To The Countess of Bute
Louvere, Aug. 20, 1752

My Dear Child, - ‘Tis impossible to tell you to what degree I share with you in the misfortune that has happened. I do not doubt your own reason will suggest to you all the alleviations that can serve on so sad an occasion, and will not trouble you with the commonplace topics that are used, generally to no purpose, in letters of consolation. Disappointments ought to be less sensibly felt at my age than yours; yet I own I am so far affected by this, that I have need of all my philosophy to support it. However, let me beg of you not to indulge an useless grief, to the prejudice of your health, which is so necessary to your family. Every thing may turn out better than you expect. We see so darkly into futurity, we never know when we have real cause to rejoice or lament. The worse appearances have often happy consequences, as the best lead many times into the greatest misfortunes. Human prudence is very straitly bounded. What is most in our power, though little so, is the disposition of our own minds. Do not give way to melancholy; seek amusements; be willing to be diverted, and insensibly you will become so. Weak people only place a merit in affliction. A grateful remembrance, and whatever honour we can pay to their memory, is all that is owing to the dead. Tears and sorrow are no duties to them, and make us incapable of those we owe to the living.
        I give you thanks for your care of my books. I yet retain, and carefully cherish, my taste for reading. If relays of eyes were to be hired like posthorses, I would never admit any but silent companions: they afford a constant variety of entertainment, which is almost the only one pleasing in the enjoyment, and inoffensive in the consequence. I am sorry your sight will not permit you a great use of it: the prattle of your little ones, and friendship of Lord Bute, will supply the place of it. My dear child, endeavour to raise your spirits, and believe this advice comes from the tenderness of your most affectionate mother,
          M. Wortley

(via) 

To the Countess of Bute
Louvere, July 10, N.S., 1753

Dear Child,
I received yours of May the 12th but yesterday, July the 9th. I am surprised you complain of my silence. I have never failed answering yours the post after I received them; but I fear, being directed to Twickenham (having no other direction from you), your servants there may have neglected them.

I have been these six weeks, and still am, at my dairy-house, which joins to my garden. I believe I have already told you it is a long mile from the castle, which is situate in the midst of a very large village, once a considerable town, part of the walls still remaining, and has not vacant ground enough about it to make a garden, which is my greatest amusement, it being now troublesome to walk, or even go in the chaise till the evening. I have fitted up in this farm-house a room for myself, that is to say, strewed the floor with rushes, covered the chimney with moss and branches, and adorned the room with basons of earthen ware (which is made here to great perfection) filled with flowers, and put in some straw chairs, and a couch bed, which is my whole furniture. This spot of ground is so beautiful, I am afraid you will scare credit the description, which, however, I can assure you, shall be very literal, without any embellishment from imagination. It is on a bank, forming a kind of peninsula, raised from the river Oglio fifty feet, to which you may descend by easy stairs cut in the turf, and either take the air on the river, which is as large as the Thames at Richmond, or by walking an avenue two hundred yards on the side of it, you find a wood of a hundred acres, which was all ready cut into walks and ridings when I took it. I have only added fifteen bowers in different views, with seats of turf. They were easily made, here being a large quantity of underwood, and a great number of wild vines, which twist to the top of the highest trees, and from which they make a very good sort of wine they call brusco. I am now writing to you in one of these arbours, which is so thick shaded, the sun is not troublesome, even at noon. Another is on the side of the river, where I have made a camp kitchen, that I may take the fish, dress, and eat it immediately, and at the same time see the barks, which ascend or descend every day to or from Mantua, Guastalla, or Pont de Vie, all considerable towns. This little wood is carpeted, in their succeeding season, with violets and strawberries, inhabited by a nation of nightingales, and filled with game of all kinds, excepting deer and wild boar, the first being unknown here, and not being large enough for the other.

