CHAPTER 10
"MY FATHER'S situation was now so distressing, that I prevailed on my uncle
to accompany me to visit him; and to lend me his assistance, to prevent the
whole property of the family from becoming the prey of my brother's rapacity;
for, to extricate himself out of present difficulties, my father was totally
regardless of futurity. I took down with me some presents for my step-mother;
it did not require an effort for me to treat her with civility, or to forget
the past.
"This was the first time I had visited my native village, since my marriage.
But with what different emotions did I return from the busy world, with a heavy
weight of experience benumbing my imagination, to scenes, that whispered
recollections of joy and hope most eloquently to my heart! The first scent of
the wild flowers from the heath, thrilled through my veins, awakening every
sense to pleasure. The icy hand of despair seemed to be removed from my bosom;
and--forgetting my husband--the nurtured visions of a romantic mind, bursting
on me with all their original wildness and gay exuberance, were again hailed as
sweet realities. I forgot, with equal facility, that I ever felt sorrow, or
knew care in the country; while a transient rainbow stole athwart the cloudy
sky of despondency. The picturesque form of several favourite
trees, and the porches of rude cottages, with their smiling hedges, were
recognized with the gladsome playfulness of childish vivacity. I could have
kissed the chickens that pecked on the common; and longed to pat the cows, and
frolic with the dogs that sported on it. I gazed with delight on the windmill,
and thought it lucky that it should be in motion, at the moment I passed by;
and entering the dear green lane, which led directly to the village, the sound
of the well-known rookery gave that sentimental tinge to the varying sensations
of my active soul, which only served to heighten the lustre of the luxuriant
scenery. But, spying, as I advanced, the spire, peeping over the withered tops
of the aged elms that composed the rookery, my thoughts flew immediately to the
churchyard, and tears of affection, such was the effect of my imagination,
bedewed my mother's grave! Sorrow gave place to devotional feelings. I wandered
through the church in fancy, as I used sometimes to do on a Saturday evening. I
recollected with what fervour I addressed the God of my youth: and once more
with rapturous love looked above my sorrows to the Father of nature. I
pause--feeling forcibly all the emotions I am describing; and (reminded, as I
register my sorrows, of the sublime calm I have felt, when in some tremendous
solitude, my soul rested on itself, and seemed to fill the universe) I
insensibly breathe soft, hushing every wayward emotion, as if fearing to sully
with a sigh, a contentment so extatic.
"Having settled my father's affairs, and, by my exertions in his
favour, made my brother my sworn foe, I returned to London. My husband's
conduct was now changed; I had during my absence, received several
affectionate, penitential letters from him; and he seemed on my arrival, to wish by his behaviour to prove his sincerity. I could not
then conceive why he acted thus; and, when the suspicion darted into my head,
that it might arise from observing my increasing influence with my uncle, I almost
despised myself for imagining that such a degree of debasing selfishness could
exist.
"He became, unaccountable as was the change, tender and attentive;
and, attacking my weak side, made a confession of his follies, and lamented the
embarrassments in which I, who merited a far different fate, might be involved.
He besought me to aid him with my counsel, praised my understanding, and
appealed to the tenderness of my heart.
"This conduct only inspired me with compassion. I wished to be his friend;
but love had spread his rosy pinions and fled far, far away; and had not (like
some exquisite perfumes, the fine spirit of which is continually mingling with
the air) left a fragrance behind, to mark where he had shook his wings. My
husband's renewed caresses then became hateful to me; his brutality was
tolerable, compared to his distasteful fondness. Still, compassion, and the
fear of insulting his supposed feelings, by a want of sympathy, made me
dissemble, and do violence to my delicacy. What a task!
