Housekeeping has always involved organizational skills, in the ordering and making of provisions for groups of people. Poorer housewives had to eke out meagre supplies of vegetables from the tiny patches they cultivated, find kindling for fires on which to cook, and heat any water, often to be brought from a distance. (In Wales until the end of the nineteenth century, some crofters could not afford peat for necessary fires in winter, and so had to dig pieces of turf, which produced even more smoke than the central medieval hearth.)
The few records available from the Middle Ages indicate that wives were extremely competent managers. The largest groupings of people were in the lord’s manor – or monastery and convent. Not only was everybody fed, washed, bedded and organized, the estates had to be run efficiently to provide wool for clothes, firewood, and drink in every season. Accounts were kept, which indicate that women were not only numerate, but skilled in many areas, such as herbal medicine and gardening, planting or spinning flax, etc. The propagating of the first seeds in the Stone Age and the developing of medieval fruit and flower gardens was often skilled female work.
We are fortunate in having medieval records in the family archives of the Paston Letters and the Lisle Letters. The letters of Margaret Paston show her ordering provisions from London, knowing precise prices, and supervising the entire work of the estate while her lawyer husband was at his practice. The letter included here indicates that she also managed the collection of money from tenants and competently used her employees to protect the house when under siege during the Wars of the Roses.
The letter to Lady Lisle describes the many areas which women had to supervise, from unlawful fishing of the estate, to immoral behaviour of the local vicar with his ‘harlot’. Twenty years later a housewife’s work was prescribed in detail in the (ironically) named A Boke of Husbandrye by Sir Anthony Fitzherbert:
First set all things in good order within thine house, milk thine kine, suckle calves, strain the milk . . . Get corn and melt ready, bake and brew [women usually made the beer, as we know from the word ‘brewster’]. Make butter and cheese, serve thy swine both morning and evening. Every month there are especial chores: In March sow flax and hemp, to be weeded, pulled, watered, washed, spun and woven. . . .
Obviously such husbands obeyed the church dictate that idleness was a source of evil.
This chapter offers a comparison between late medieval and nineteenth-century housework. Medieval wives of important men often wielded great power in the absence of their husbands, yet the tone of the letters suggest that they saw (or presented) themselves as understudies. Nevertheless these were powerful women, though their remit remained narrow.
Hildegard of Bingen, in the twelfth century, proved an extremely competent manager, setting up her own convent in order to be free of the dictates of male churchmen. Saint Teresa of Avila, in the sixteenth century, travelled around Spain setting up convents. She saw to many aspects of the running of the large household constituted by a convent, stating ‘God walks among the cooking pots’. Nuns demonstrate the capacity to take patriarchal roles.
At the end of the eighteenth century Wollstonecraft wrote of the need for greater equality and respect. Unfortunately the backlash after the French Revolution led to a consolidating of middle-class division of the world into public and private spheres which had not been expressed in this way in the Middle Ages. The influential Hannah More considered that women occupied separate spheres by nature as well as by custom. It is now women who were keeping women in their place by accepting the male division of men into ‘occupations’ while women supported male status by the well-regulated ordering of their households. The instructions given to women are detailed, both in letters and in new journals such as The Magazine of Domestic Economy, begun in 1835. They suggest God-given authority and knowledge in their epistolary advice to fellow women on ‘women’s mission’.
Women from the provincial middle class wrote increasingly on the place of women, which was dignified by the ‘secret influence’ of the moral ‘angel in the house’. Only in private letters do we read of the tension between subordination and influence, moral power and political impotence. The country house, and town home, is now organized around sexual difference, unlike the medieval manor.
Women had no property rights in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, though they had possessed some in Anglo-Saxon Britain. The ownership of property produced the concept of the ‘heavenly home’. This trapped women because their relegation as home-makers was underscored by religious preaching, just at the time when some middle-class women might have been able to make more fulfilling use of their leisure. Mrs Gaskell, wife of a Unitarian minister, agreed with this view, despite her important, successful work as a writer, as she wrote to her friend Eliza Fox in 1850: ‘Women must give up living an artist’s life, if home duties are to be paramount.’ She respected her husband, and did not object that her royalties went to him. Others, however, were torn between motherhood, felt as both drudgery and religious vocation, and the desire to write.