My garden was a plain vineyard when it came into my hands not two years ago, and it is, with a small expense, turned into a garden that (apart from the advantage of the climate) I like better than that of Kensington. The Italian vineyards are not planted like those in France, but in clumps, fastened to trees planted in equal ranks (commonly fruit trees), and continued in festoons from one to another, which I have turned into covered galleries of shade, that I can walk in the heat without being incommoded by it. I have made a dining room of verdure, capable of holding a table of twenty covers; the whole ground is three hundred and seventeen feet in length, and two hundred in breadth. You see it is far from large; but so prettily disposed (though I say it), that I never saw a more agreeable rustic garden, abounding with all sorts of fruit, and producing a variety of wines. I would send you a pipe, if I did not fear the customs would make you pay too dear for it. I believe my description gives you but an imperfect idea of my garden. Perhaps I shall succeed better in describing my manner of life, which is as regular as that of any monastery. I generally rise at six, and as soon as I have breakfasted, put myself at the head of my needle-women and work with them till nine. I then inspect my dairy, and take a turn among my poultry, which is a very large enquiry. I have, at present, two hundred chickens, besides turkeys, geese, ducks, and peacocks. All things have hitherto prospered under my care; my bees and silk-worms are doubled, and I am told that, without accidents, my capital will be so in two years’ time. At eleven o’clock I retire to my books, I dare not indulge myself in that pleasure above an hour. At twelve I constantly dine, and sleep after dinner till about three. I then send for some of my old priests, and either play at piquet or whist, till ‘tis cool enough to go out. One evening I walk in my wood, where I often sup, take the air on horse-back the next, and go on the water the third. The fishery of this part of the river belongs to me; and my fisherman’s little boat (to which I have a green lutestring awning) serves me for a barge. He and his son are my rowers without any expense, he being very well paid by the profit of the fish, which I give him on condition of having every day one dish for my table. Here is plenty of every sort of fresh water fish (excepting salmon); but we have a large trout so like it, that I who have almost forgot the taste, do not distinguish it.

We are both placed properly in regard to our different times of life; you amidst the fair, the gallant, and the gay; I, in a retreat, where I enjoy every amusement that solitude can afford. I confess I sometimes wish for a little conversation; but I reflect that the commerce of the world gives more uneasiness than pleasure, and quiet is all the hope that can reasonably be indulged at my age. My letter is of an unconscionable length; I should ask your pardon for it, but I had a mind to give you an idea of my mode of passing my time, - take it as an instance of the affection of, dear child,

Your most affectionate mother,
M. Wortley 

____

Letter from this favorite book of mine:

  In beauty or wit
  No mortal as yet
To question your empire has dared;
  But men of discerning
  Have thought that in learning,
To yield to a lady was hard.

  Impertinent schools
  With musty dull rules
Have reading to females denied;
  So Papists refuse
  The Bible to use,
Lest flocks be as wise as their guide

  ’Twas a woman at first
  (Indeed she was curs’d)
In knowledge that tasted delight;
  And sages agree
  The laws should decree
To the first possessor the right. 

  Then bravely, fair dame,
  Resume the old claim,
Which to your whole sex does belong;
  And let men receive
  From a second bright Eve
The knowledge of right and of wrong.

  But if the first Eve
  Hard doom did receive
When only one apple had she,
  What a punishment new
  Shall be found out for you,
Who, tasting, have robbed the whole tree? 

-Alexander Pope for Lady Mary Wortley Montagu 

To Lady Pomfret March 1740
I cannot deny your ladyship’s letter gave me a great deal of pleasure; but you have seasoned it with a great deal of pain, in the conclusion (after the many agreeable things you have said to me) that you are not entirely satisfied with me: you will not throw our separation on ill fortune; and I will not renew the conversation of the fallen angels in Milton, who in contesting on predestination and free-will, we are told, ‘They of the vain dispute could know no end.’ Yet I know that neither my pleasures, my passions, nor my interests, have ever disposed of me, so much as little accidents, which whether from chance or destiny, have always determined my choice. Here is weather for example, which, to the shame of all almanacks, keeps on the depth of winter in the beginning of spring; and makes it as much impossible for me to pass the mountains of Bologna, as it would be to wait on you in another planet, if you had taken up your residence in Venus or Mercury. However, I am fully determined to give myself that happiness; but when is out of my power to decide.
                You may imagine, apart from the gratitude I owe you and the inclination I feel for you, that I am impatient to hear good sense pronounced in my native tongue, having only heard my language out of the mouths of boys and governors for these five months. Here are inundations of them broke in upon us this carnival, and my apartment must be their refuge, the greater part of them having kept an inviolable fidelity to the languages their nurses taught them. Their whole business abroad (as far as I can perceive) being to buy new cloaths, in which they shine in some obscure coffee-house, where they are sure of meeting only one another; and after the important conquest of some waiting gentlewoman of an opera Queen, who perhaps they remember as long as they live, return to England excellent judges of men and manners. I find the spirit of patriotism so strong in me every time I see them, that I look on them as the greatest blockheads in nature; and, to say truth, the compound of booby and petit maitre makes up a very odd sort of animal. I hope we shall live to talk all these things over, and ten thousand more, which I reserve till the hour of meeting; which that it may soon arrive is the zealous wish of Your ever faithful, &c. &c.
_____
Letter from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