"Those who support a system of what I term false refinement, and will not
allow great part of love in the female, as well as male breast, to spring in
some respects involuntarily, may not admit that charms are as necessary to feed
the passion, as virtues to convert the mellowing spirit into friendship. To
such observers I have nothing to say, any more than to the moralists, who
insist that women ought to, and can love their husbands, because it is their
duty. To you, my child, I may add, with a heart tremblingly alive to your
future conduct, some observations, dictated by my present feelings, on calmly
reviewing this period of my life. When novelists or moralists praise as a
virtue, a woman's coldness of constitution, and want of passion; and make her yield
to the ardour of her lover out of sheer compassion, or to promote a frigid plan
of future comfort, I am disgusted. They may be good women, in the ordinary
acceptation of the phrase, and do no harm; but they appear to me not to have
those 'finely fashioned nerves,' which render the senses exquisite. They may
possess tenderness; but they want that fire of the imagination, which produces
_active_ sensibility, and _positive_ _virtue_. How does the woman deserve to be
characterized, who marries one man, with a heart and imagination devoted to
another? Is she not an object of pity or contempt, when thus sacrilegiously
violating the purity of her own feelings? Nay, it is as indelicate, when she is
indifferent, unless she be constitutionally
insensible; then indeed it is a mere affair of barter; and I have nothing to do
with the secrets of trade. Yes; eagerly as I wish you to possess true rectitude
of mind, and purity of affection, I must insist that a heartless conduct is the
contrary of virtuous. Truth is the only basis of virtue; and we cannot, without
depraving our minds, endeavour to please a lover or husband, but in proportion
as he pleases us. Men, more effectually to enslave us, may inculcate this
partial morality, and lose sight of virtue in subdividing it into the duties of
particular stations; but let us not blush for nature without a cause!
"After these remarks, I am ashamed to own, that I was pregnant. The greatest
sacrifice of my principles in my whole life, was the allowing my husband again
to be familiar with my person, though to this cruel act of self-denial, when I
wished the earth to open and swallow me, you owe your birth; and I the
unutterable pleasure of being a mother. There was something of delicacy in my
husband's bridal attentions; but now his tainted breath, pimpled face, and
blood-shot eyes, were not more repugnant to my senses, than his gross manners,
and loveless familiarity to my taste.
"A man would only be expected to maintain; yes, barely grant a subsistence, to a woman rendered odious by habitual
intoxication; but who would expect him, or think it possible to love her? And
unless 'youth, and genial years were flown,' it would be thought equally unreasonable
to insist, [under penalty of] forfeiting almost every thing reckoned valuable
in life, that he should not love another: whilst woman, weak in reason,
impotent in will, is required to moralize, sentimentalize herself to stone, and
pine her life away, laboring to reform her embruted mate. He may even spend in
dissipation, and intemperance, the very intemperance which renders him so
hateful, her property, and by stinting her expences, not permit her to beguile
in society, a wearisome, joyless life; for over their mutual fortune she has no
power, it must all pass through his hand. And if she be a mother, and in the
present state of women, it is a great misfortune to be prevented from
discharging the duties, and cultivating the affections of one, what has she not
to endure?--But I have suffered the tenderness of one to lead me into
reflections that I did not think of making, to interrupt my narrative--yet the
full heart will overflow.
"Mr. Venables' embarrassments did not now endear him to me; still, anxious
to befriend him, I endeavoured to prevail on him to retrench his expences; but
he had always some plausible excuse to give, to justify his not following my
advice. Humanity, compassion, and the interest produced by a habit of living
together, made me try to relieve, and sympathize with him; but, when I
recollected that I was bound to live with such a being for ever--my heart died
within me; my desire of improvement became languid, and baleful, corroding
melancholy took possession of my soul. Marriage had bastilled me for life. I
discovered in myself a capacity for the enjoyment of the various pleasures existence
affords; yet, fettered by the partial laws of society, this fair globe was to
me an universal blank.
"When I exhorted my husband to economy, I referred to himself. I was obliged to practise the most rigid, or
contract debts, which I had too much reason to fear
would never be paid. I despised this paltry privilege of a wife, which can only
be of use to the vicious or inconsiderate, and determined not to increase the
torrent that was bearing him down. I was then ignorant of the extent of his
fraudulent speculations, whom I was bound to honour
and obey.
"A woman neglected by her husband, or whose manners form a striking contrast
with his, will always have men on the watch to soothe and flatter her. Besides,
the forlorn state of a neglected woman, not destitute of personal charms, is
particularly interesting, and rouses that species of pity, which is so near
akin, it easily slides into love. A man of feeling thinks not of seducing, he
is himself seduced by all the noblest emotions of his soul. He figures to
himself all the sacrifices a woman of sensibility must make, and every
situation in which his imagination places her, touches his heart, and fires his
passions. Longing to take to his bosom the shorn lamb, and bid the drooping
buds of hope revive, benevolence changes into passion: and should he then
discover that he is beloved, honour binds him fast, though foreseeing that he
may afterwards be obliged to pay severe damages to the man, who never appeared
to value his wife's society, till he found that there was a chance of his being
indemnified for the lossof it.
"Such are the partial laws enacted by men; for, only to lay a stress on
the dependent state of a woman in the grand question of the comforts arising
from the possession of property, she is [even in this article] much more
injured by the loss of the husband's affection, than he by that of his wife;
yet where is she, condemned to the solitude of a deserted home, to look for a
compensation from the woman, who seduces him from her? She cannot drive an
unfaithful husband from his house, nor separate, or tear, his children from
him, however culpable he may be; and he, still the master of his own fate,
enjoys the smiles of a world, that would brand her with infamy, did she,
seeking consolation, venture to retaliate.
"These remarks are not dictated by experience; but merely by the compassion
I feel for many amiable women, the _outlaws_ of the world. For myself, never
encouraging any of the advances that were made to me, my lovers dropped off like
the untimely shoots of spring. I did not even coquet with them; because I
found, on examining myself, I could not coquet with a man without loving him a
little; and I perceived that I should not be able to stop at the line of what
are termed _innocent_
_freedoms_, did I suffer any. My reserve was then the consequence of delicacy.
Freedom of conduct has emancipated many women's minds; but my conduct has most
rigidly been governed by my principles, till the improvement of my
understanding has enabled me to discern the fallacy of prejudices at war with
nature and reason.
"Shortly after the change I have mentioned in my husband's conduct, my
uncle was compelled by his declining health, to seek the succour of a milder
climate, and embark for Lisbon. He left his will in the hands of a friend, an
eminent solicitor; he had previously questioned me relative to my situation and
state of mind, and declared very freely, that he could place no reliance on the
stability of my husband's professions. He had been deceived in the unfolding of
his character; he now thought it fixed in a train of actions that would
inevitably lead to ruin and disgrace.
"The evening before his departure, which we spent alone together, he
folded me to his heart, uttering the endearing appellation of 'child.'--My more
than father! why was I not permitted to perform the last
duties of one, and smooth the pillow of death? He seemed by his manner to be
convinced that he should never see me more; yet requested me, most earnestly,
to come to him, should I be obliged to leave my husband. He had before
expressed his sorrow at hearing of my pregnancy, having determined to prevail
on me to accompany him, till I informed him of that circumstance. He expressed
himself unfeignedly sorry that any new tie should bind me to a man whom he
thought so incapable of estimating my value; such was the kind language of
affection.
"I must repeat his own words; they made an
indelible impression on my mind:
"'The marriage state is certainly that in which women, generally speaking,
can be most useful; but I am far from thinking that a woman, once married,
ought to consider the engagement as indissoluble (especially if there be no
children to reward her for sacrificing her feelings) in case her husband merits
neither her love, nor esteem. Esteem will often supply the place of love; and
prevent a woman from being wretched, though it may not make her happy. The
magnitude of a sacrifice ought always to bear some proportion to the utility in
view; and for a woman to live with a man, for whom she can cherish neither affection
nor esteem, or even be of any use to him, excepting in the light of a
house-keeper, is an abjectness of condition, the enduring of which no
concurrence of circumstances can ever make a duty in the sight of God or just
men. If indeed she submits to it merely to be maintained in idleness, she has
no right to complain bitterly of her fate; or to act, as a person of
independent character might, as if she had a title to disregard general rules.
"But the misfortune is, that many women only
submit in appearance, and forfeit their own respect to secure their reputation
in the world. The situation of a woman separated from her husband, is
undoubtedly very different from that of a man who has left his wife. He, with
lordly dignity, has shaken of a clog; and the allowing her food and raiment, is
thought sufficient to secure his reputation from taint. And, should she have
been inconsiderate, he will be celebrated for his generosity and forbearance.
Such is the respect paid to the master-key of property! A woman, on the
contrary, resigning what is termed her natural protector (though he never was
so, but in name) is despised and shunned, for asserting the independence of
mind distinctive of a rational being, and spurning at slavery.'
"During the remainder of the evening, my uncle's tenderness led him frequently
to revert to the subject, and utter, with increasing warmth, sentiments to the
same purport. At length it was necessary to say 'Farewell!'--and
we parted--gracious God! to meet no more."