A Mrs Taylor wrote prolifically on running a household, managing a business and bringing up children. In books such as Correspondence between a Mother and Daughter (1817) and Practical Hints on the Duties of a Wife, a Mother and a Mistress of a Family (1815) she preached: ‘A house is only well conducted where there is a strict attention paid to order and regularity. To do everything in its proper time, to keep everything in its right place, is the very essence of good management’. Her example inspired her daughters to take up writing. Though both prolific when young, they changed once they produced large families. With eight children, Ann voiced the tensions which make creative writing at home so very tough for mothers:
every hour I devote to writing now is almost against my conscience, as I have not time to spare. My mind is never in that composed careful state which I have always found necessary for writing; my ear is waking perpetually to the voice or cry of a dear child, and I am continually obliged to break off at a moment’s notice to attend to him.
She envied her sister Jane who had no children and was able to concentrate. This letter of 1817 expresses the contradictory longings of many creative mothers:
Dear Jane,
If your fame, and leisure for the improvement of your mind, could be combined with the comfort and pleasures of a larger domestic circle; and if, with a husband and children, I could share a glimmer of your fame, and a portion of your reading, we should both perhaps be happier than it is the usual lot . . .
Alice Walker took these longings into the epistolary The Color Purple and allowed her protagonist to build a cottage industry, sewing, while waiting for her children to be restored to her, offering a symbolic possibility to mothers outside the capitalist system.
Hard work was a necessity for the lower middle class unable to afford much help. The three letters from Mary Abell in 1870s America reveal the difficulties of a mother forced to turn her hand to every household task, from emptying the excrement, and nursing a sick husband while trying to entertain children, to cooking in a tiny room. She was an educated woman married to a preacher (who was also a farmer) but she expresses the difficulties of many working-class mothers.
The poet Marina Tsvetayeva in twentieth-century Russia describes the painful attempts of a mother to find enough food for her two small daughters. Her husband was ‘missing’, she was their sole support, a situation undergone by so many mothers in war-time.
The really hard labour of domestic servants has rarely been communicated in letters. It was Arthur Munby who asked the servant he loved to describe her working life to him, with its dirt and small joys.
Women’s lives have been unnecessarily restricted for centuries. Yet, in the last section of this chapter, we have much evidence of their making the most of their limited existence. A letter from Mrs Delany, a friend of Fanny Burney, recounts her enjoyment of aristocratic entertainments, attitudes and dress. Burney expresses the pleasures of everyday occupations during a visit to friends in the country. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu goes much further and builds an almost ideal garden for herself in Italy. She had gone there hoping to live with her lover. When he let her down, she decided to remake her life beside the beautiful river Oglio. She plans fulfilling days, supervising her smallholding, reading in her retreat, ‘where I enjoy every moment that solitude can afford’. Her positive approach to apparent limitations is also echoed in the more recent final letter in this section.
While her husband was away, Margaret Paston forced to take power, appealed to male authority, though she showed herself resourceful and courageous in the war, demanding crossbows to defend her home against rebels, during the Wars of the Roses.
Right worshipful husband, I commend myself to you. This is to let you know I sent you a letter by Berney’s man from Witchingham, which was written on St Thomas’s day at Christmas, and I have had no news or letter from you since the week before Christmas, which surprises me very much. I am afraid that all is not well with you, because you have not come home or sent news up to now. I had indeed hoped that you would be home by Twelfth Night at the latest. I beg you with all my heart to be so kind as to send me word how you are as quickly as you can, because my mind will never be easy until I have news from you.
The people in this part of the world are beginning to grow wild, and it is said here that my lord Clarence and the duke of Suffolk, and certain judges with them, shall come down and try such people as are reputed to be causing riots around here. And it is also said that a new release has been made cancelling what was done at the last shire court. I expect that such talk comes from evil men who want to start a rumour in the country. People here say that they would rather all go up to the king together and complain of the evildoers who have wronged them, than be complained against without good reason and hanged outside their own doors. Indeed, men are very afraid here of a rising of the common people, unless a better way is quickly found of calming the people, and men are sent down to settle matters whom the people like and who will be impartial. They do not in the least like the duke of Suffolk or his mother. They say that all the traitors and extortioners in this country are maintained by them and by those whose support they buy in order to maintain the kind of extortion that their underlings have practised before. Men think that if the duke of Suffolk comes, things will go badly unless others come with him who are more popular than him. People are much more afraid of being hurt because you and my cousin Berney have not come home. They say they are sure that all is not well with you, and if things are not well with you, they are sure that the men who want to harm you, will soon do them some hard, and that makes them furious. God in his holy mercy give grace that a good and sober government is soon set up in these parts, because I never heard of so much robbery and manslaughter here as there has been recently.
