn them be to understand them pray what is meant by wellness and that wellness and why is to some extreme better than to some extremity I believe I shall live here till there is quite a new language spoke where you are and she'll come out like one of the seven sleepers a creature of another age but it's no matter so you understand me though nobody else do when I say how much I am your faithful and servant Dorothy Osborn letter 29 Sir I can give you leave to doubt anything but my kindness though I can assure you I speak as I meant when I said I had not the vanity to believe I deserved yours for I'm not certain whether it is possible for anybody to deserve that another should love them above themselves though I'm certain many may deserve it more than me but not to dispute this with you let me tell you that I am thus far of your opinion that upon some natures I think it's so powerful as kindness and that I should give that to yours which all the marriage in the world besides would not draw from me I speak as if I had not done so already but you may choose whether you will believe me or not for to say truth I do not much believe myself in that point no all the kindness I have or ever had is yours nor shall I ever repent it so unless you shall ever repent yours without telling you what the inconveniences of your coming hither are you may believe they are considerable or else I should not deny you or myself the happiness of seeing one another and if you dare trust me where I am equally concerned with you I shall take hold of the first opportunity that may ever admit you here or bring me nearer you sure you took somebody else for my cousin Peters I can never believe her beauty able to smite anybody I saw her when I was last in town but she appeared wholly the same to me she was at St. Melo with all her innocent good nature too and ask for you so kindly that I am sure she cannot have forgot you nor do I think she had so much address as to do it merely in compliments to me no you are mistaken certainly what should she do amongst all that company unless she be towards a wedding she has been kept at home poor soul and suffered so much of purgatory in this world that she needs to not fear it in the next and yet she is as merry as ever she was which perhaps might make her look young but that she laughs a little too much and that will bring her wrinkles they say oh me now I talk of laughing it makes me think of poor Jane I had a letter from her the other day she desired me to present her humble service to her master she did mean you sure for she named everybody else that she owes any service to and bid me say that she would keep her word with him God knows what you have agreed on together she tells me she shall stay long enough there to hear from me once more and then she is resolved to come away here is a seal which pray give Walker to set for me very handsomely and not of any of those fashions he made my others but of something that may differ from the rest it is a plain head but not ill cut I think my eldest brother is now here and we expect my young guest shortly and then we shall be all together which I do not think we ever were twice in our lives my niece is still with me but her father threatens to fetch her away if I can keep her to Michael mass I may perhaps bring her up to town myself and take that occasion of seeing you but I have no other business that is worth my taking a journey for I have had other summons from my aunt and I protest I'm afraid I shall be in rebellion there but it's not to be helped the widow writes me words too that I must expect her here about a month hence and I find that I shall want no company but only that which I would have and for which I could willingly spare all the rest will it be ever thus I'm afraid it will there has been complaints made on me already to my eldest brother only in general or at least he takes notice of no more what offers I refuse and what a strange humor has possessed me of being deaf to the advice of all my friends I find I am to be baited by them all by turns they vary themselves and me too to very little purpose for to my thinking they talk the most impertinently that ever people did and I believe they are not in my debt but think the same of me sometimes I tell them I will not marry and then they laugh at me sometimes I say not yet and they laugh more and would make me believe I shall be old within this 12 month I tell them I shall be wiser then they said it will be to no purpose sometimes we are in earnest and sometimes we are in jest but always saying something since my brother Henry found his tongue again if you were with me I could make sport of all this but patience is my penance is somebody's motto and I think it must be mine I am your faithful friend and servant Dorothy Osborn Letter 30 Sir you cannot imagine how I was surprised to find a letter that began dear brother I thought sure it could not belong at all to me and was afraid I had lost one by it that you intended me another and in your haste had mistook this for that therefore till I found the permission you gave me I had laid it by with a resolution not to read it but to send it again if I had done so I had missed a great deal of satisfaction which I received from it in earnest I cannot tell you how kindly I take all the obliging things you say in it of me nor how pleased I should be for your sake if I were able to make good the character you give me to your brother and that I did not owe a great part of it wholly to your friendship for me I dare call nothing on it my own but faithfulness that I may boast of with truth and modesty since this but a simple virtue and though some are without it yet this sir absolutely necessary that nobody wanting it can be worthy of any esteem I see you speak well of me to other people though you complain always to me I know not how to believe I should misuse your heart as you pretend I never had any quarrel to it and since our friendship it has been dear to me as my own just rather sure that you have a mind to try another than that any dislike of yours makes you turn it over to me but be it as it will I'm contented to stand to the loss and perhaps when you have changed you will find so little difference that you'll be calling for your own again do but assure me that I shall find you almost as merry as my lady and Wentworth is always and nothing shall fright me for my purpose of seeing you as soon as I can with any convenience say I would not have you insensible of our misfortunes but I would not either that you should revenge them on yourself no that shows a want of constancy which you will hardly yield to be your fault but to certain that there was never anything more mistaken than the Roman courage when they killed themselves to avoid misfortunes that were infinitely worse than death you confess to some age since our story began as it's not fit for me to own is it exactly then that if my face had ever been good it might be altered since then or is it as unfit for me to own the change as the time that makes it be it as you please I'm not enough concerned in it to dispute it with you for trust me if you would not have my face better I'm satisfied it should be as it is since if ever I wished it otherwise it was for your sake I know not how I stumbled upon a news book this week and for want something else to do read it it mentions my Lord Lizzle's embassage again is there any such thing to words I met with somebody else do in it that may concern anybody that has a mind to marry there's a new form for it that sure will fright the country people extremely for they apprehend nothing like going before a justice they say no other marriage shall stand good in law in conscience I believe the old one is the better and for my part and resolved to stay till it comes in fashion again can your father have so perfectly forgiven already the injury I did him since you will not allow it to be any to you in hindering you of Mrs. Chambers as to remember me with kindness this most certain that I'm obliged to him and in earnest if I could hope it might ever be in my power to serve him I would promise something for myself but is it not true too that you have represented me to him rather as you imagine me than as I am and have you not given him an expectation that I shall never be able to satisfy if you have I can forgive you because I know you meant well in it but I have known some women that have commended others merely out of spite and if I were malicious enough to envy anybody's beauty I would cry it up to all that had not seen them there's no such way to make anybody appear less handsome than they are you must not forget that your some letters in my debt besides the answer to this if there were not conveniences of sending I should prosecute you strangely and yet you cannot wonder at it the constant desire I have to hear from you and the satisfaction your letters give me would oblige one that has less time to write often but yet I know what this to be in the town I could never write a letter from then in my life of above a dozen lines and though I see after his company as anybody that comes there yet I always met with something or other which me idle therefore I can excuse it though you do not exactly pay all that you owe upon condition you shall tell me when I see you all that you should have read if you had had time and all that you can imagine to say to a person that is your faithful friend and servant Dorothy Osbourne End of Section 6 Section 7 of Love Letters of Dorothy Osbourne this is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Ruth Golding The Love Letters of Dorothy Osbourne Section 7 Letter 31 Sir it was sure a less fault in me to make a scruple of reading your letter to your brother which in all likelihood I could not be concerned in than for you to condemn the freedom you take of giving me directions in a thing where we are equally concerned therefore if I forgive you this you may justly forgive me Tother and upon these terms we are friends again are we not no stay I have another fault to chide you for you doubted whether you had not read too much and whether I could have the patience to read it or not why do you dissemble so abominably you cannot think these things how I should love that plain-heartedness you speak of if you would use it nothing is civil but that amongst friends your kind sister ought to chide you too for not writing to her unless you have been with her to excuse it I hope you have and pray take some time to make her one visit from me and carry my humble service with you and tell her that it is not my fault that you are no better I do not think I shall see the town before Mickelness therefore you may make what Sally's you please I am tied here to expect my brother Peyton and then possibly we may go up together for I should be at home again before the term then I may show you my niece and you may confess that I am the kind aunt to desire her company since the disadvantage of our being together will lie wholly upon me but I must make it my bargain that if I come you will not be frightened to see me you think I'll warrant you have courage enough to endure a worse sight you may be deceived you never saw me in mourning yet nobody that has will air desire to do it again for their own sakes as well as mine my most dismal dress I have not dared to look in the glass since I wore it and certainly if it did so ill with other people as it does with me it would never be worn you told me of writing to your father but you did not say whether you had heard from him or how he did may not I ask it is it possible that he saw me where were my eyes that I did not see him for I believe I should at least that it was he if I had they say you were very like him but it is no wonder neither that I did not see him for I saw not you when I met you there it is a place I look upon nobody in and it was a approach to me by a kinsman but a little before you came to me that he had followed me to half a dozen shops to see when I would take notice of him and was at last going away with a belief it was not I because I did not seem to know him other people make it so much their business to gape that I'll swear they put me so out of countenance I dare not look up for my life I am sorry for General Monk's misfortunes because you say he is your friend but otherwise she will suit well enough for the rest of the great ladies of the times and become Greenwich as well as some others do the rest of the king's houses if I am not mistaken Monk has a brother who lives in Cornwall an honest gentleman I have heard and one that was a great acquaintance of a brother of mine who was killed there during the war and so much his friend that upon his death he put himself and his family into mourning for him which is not usual I think where there is no relation of kindred I will take order that my letters shall be left with Jones and yours called for there as long as your last was I read it over thrice in less than an hour though to say truth I had skipped some on it the last time I could not read my own confessions so often love is a terrible word and I should blush to death if anything but a letter accused me on it pray be merciful and let it run friendship in my next charge my lady sends me word she has received those parts of Cyrus I lent you here is another for you which when you have read you know how to dispose there are four pretty stories in it Laman absente Laman non aimé Laman jaloux and Laman dans la maîtresse est mort tell me which you have most compassion for when you have read what every one says for himself perhaps you will not think it so easy to decide which is the most unhappy as you may think by the titles their stories bear only let me desire you not to pity the jealous one for I remember I could do nothing but laugh at him as one that sought his own vexation this and the little journeys you say you are to make will entertain you till I come which sure will be as soon as possible I can since it is equally desired by you and your faithful letter 32 sir all my quarrels to you are kind ones for sure it is alike impossible for me to be angry as for you to give me the occasion therefore when I chide unless it be that you are not careful enough of yourself and hazard too much a health that I am more concerned in than my own you need not study much for excuses I can easily forgive you anything but want of kindness the judgment you have made of the four lovers I recommended to you does so perfectly agree with what I think of them that I hope it will not alter when you have read their stories Laman absent has in my opinion a mistress so much beyond any of the rest that to be in danger of losing her is more than to have lost the others Laman non-aime was an ass under favour notwithstanding the princess as Cleo Billion's letter his mistress had caprices that would have suited better with our amon jaloux than with anybody else and the prince Artibi was much to blame that he outlived his belle leotine but if you have met with the beginning of the story of a mistress and agglotides you will find