The Lady’s Resolve

Written on a window, soon after her marriage, 1713

Whilst thirst of praise and vain desire of fame,
In every age is every woman’s aim;
With courtship pleas’d, of silly toasters proud,
Fond of a train, and happy in a crowd;
On each proud fop bestowing some kind glance,
Each conquest owing to some loose advance;
While vain coquets affect to be pursued,
And think they’re virtuous, if not grossly lewd:
Let this great maxim be my virtue’s guide;
In part she is to blame that has been try’d —
He comes too near, that comes to be deny’d.

 - Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

(via)

Letter Sunday

This week features a letter from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. She had a liberal education and became perhaps the most cultured woman of her time. She was also a noted linguist, and became famous in London circles for her wit and beauty.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu - Charles Jervas

To the Abbe -
Dover, Oct. 31, O.S., 1718

I am willing to take your word for it, that I shall really oblige you, by letting you know, as soon as possible, my safe passage over the water. I arrived this morning at Dover, after being tossed a whole night in the packet-boat, in so violent a manner, that the master, considering the weakness of his vessel, thought it proper to remove the mail, and give us notice of the danger. We called a little fishing boat, which could hardly make up to us; while all the people on board us were crying to Heaven. It is hard to imagine one’s self in a scene of greater horror than on such an occasion; and yet, shall I own it to you? though I was not at all willing to be drowned, I could not forbear being entertained at the double distress of a fellow-passenger. She was an English lady that I had met in Calais, who desired me to let her go over with me in my cabin. She had bought a fine point-head, which she was contriving to conceal from the custom-house officers. When the wind grew high, and our little vessel cracked, she fell very heartily to her prayers, and thought wholly of her soul. When it seemed to abate, she returned to the worldly care of her head-dress, and addressed herself to me - ‘Dear madam, will you take care of this point? if it should be lost! - Ah, Lord, we shall all be lost! - Lord have mercy on my soul! - Pray, madam, take care of this head-dress.’ This easy transition from her soul to her head-dress, and the alternate agonies that both gave her, made it hard to determine which she thought of greatest value. But, however, the scene was not so diverting, but I was glad to get rid of it, and be thrown into the little boat, though with some hazard of breaking my neck. It brought me safe hither; and I cannot help looking with partial eyes on my native land. That partiality was certainly given us by nature, to prevent rambling, the effect of an ambitious thirst after knowledge, which we are not formed to enjoy. All we get by it, is a fruitless desire of mixing the different pleasures and conveniences which are give to the different parts of the world, and cannot meet in any one of them. After having read all that is to be found in the languages I am mistress of, and having decayed my sight by midnight studies, I envy the easy peace of mind of a ruddy milk-maid, who, undisturbed by doubt, hears the sermon, with humility, every Sunday, not having confounded the sentiments of natural duty in her head by the vain enquiries of the schools, who may be more learned, yet, after all, must remain as ignorant. And, after having seen part of Asia and Africa, and almost made the tour of Europe, I think the honest English squire more happy, who verily believes the Greek wines less delicious than March beer; that the African fruits have not so fine a flavour as golden-pippins; that the Beca figuas of Italy are not so well tasted as a rump of beef; and that, in short, there is no perfect enjoyment of this life out of Old England. I pray God I may think so for the rest of my life; and, since I must be contented with our scanty allowance of daylight, that I may forget the enlivening sun of Constantinople.
I am, etc., etc. 

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu