The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54

d a doubt whether all these letters must be regarded as of one series, or whether, more correctly, it was to be ass

o need the stimulus of constant April shower quarrels; and these letters are very serious in their sadness, imprinting themselves in the mind

eaker, was sinking into his grave before her eyes. No bright chance seemed to open before her, and their marriage seemed an impossibility. For a moment she loses faith, not in Temple, but in fortune; faith once gone, hope, missing her comrade, flies away in search of her. She is alone in the old house with her dying father, and with her

he most unfortunate woman breathing, but I was never false," though she forgives her lover "all those strange thoughts he has had" of her. Whatever were the causes of the quarrel, or rather the despondency, we shall never know accurately. Dorothy was not the woman to vapour for months about "an early

haken by fretting and despair; and these vows are never broken, but remain with the lovers until they are set aside by

un away with one William Blunt,-the "Mr. Blunt" mentioned by Dorothy in her next letter; and on April 18, 1654, she petitioned the Protector to issue a special commission upon her whole case. Mr. Blunt pretended that she was contracted to him for the sake, it is said, of gaining money thereby. There b

t friend, and I shall endeavour to deserve that you may be so to me; but I would have you do this upon the justest grounds, and such as may conduce most to your quiet and future satisfaction. When we have tried all ways to happiness, there is no such thing to be found but in a mind conformed to one's condition, whatever it be, and in not aiming at anything that is either impossible or improbable; all the rest is but vanity and vexation of spirit, and I durst pronounce it so from that little knowledge I have had of the world, though I had not Scripture for my warrant. The shepherd that bragged to the traveller, who asked him, "What weather it was like to be?" that it should be what weather pleased him, and made it good by saying it should be what weather pleased God, and what pleased God should please him, said an excellent thing in such language, and knew enough to make him the happiest person in the world if he made a right use on't. There can be no pleasure in a struggling life, and that folly which we condemn in an ambitious man, that's ever labouring for that which is hardly got and more uncertainly kept, is seen in all according to their several humours; in some 'tis covetousness, in others pride, in some stubbornness of nature that chooses always to go against the tide, and in others an unfortunate fancy to things that are in themselves innocent till we make them otherwise by desiring them too much. Of this sort you and I are, I think; we have lived hitherto upon hopes so airy that I have often wondered how they could support the weight of our misfortunes; but passion gives a strength above nature, we see it in mad people; and, not to flatter ourselves, ours is but a refined degree

fai

e, I am contented. You hear the noise my Lady Anne Blunt has made with her marrying? I am so weary with meeting it in all places where I go; from what is she fallen! they talked but the week before that she should have my Lord of Strafford. Did you not intend to write to me when you writ to Jane? That bit of paper did me great serv

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made the trouble of your life, and cast a cloud upon mine, that will help to cover me in my grave? Can I know that it wrought so upon us both as to make neither of us friends to one another, but agree in running wildly to our own destruction, and that perhaps of some innocent persons who might live to curse our folly that gave them so miserable a being? Ah! if you love yourself or me, you must confess that I have reason to condemn this senseless passion; that wheresoe'er it comes destroys all that entertain it; nothing of judgment or discretion can live with it, and it puts everything else out of order before it can find a place for itself. What has it brought my poor Lady Anne Blunt to? She is the talk of all the footmen and boys in the street, and will be company for them shortly, and yet is so blinded by her passion as not at all to perceive the misery she has brought herself to; and this fond love of hers has so rooted all sense of nature out of her heart, that, they say, she is no more moved than a statue with the affliction of a father and mother that doted on her, and had placed the comfort of their lives in her preferment. With all this is it not manifest to the whole world that Mr. Blunt could not consider anythin

powerful with me than your kindness. No, assure yourself what that alone cannot gain will be denied to all the world. You would see me, you say? You may do so if you please, though I know not to what end. You deceive yourself if you think it would prevail upon me to alter my intentions; besides, I can make no contrivances; it must be here, and I must endure the noise it will make, and undergo the censures of a people that choose ever to give the worst interpretation that anything will bear. Yet if it can be any ease to you to make me more miserable than I am, never spare me; consider yourself only, and not me at all,-'tis no more than I deserve for not accepting what you offered me whilst 'twas in your power to make it good, as you say it then was. You were prepared, it seems, but I was surprised, I confess. 'Twas a kind fault though; and you may pardon it with more reason than I have to forgive it myself. And let me tell you this, too, as lost and as wretched as I am, I have still some sense of my reputation left in me,-I find that to my cost,-I shall attempt to preserve it as clear as I can; and to do that, I must, if you see me thus, make it the last of our

he lives, and perhaps may do to love again. There is a gentlewoman in this country that loved so passionately for six or seven years that her friends, who kept her from marrying, fearing her death, consented to it; and within half a year her husband died, which afflicted her so strongly nobody thought she would have lived. She saw no light but candles in three years, no

hope that's left me, I must beg you will defer it till Christmas Day be past; for, to deal freely with you, I have some devotio

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o be where he began, and that I may be thought compassionate if I do all that I can without prejudicing myself too much, so let me tell you, that if I could help it, I would not love you, and that as long as I live I shall strive against it as against that which had been my ruin, and was certainly sent me as a punishment for my sin. But I shall always have a sense of your misfortunes, equal, if not above, my own. I shall pray that you may obtain a quiet I never hope for but in my grave, and I shall never change my condition but with my life. Yet let not this give you a hope. Nothing ever can persuade me to enter the world again. I shall, in a short time, have disengaged myself of all my little affairs in it, and settled myself in a condition to

d and humb

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know, part of my unhappy story, and from some that I do not know. A l

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only that have that infectious quality as to strike at the same time me and all that's dear to me. I am the most unfortunate woman breathing, but I was never false. No; I call heaven to witness that if my life could satisfy for the least injury my fortune has done you (I cannot say 'twas I that did them you), I would lay it down with greater joy than any person ever received a crown; and if I eve

.] For Mr

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all my care and diligence I cannot inquire it out. You will not complain, I believe, of the shortness of my last, whatever else you dislike in it, and if I spare you at any time 'tis because I cannot but imagine, since I am so wearisome to myself, that I must needs be so to everybody else, though, at present, I have other occasions that will not permit this to be a long one. I am sorry it should be only in my power to make a friend miserable, and that where I have so great a kindness I should do so great injuries; but 'tis my fortune, and I mus

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freely with you, that were to betray myself, and I find that my passion would quickly be my master again if I gave it any liberty. I am not secure that it would not make me do the most extravagant things in the world, and I shall be forced to keep a continual war alive with it as long as there are any remainders of it left;-I think I might as well have said as long as I lived. Why should you give yourself over so unreasonably to it? Good God! no woman breathing can deserve half the trouble you give yourself. If I were yours from this minute I could not recompense what you have suffered from the violence of your passion, though I were all that you can imagine me, when, God knows, I am an inconsiderable person, born to a thousand misfortunes, which have taken away all sense of anything else from me, and left me a walking misery only. I do from my soul forgive you all the injuries your passion has done me, though, let me tell you, I was much more at my ease whilst I was angry. S

f I were not in haste to send this away,-that it may

meant, and am inclined to believe 'twas a story

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ould have hoped you would be so much your own friend as to seek out a happiness in some other person, nothing under heaven could have satisfied me like entertaining myself with the thought of having done you service in diverting you from a troublesome pursuit of what is so uncertain, and by that giving you the occasion of a better fortune. Otherwise, whether you loved me still, or whether you did not, was equally the same to me, your interest set aside. I will not reproach you how ill an interpretation you made of this, because we will have no more quarrels. On the contrary, because I see 'tis in vain to think of curing you, I'll study only to give you what ease I can, and leave the rest to better physicians,-to time and fortune. Here, then, I declare that you have still the same power in my heart that I gave you at our last parting; that I will never marry any other; and that if ever our fortunes will allow us to marry, you shall dispose of me as you please; but this, to deal freely with you, I do not hope for. No; 'tis too great a happiness, and I, that know myself best, must acknowledge I deserve crosses and afflictions, but can never merit such a blessing. You know 'tis not a fear of want that frights me. I thank God I never distrusted His providence, nor I hope ne

would do me a great pleasure if you could forbear writing, unless it were sometimes on great occasions. This is a strange request for me to make, that have been fonder of your letters than my Lady Protector is of her new honour, and, in earnest, would be so still but there are a thousand inconveniences in't that I could tell you. Tell me w