the rest of it in this part I send you now and tis to me one of the prettiest I have read and the most natural they say the gentleman that writes this romance has a sister that lives with him a maid and she furnishes him with all the little stories that come between so that he only contrives the main design and when he wants something to entertain his company with all he calls to her for it she has an excellent fancy sure and a great wit but I am sorry to tell it to you they say tis the most ill favourite creature that ever was born and tis often so how seldom do we see a person excellent in anything but they have some great defect with it that pulls them low enough to make them equal with other people and there is justice in it those that have fortunes have nothing else and those that want it deserve to have it that's but small comfort though you'll say tis confessed but there is no such thing as perfect happiness in this world those that have come the nearest it had many things to wish and bless me, whether am I going sure tis the death's head I see stand before me puts me into this grave discourse pray do not think I meant that for a conceit neither how idly have I spent two sides of my paper and I'm afraid besides I shall not have time to write two more therefore I'll make haste to tell you that my friendship for you makes me concerned in all your relations that I have a great respect for Sir John merely as he is your father and that tis much increased by his kindness to you that he has all my prayers and wishes for his safety and that you will oblige me in letting me know when you hear any good news from him he has met with a great deal of good company I believe my Lady Ormond I am told is waiting for a passage and to die as others but this wind if I am not mistaken is not good for them in earnest tis a most sad thing that a person of her quality should be reduced to such a fortune as she has lived upon these late years and that she should lose that which she brought as well as that which was her husband's yet I hear she has now got some of her own land in Ireland granted her but whether she will get it when she comes there is I think a question we have a lady new come into this country that I pity too extremely she is one of my lord of Valentia's daughters and has married an old fellow that is some three score and ten who has a house that is fitter for the hogs than for her and a fortune that will not at all recompense the least of these inconveniences ah tis most certain I should have chosen a handsome chain to lead my apes in before such a husband but marrying and hanging go by destiny they say it was not mine it seems to have an emperor a spiteful man merely to vex me has gone and married my country woman my lord Lee's daughter what a multitude of willow garlands I shall weave before I die I think I had best make them into faggots this cold weather the flame they would make in a chimney would be of more use to me than that which was in the hearts of all those that gave them me and would last us long I did not think I should have got thus far I have been so persecuted with visits all this week I have had no time to dispatch anything of business so that now I have done this I have forty letters more to write how much rather would I have them all to use than to anybody else or rather how much better would it be if there needed none to you and that I could tell you without writing how much I am yours faithful friend and servant Dorothy Osbourne Letter 33 Sir, let not the apprehension that others say find things to me make your letters at all the shorter for if it were so I should not think they did and so long you are safe my brother Payton does indeed sometimes send me letters that may be excellent for ought I know and the more likely because I do not understand them but I may say to you as to a friend I do not like them and have wondered that my sister who I may tell you too and you will not think it vanity in me had a great deal of wit and was thought to write as well as most women in England never persuaded him to alter his style and make it a little more intelligible he is an honest gentleman in earnest has understanding enough and was an excellent husband to two very different wives as two good ones could be my sister was a melancholy retired woman and besides the company of her husband and her books never sought any but could have spent a life much longer than hers was in looking to her house and her children this lady is of a free jolly humour loves cards and company and is never more pleased than when she sees a great many others that are so too now with both these he so perfectly complied that it is hard to judge which humour he is more inclined to in himself perhaps to neither which makes it so much the more strange his kindness to his first wife may give him an esteem for her sister but he was too much smitten with this lady to think of marrying any body else and seriously I could not blame him for she had and has yet great loveliness in her she was very handsome and is very good one may read it in her face at first sight a woman that is hugely civil to all people and takes as generally as anybody that I know but not more than my cousin Molly's letters do but which yet you do not like you say nor I neither I'll swear and if it be ignorance in us both we'll forgive it one another in my opinion these great scholars are not the best writers I mean of books perhaps they are I never had I think but one letter from Sir Justinian but it was worth twenty of anybody else's to make me sport it was the most sublime nonsense that in my life I ever read and yet I believe he descended as low as he could to come near my weak understanding till be no compliment after this to say I like your letters in themselves not as they come from one that is not indifferent to me but seriously I do all letters me thinks should be free and easy as one's discourse not studied as a narration nor made up of hard words like a charm it is an admirable thing to see how some people will labour to find out terms that may obscure a plain sense like a gentleman I know who would never say the weather grew cold but that winter began to salute us I have no patience for such coxcoms and cannot blame an old uncle of mine that threw the standish at his man's head because he written a letter for him where instead of saying as his master bit him that he would have written it himself that he had the gout in his hand he said that the gout in his hand would permit him to put pen to paper the fellow thought he had mended it mightily and that putting pen to paper was much better than plain writing I have no patience neither for these translations of romances I met with Paul Alexander and Lilius Trebassa both so disguised that I, who am their old acquaintance hardly knows them besides that there was still so much French in words and phrases that was impossible for one that understands not French to make anything of them if poor Prasimen be in the same dress I would not see her for the world she has suffered enough besides I never saw but four tomes of her and was told the gentleman that read her story died when those were finished I was very sorry for it I remember for I liked so far as I had seen of it extremely is it not my good lord of Monmouth or some such honourable personage that presents her to the English ladies I have heard many people wonder how he spends his estate I believe he undoes himself with printing his translations nobody else will undergo the charge because they never hope to sell enough of them to pay themselves with all I was looking to the day in a book of his where he translates Piparo as Piper and twenty words more that are as false as this my lord Broghill sure will give her something worth the reading my lord say I am told has written a romance since his retirement in the Isle of Lundy and Mr. Waller they say is making one of our wars which if he does not mingle with a great deal of pleasing fiction cannot be very diverting sure the subject is so sad but all this is nothing to my coming to town you'll say tis confessed and that I was willing as long as I could to avoid saying anything when I had nothing to say worth your knowing I am still obliged to wait my brother Peyton and his lady coming I had a letter from him this week which I will send you that you may see what hopes he gives as little rumours I have left too I must tell you what a present I had made me today two of the finest young Irish greyhounds that air I saw a gentleman that serves the general sent them me they are newly come over and sent for by Henry Cromwell he tells me but not how he got them for me however I am glad I have them and much the more because it dispenses with a very unfit employment that your father out of his kindness to you and his civility to me was content to take upon him your faithful friend and servant Dorothy Osbourne Letter 34 Sir, Jane was so unlucky as to come out of town before your return but she tells me she left my letter with Nan Stacey for you I was in hope she would have brought me one from you and because she did not I was resolved to punish her and kept her up till one o'clock telling me all her stories sure if there be any truth in the old observation your cheeks glowed notably and tis most certain that if I were with you I should chide notably what do you mean to be so melancholy? by her report your humour is grown insupportable I can allow it not to be altogether what she says and yet it may be very ill too but if you loved me you would not give yourself over to that which will infallibly kill you if it continue I know too well that our fortunes have given us occasion enough to complain and to be weary of her tyranny but alas would it be better if I had lost you or you me unless we were sure to die both together to but increase our misery and add to that which is more already than we can well tell how to bear you are more cruel than she regarding a life that's dearer to me than that of the whole world besides and which makes all the happiness I have or ever shall be capable of therefore by all our friendship I conjure you and by the power you have given me command you to preserve yourself with the same care that you would have me live tis all the obedience I require of you and will be the greatest testimony you can give me of your faith when you have promised me this tis not impossible that I may promise you shall see me shortly though my brother Peyton who says he will come down to fetch his daughter hinders me from making the journey in compliment to her yet I shall perhaps find business enough to carry me up to town tis all the service I expect from two girls whose friends have given me leave to provide for that some order I must take for the disposal of them may serve for my pretence to see you but then I must find you pleased and in good humour merry as you were wont to be when we first met if you will not have me show that I am nothing akin to my cousin Osbourne's lady but what an age tis since we first met and how greater change it has wrought in both of us if there had been as greater one in my face it could be either very handsome or very ugly for God's sake when we meet let us design one day to remember old stories in to ask one another by what degrees our friendship grew to this height tis at I know not whether I gave it too willingly or not at first no to speak ingenuously I think you got an interest there a good while before I thought you had any and it grew so insensibly and yet so fast that all the traverses it has met with since has served rather to discover it to me than at all to hinder it by this confession you will see I am past all disguise with you and that you have reason to be satisfied with knowing as much of my heart as I do myself the kindness of this letter excused the shortness on it for I have twenty more I think to write and the hopes I had of receiving one from you last night kept me writing this when I had more time or if all this will not satisfy make your own conditions so you do not return it me by the shortness of yours your servant kisses your hands and I am your faithful friend and servant Dorothy Osbourne letter thirty-five nothing that is paper can skate me when I have time to write and tis to you but that I am not willing to excite your envy I would tell you how many letters I have dispatched since I ended yours and if I could show them you to be a certain cure for it for they are all very short oneness and most of them merely compliments which I am sure you cannot for I had forgotten my other to tell you what Jane requires for the satisfaction of what you confess you owe her you must promise her to be merry and not to take cold when you are at the tennis court for there she hears your found because you mention my Lord Broghill and his wit I have sent you some of his verses my brother urged them against me one day in a dispute where he would needs make me confess that no passion would be long lived and that such as were most in love forgot that ever they had been so within a twelve month after they were married and in earnest the want of examples to bring for the contrary puzzled me a little so that I was feigned to bring out those pitiful verses of my Lord Byron to his wife which was so poor an argument that I was in ashamed on myself and he quickly laughed me out of countenance with saying they were just such married man's flame would produce and a wife inspire I send you a love letter too which simple as you see it was sent me in very good earnest and by a person of quality as I was told if you read it when you go to bed twill certainly make your sleep approved I am your faithful friend and servant Dorothy Osbourne End of Section 7 Section 8 of Love Letters of Dorothy Osbourne This is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Ruth Golding The Love Letters of Dorothy Osbourne Section 8 Letter 36 Sir Why are you so sullen? and why am I the cause? Can you believe that I do willingly defer my journey? I know you do not. Why, then, should my absence now be less supportable to you than here to for? Nay, it shall not belong if I can help it and I shall break through all inconveniences rather than deny you anything that lies in my power but by your own rules then may I not expect the same from you? Is it possible that all I have said cannot oblige you to a care of yourself? What a pleasant distinction you make when you say that tis not melancholy makes you do these things but a careless forgetfulness. Did ever anybody forget themselves to that degree that was not melancholy in extremity? Good God how you are altered! and what is it that has done it? I have known you when of all the things in the world you would not have been taken for a discontent. You were, as I thought, perfectly pleased with your condition. What has made it so much worse since? I know nothing you have lost and am sure you have gained a friend that is capable of the highest friendship you can propound that has already given an entire heart for that which she received and tis no more in her will than in her power ever to recall or divide it. If this be not enough to satisfy you tell me what I can do more. There are a great many ingredients must go to the making me happy in a husband. First, as my cousin Franklin says our humours must agree and to do that he must have that kind of breeding that I have had and use that kind of company that is he must not be so much a country gentleman as to understand nothing but hawks and dogs and be fonder of either than his wife nor of the next sort of them whose aim reaches no further than to be just as of the peace and once in his life high a sheriff who reads no book but statutes and studies nothing but how to make a speech interlarded with Latin that may amaze his disagreeing poor neighbours and fright them rather than persuade them into quietness. He must not be a thing that began the world in a free school was sent from then to the university and is at his furthest when he reaches the inns of court has no but those of his form in these places speaks the French he has picked out of old laws and admires nothing but the stories he has heard of the rebels that were kept there before his time he must not be a town galant neither that lives in a tavern and an ordinary that cannot imagine how an hour should be spent without company unless it be in sleeping that makes court to all the women he sees thinks they believe him laughs and is laughed at equally nor a travelled monsieur whose head is all feather inside and outside that can talk of nothing but dances and duets and has courage enough to wear slashes when everyone else dies with cone to see him he must not be a fool of no sort nor peevish nor ill-natured nor proud nor covetous and to all this must be added that he must love me and I him as much as we are capable of loving without all this his fortune though never so great would not satisfy me and with it a very moderate one would keep me from ever repenting my disposal I have been as large and as particular in my descriptions as my cousin Molly is in his of Moore Park but that you know the place so well I would send it to you nothing can come near his patience in writing it but my reading on it would you had sent me your father's letter it would not have been less welcome to me than to you and you may safely believe that I am equally concerned with you in anything I should be pleased to see something of my Lady Carlisle's writing because she is so extraordinary a person I have been thinking of sending you a picture till I could come myself but a picture is but dull company and that you need not besides I cannot tell whether it be very like me or not though it is the best I ever had drawn for me and Mr. Lily Lely will have it that he never took more pains to make a good one in his life and that was it I think that spoiled it he was condemned for making the first he drew for me little worse than I and in making this better he has made it as unlike as Tuther he is now I think at my Lord Pagets at Marlowe where I am promised he shall draw a picture of my Lady for me she gives it me she says as the greatest testimony of her friendship to me for by her own rule she has passed the time of having pictures taken of her after eighteen she says there is no face but feelings apparently I would feign have had her accepted such as had never been beauties for my comfort but she would not when you see your friend Mr. Henningham you may tell him in his ear there is a willow garland coming towards him he might have sped better in his suit if he had made court to me as well as to my Lady Rithin she has been my wife this seven years and whosoever pretends I ask my leave I have now given my consent that she shall marry a very pretty little gentleman Sir Christopher Yelverton's son and I think we shall have a wedding ere it belong my Lady her mother in great kindness would have recommended Henningham to me and told me in a compliment that I was fitter for him than her daughter who was younger and therefore did not understand the world so well that she was certain if he knew me I would not be extremely taken for I would make just that kind of wife he looked for I humbly thanked her but said I was certain he would not make that kind of husband I looked for and so it went no further I expect my eldest brother here shortly whose fortune is well mended by my other brother's death so as if he were satisfied himself with what he has done I know no reason why he might not be very happy but I am afraid he is not I have not seen my sister since I knew she was so but sure she can have lost no beauty for I never saw any that she had but good black eyes which cannot alter he loves her I think at the ordinary rate of husbands but not enough I believe to marry her so much to his disadvantage if it were to do again and that would kill me where I is she for I could be infinitely better satisfied with a husband that had never loved me in hopes he might than with one that began to love me less than he had done I am your faithful friend and servant Dorothy Osbourne Letter 37 Sir, you say I abuse you and Jane says you abuse me when you say you are not melancholy which is to be believed neither I think for I could not have said so positively as it seems she did that I should not be in town till my brother came back he was not gone when she writ nor is not yet and if my brother Peyton had come before his going I had spoiled her prediction but now it cannot be he goes on Monday or Tuesday at farthest I hope you did truly with me too in saying that you are not melancholy though she does not believe it I am thought so many times when I am not at all guilty on it how often do I sit in company a whole day and when they are gone I am not able to give an account of six words that was said and many times could be so much better pleased with the entertainment my own thoughts give me that it is all I can do to be so civil as not to let them see they trouble me this may be your disease however, remember you have promised me to be careful of yourself and that if I secure what you have entrusted me with you will answer for the rest be this our bargain then and look that you give me as good an account of one as I shall give you of Tatha in earnest I was strangely vexed to see myself forced to disappoint you so and felt your trouble and my own too how often I have wished myself with you though but for a day for an hour I would have given all the time I am to spend here for it with all my heart you could not but have laughed if you had seen me last night my brother and Mr. Gibson were talking by the fire and I sat by but as no part of the company amongst other things which I did not at all mind they fell into a discourse of flying and both agreed it was very possible to find out a way that people might fly like birds and dispatch their journeys so I that had not said a word all night started up at that and desired they would say a little more on it for I had not marked the beginning but instead of that they both fell into so violent a laughing that I should appear so much concerned in such an art but they little knew of what use it might have been to me if I saw you last night but was in a dream and before I could say a word to you or you to me the disorder my joy to see you had put me into awakened me just now I was interrupted too and called away to entertain two dumb gentlemen you may imagine whether I was pleased to leave my writing to you for their company they have made such a tedious visit too and I'm so tired with making of signs and tokens for everything I had to say good God how do those that live with them always their brothers and the eldest is a baronet has a good estate a wife and three or four children he was my servant here to four and comes to see me still for old love's sake but if he could have made me mistress of the world I could not have had him and yet I'll swear he has nothing to be disliked in him but his want of tongue which in a woman might have been a virtue I sent you a part of Cyrus last week where you will meet with one Dora Lee's in the story of Abrada and Pente the whole story is very good but the humor makes the best part of it I am of her opinion in most things that she says in her character of Lonette Om that she is in search of and her resolution of receiving no heart that had been offered to anybody else pray tell me how you like her and what fault you find in my Lady Carlisle's letter me thinks the hand and the style both show her a great person and it is written the way that's now affected by all that pretend to wit and good breeding only I am a little scandalised to converse that she uses that word faithful she that never knew how to be so in her life I have sent you my picture because you wished for it but pray let it not presume to disturb my Lady Sunderland's put it in some corner where no eyes may find it out but yours to whom it is only intended it is not a very good one but the best I shall ever have drawn of me for as my Lady says my time for pictures is past and therefore I have always refused to part with this because I was sure the next would be a worth there is a beauty in youth that everyone has once in their lives and I remember my mother used to say there was never anybody that was not deformed but were handsome to some reasonable degree once between fourteen and twenty it must hang with the light on the left hand of it and you may keep it if you please till I bring you the original but then I must borrow it for it is no more mine if you like it because my brother is often bringing people into my closet where it hangs to show them other pictures that are there but he missed this long thence to a trouble his jealous head you were not the first to just told me I knew better what quality I would not have in a husband than what I would but it was more pardonable in them I thought you had understood better what kind of person I like than anybody else could possibly have done and therefore did not think it necessary to make you that description too things that I reckoned up were only such as I could not be persuaded to have upon no terms though I had never seen such a person in my life as Mr. Temple not but that all those may make very good husbands to some women but they are so different from my humour that it is not possible we should ever agree for though it might be reasonably enough expected that I should conform mine to theirs my shame be it spoken I could never do it and I have lived so long in the world and so much at my own liberty that whosoever has me must be content to take me as they find me without hope of ever making me other than I am I cannot so much as disguise my humour when it was designed that I should have had suggest my brother used to tell he was confident that with all his wisdom any woman that had wit and discretion might make an ass of him and govern him as she pleased I could not deny that possibly it might be so but was that I was sure I could never do and though it is likely I should have forced myself to so much compliance as was necessary for a reasonable wife yet farther than that no design could ever have carried me and I could not have flattered him into a belief that I admired him again more than he and all his generation are worth it is such an ease as you say not to be solicitous to please others in earnest I am no more concerned whether people think me handsome or ill-favoured whether they think I have wit or that I have none than I am whether they think I name Elizabeth or Dorothy I would do nobody no injury but I should never design to please above one and that one I must love too or else I should think it a trouble and consequently not do it I have made a general confession to you will you give me absolution me thinks you should for you are not much better by your own relation therefore it is easiest to forgive one another when you hear anything from your father remember that I am his humble servant and much concerned in his good health I am your faithful friend and servant Dorothy Osbourne Letter 38 Sir, you would have me say something of my coming alas how feign I would have something to say but I know no more than you saw in that letter I sent to you how willingly would I tell you anything that I thought would please you but I confess I do not like to give uncertain hopes because I do not care to receive them and I thought there was no need of saying I would be sure to take the first occasion and that I waited with impatience for it because I hoped you had believed all that already and so you do I am sure say what you will you cannot but know my heart enough to be assured that I wish myself with you for my own sake as well as yours tis rather that you love to hear me say it often than that you doubt it for I am no dissembler I could not cry for a husband that were indifferent to me like your cousin no, nor for a husband that I loved, neither I think it would break my heart sooner than make me shed a tear tis ordinary griefs that make me weep in earnest you cannot imagine how often I have been told that I had too much franchise in my humour and that it was a point of good breeding to disguise handsomely but I answered still for myself that it was not to be expected I should be exactly bred that had never seen a court since I was capable of anything yet I know so much that my Lady Carlisle would take it very ill if you should not let her get the point of honour tis all she aims at to go beyond everybody in compliment but are you not afraid of giving me a strong vanity with telling me I write better than the most extraordinary person in the world if I had not the sense to understand that the reason why you like my letters better is only because they are kinder than hers such a word might have undone me but my Lady Isabella that speaks and looks and sings and plays and all so prettily why cannot I say that she is free from faults as her sister believes her no I am afraid she is not and sorry that those she has are so generally known my brother did not bring them for an example but I did and made him confess she had better have married a beggar than that beast with all his estate she cannot be excused but certainly they run a strange hazard that have such husbands as makes them think they cannot be more undone whatever course they take oh tis ten thousand pitties I remember she was the first woman that ever I took notice of for extremely handsome and in earnest she was then the loveliest lady that could be looked on I think but what should she do with beauty now were I as she I should hide myself from all the world I should think all people that looked on me read it in my face and despised me in their hearts and at the same time they made me a leg or spoke civilly to me I should believe they did not think I deserved their respect I'll tell you who he urged for an example though my Lord Pembroke and my Lady who they say are upon parting after all his passion for her and his marrying her against the consent of all his friends but to that I answered that though he pretended great kindness he had for her I never heard of much she had for him and knew she married him merely for advantage nor is she a woman of that discretion as to do all that might become her when she must do it rather as things fit to be done than as things she inclined to besides that what with a spleenatic side and a chemical head he is but an odd body himself but is it possible what they say that my Lord Lester and my Lady are in great disorder and that after forty years patience he has now taken up the cudgels and resolved to venture for the mastery me thinks he wakes out of his long sleep like a throwward child that wrangles and fights with all that comes near it they say he has turned away almost every servant in the house and left her at Pencehurst to digest it as she can what an age do we live in where it is a miracle if in ten couples that are married two of them live so as not to publish to the world that they cannot agree I begin to be of your opinion of him that when the Roman church first propounded whether it were not convenient for priests not to marry said that it might be convenient enough but sure it was not our saviour's intention for he commanded that all should take up their cross and follow him and for his part he was confident there was no such cross as a wife this is an ill doctrine for me to preach but to my friends I cannot but confess that I am afraid much of the fault lies in us for I have observed that formerly in great families the men seldom disagree but the women are always scolding and is most certain that let the husband be what he will if the wife have put patience which sure becomes her best the disorder cannot be great enough to make a noise his anger alone when it meets with nothing that resist it cannot be loud enough to disturb the neighbours and such a wife may be said to do as a kinswoman of ours that had a husband who was not always himself and when he was otherwise his humour was to rise in the night and with two bed-staves labour on the table an hour together she took care every night to lay a great cushion upon the table to make him to strike on that nobody might hear him and so discover his madness but is a sad thing when all one's happiness is only that the world does not know you are miserable for my part I think it were very convenient that all such as intend to marry should live together in the same house some years of probation and if in all that time they never disagreed they should then be permitted to marry if they please but how few would do it then I do not remember that I ever saw or heard of any couple that were bred up so together as many you know are that are designed for one another from children but they always disliked one another extremely partied if it were left in their choice if people proceeded with this caution the world would end sooner than is expected I believe and because with all my weariness it is not impossible but I may be caught nor likely that I should be wiser than anybody else to a best I think that I said no more on this point what would I give to know that sister of yours that is so good at discovering sure she is excellent company she has reason to laugh at you when you would have persuaded her boss was sweet I remember Jane brought some of it to me to ask me if I thought it had no ill smell and whether she might venture to put it in the box or not I told her as I thought she could not put a more innocent thing there for I did not find it had any smell at all besides I was willing it should do me some service and require all for the pains I had taken for it my niece and I wandered through some 800 acres of wood in search of it to make rocks and strange things that her head is full of and she admires it more than you did if she had known I had consented it should have been used to fill up a box she would have condemned me extremely I told Jane that you liked her present and she I find is resolved to spoil your compliment you confess at last that they are not worth the eating she threatens to send you more but you would forgive her if you saw how she baits me every day to go to London all that I can say will not satisfy her when I urge as it is true that there is a necessity of my stay here she grows furious cries you will die with melancholy and confounds me so with stories of your ill humour that I'll swear I think I should go merely to be at quiet if it were possible though there were no other reason for it but I hoped is not so ill as she would have me believe it though I know your humour is strangely altered from what it was and I'm sorry to see it melancholy must needs do you more hurt than to another to whom it may be natural as I think it is to me therefore if you loved me you would take heed on it can you believe that you are dearer to me than the whole world beside and yet neglect yourself if you do not you wrong a perfect friendship and if you do you must consider my interest in you and preserve yourself to make me happy promise me this or I shall haunt you worse than she does me scribble how you please so you make your letter long enough you see I give you good example besides I can assure you we do perfectly agree if you receive not satisfaction but from my letters I have none but what yours give me your faithful friend and servant Dorothy Osbourne letter 39 sir if want of kindness were the only crime I exempted from pardon it was not that I had the least apprehension you could be guilty of it but to show you by accepting only an impossible thing that I accepted nothing no in earnest I can fancy no such thing of you or if I could the quarrel would be to myself I should never forgive my own folly that let me to choose a friend that could be false but I'll leave this which is not much to the purpose and tell you how with my usual impatience I expected your letter and how cold it went to my heart to see it so shorter one towards so great a pain to me that I am resolved you shall not feel it nor can I injustice punish you for a fault unwillingly committed if I were your enemy I could not use you ill when I saw fortune do it too and in gallantry and good nature both I should think myself rather obliged to protect you from her injury if it lay in my power then double them upon you these things considered I believe this letter will be longer than ordinary kinder I think it cannot be I always speak my heart to you and that is so much your friend it never furnishes me with anything to your disadvantage I'm glad you're an admirer of Telessley as well as I in my opinion it is a fine lady but I know you'll pity poor a mistress strongly when you have read her story I'll swear I cried for her when I read it first though she were but an imaginary person and sure if anything of that kind can deserve it her misfortunes may God forgive me I was as near laughing yesterday where I should not would you believe that I had the grace to go to hear a sermon upon a weekday in earnest is true a Mr. Marshall was the man that preached but never anybody was so defeated he is so famed that I expected rare things of him and seriously I listened to him as if he had been St. Paul and what do you think he told us why that if there were no kings no queens no lords no ladies nor gentlemen nor gentle women in the world could be no loss to God Almighty at all this we had over some forty times which made me remember it whether I would or not the rest was much at this rate interlarded with the prettiest odd phrases that I had the most to do to look soberly enough for the place I was in that ever I had in my life he does not preach so always sure if he does I cannot believe his sermons will do much towards bringing anybody to heaven more than by exercising their patience yet I'll say that for him he stood stoutly for tithes though in my opinion few deserve them less than he and it may be he would be better without them yet you're not convinced you say that to be miserable is the way to be good to some natures I think it is not but there are many of so careless and vain a temper that the least breath of good fortune swells them with so much pride that if they were not put in mind sometimes by a sound cross or two that they are mortal they would hardly think it possible and though it is a sign of a servile nature when fear produces more of reverence in us than love yet there is more danger of forgetting oneself in a prosperous fortune than in the contrary and affliction may be the surest though not the pleasantest guide to heaven what think you might not I preach with Mr. Marshall for a wager but you could fancy a perfect happiness here you say that is not much many people do so but I never heard of anybody that ever had it more than in fancy so that will not be strange if you should miss on it one may be happy to a good degree I think in a faithful friend a moderate fortune and a retired life further than this I know nothing to wish but if there be anything beyond it I wish it you you did not tell me what carried you out of town in such haste I hope the occasion was good you must account to me for all that I lost by it I shall expect a whole packet next week all me I have forgot this once or twice to tell you that if it be no inconvenience to you I could wish you would change the place of direction for my letters certainly that Jones knows my name I bespoke a saddle of him once and though it be a good while ago yet I was so often with him about it having much ado to make him understand how I would have it it's being of a fashion he had never seen though sure it be common that I am confident he has not forgot me besides that upon it he got my brother's custom and I cannot tell whether he does not use the shop still Jane presents her humble service to you and has sent you something in a box it is hard to imagine what she can find here to present you with all and I am much in doubt whether you will not pay too dear for it if you discharge the carriage it is a pretty freedom she takes but you may thank yourself she thinks because you call her fellow servant she may use you accordingly I bred her better but you have spoiled her is it true that my Lord Whitlock goes ambassador where my Lord Lyle should have gone I know not how he may appear in a Swedish court but he was never meant for a courtier at home I believe yet Tis a gracious prince he is often in this country and always does us the favour to send for his fruit hither he was making a purchase of one of the best houses in the county I know not whether he goes on with it but Tis such a one as will not become anything less than a Lord and there is a talk as if the chancery were going down if so his title goes with it I think it will be sad news for my Lord Keeble's son he will have nothing left to say when my Lord my father is taken from him were it not better that I had nothing to say neither than that I should entertain you with such senseless things I hope I am half asleep nothing else can excuse me if I were quite asleep I should say fine things to you I often dream I do but perhaps if I could remember them they are no wiser than my wakening discourses good night your faithful friend and servant Dorothy Osbourne letter forty sir that you may be at more certainty here after what to think let me tell you that nothing could hinder me from writing to you as well for my own satisfaction as yours but an impossibility of doing it nothing but death or a dead palsy in my hands or something that had the same effect I did write it and gave it Harold but by an accident his horse fell lame so that he could not set out on Monday but on Tuesday he did come to town on Wednesday carried the letter himself as he tells me where it was directed which was to Mr. Coppin in Fleet Street it was the first time I made use of that direction no matter and I had not done it then since it proves no better Harold came late home on Thursday night with such an account as your boy gave you that coming out of town the same day he came in he had been at Fleet Street again but there was no letter for him I was sorry but I did not much wonder at it because he gave so little time and resolved to make my best of that I had by Collins I read it over often enough to make it equal with the longest letter that ever was written and pleased myself in earnest as much as it was possible for me in the humour I was in to think how by that time you had asked me pardon for the little reproaches you had made me and that the kindness and lengths of my letter had made you amends for the trouble it had given you in expecting it but I am not a little annoyed to find you had it not I am very confident it was delivered and therefore you must search where the fault lies were it not that you had suffered too much already I would complain a little of you why should you think me so careless of anything that you were concerned in as to doubt that I had read it though I had received none from you I should not have taken that occasion to revenge myself nay I should have concluded you innocent and have imagined a thousand ways how it might happen rather than have suspected your want of kindness why should not you be as just to me but I will not try it it may be as long as we have been friends you do not know me so well yet as to make an absolute judgement of me but if I know myself at all if I am capable of being anything it is a perfect friend yet I must try it too why did you get such a cold God how careless you are of a life that by your own confession I have told you makes all the happiness of mine tis unkindly done what is left for me to say when that will not prevail with you or how can you persuade me to a cure of myself when you refuse to give me the example I have nothing in the world that gives me the least desire of preserving myself but the opinion I have you would not be willing to lose me and yet if you saw with what caution I live at least what I did before you would reproach it to yourself sometimes and might grant perhaps that you have not got the advantage of me in friendship so much as you imagine what besides your consideration could oblige me to live and lose all the rest of my friends thus one after another sure I am not insensible nor very ill-natured and yet I'll swear I think I do not afflict myself half so much as another would do that had my losses I pay nothing of sadness to the memory of my poor brother but I presently disperse it with thinking what I owe in thankfulness that it is not you I mourn for give me no more occasions to complain of you you know not what may follow here was Mr. Freeman yesterday that made me a very kind visit and said so many fine things to me that I was confounded with his civilities and had nothing to say for myself I could have wished then that he had considered me less and my niece more but if you continue to use me thus in earnest I will not be so much her friend hereafter me thinks I see you laugh at all my threatenings and not without reason Mr. Freeman you believe is designed for somebody that deserves him better I think so too and am not sorry for it and you have reason to believe I never can be other than faithful friend and servant Dorothy Osborne End of section 8