As for gathering money, I never saw a worse season, for Richard Calle says he can get little of the substance of what is owing, either on your estates or Fastolf’s. And John Paston [III] says that those who are best able to pay, pay worst. They behaved as though they hoped to have a new world.
The blessed Trinity have you in their keeping and send us good news of you. Yelverton is a good friend in hard times for you and others in these parts, so I am told.
Written in haste on Thursday after Twelfth Night.
By your Margaret Paston
ED. ALICE D. GREENWOOD, SELECTIONS FROM THE PASTON LETTERS (1920)
Margery Paston, daughter-in-law of the indefatigable Margaret, not only supervised the large estate in Norfolk, for which she needed ‘gold’ to be sent from her lawyer husband in London, but also superintended his growing fleet and kept accounts for him. Like many wives she seems to be blamed when a piece of clothing is mislaid, here a ‘tippet of velvet’. Note her postscript: they often tell us more than the letter, according to Fanny Burney.
1486
To my master, John Paston, be this delivered
Right reverend and worshipful sir, in my most humble wise I recommend me to you, desiring to hear of your welfare, the which I beseech God to preserve to His pleasure and to your heart’s desire. Sir, I thank you for the venison that ye sent me; and your ship is sailed out of the haven as this day.
Sir, I send you by my brother William your stomacher of damask. As for your tippet of velvet, it is not here; Anne saith that ye put it in your casket at London.
Sir, your children be in good health, blessed be God.
Sir, I pray you send me the gold, that I spake to you of, by the next man that cometh to Norwich.
Sir, your mast that lay at Yarmouth is letten to a ship of Hull, 13s. and 4d., and if there fall any hurt thereto, ye shall have a new mast therefor.
No more to you at this time, but Almighty God have you in His keeping. Written at Caister Hall, the 21st day of January, in the first year of King Henry VII.
By your servant,
Margery Paston
I pray God no ladies no more overcome you, that you give no longer respite in your matters.
ED. ALICE D. GREENWOOD (1920)
Lord and Lady Lisle moved to Calais in 1533. Their unmarried step-daughter kept an eye on their property. Here she complains to Lady Lisle of Sir John Bonde, vicar of the parish, who was responsible for overseeing the estate and the accounts. He had brought a lady of reprehensible reputation into the family manor house. Jane Basset had only a tiny income to live on, so earns her place in the household by overseeing its management – and morals.
13 September 1535
I pray you heartily, good Madam, have me heartily recommended unto my special good lord as a poor maiden may be. . . .
And also it may please you to be advertised, that through the counsel of Mr Vicar, and divers others, that my sister Thomasine is gone from me unto my brother Marys, without any manner knowledge given unto me, in the morning early before my rising, and, to say the very truth, asleep; and so there did ride with her the Smith, a little boy, and Mistress Thomasyne, sometime Thomas Seller his harlot, and now God’s holy vicar here in earth, as he may be, without devotion, as all the whole country says; and here the said Thomasyne is covered underneath John Bremelcomb, the which men think her well near as unthrifty as the other. Wherefore they have rid away my sister in hope and trust to rid me also, because they might the bolder keep forth their bawdy and unthrifty rule without any further trouble. And sithens my sister’s departing, she hath sent for part of her clothing, the which she left behind her, the which I do retain in my keeping, and will do, until such time that I may know your further pleasure herein.
And also the vicar shewed me that your ladyship had written unto him that she should depart, and go from me whither that she would; and also he says, that I have written many and divers letters unto your ladyship, the which you shall never have knowledge thereof, or else I shall never have answer again: the which I never had indeed, as he hath said. And also he will not suffer me to have the looking upon none of your stuff, the which putrefieth for lack of good governance. And, further, he says that I do covet to have my brother’s evidence, and none thing else regarding your profit.
. . . And as for your fishing, he hath utterly dispraised it unto your ladyship and divers others, and Bremelcum also, to this intent that none body should offer for it. And now that they perceive that men will offer for it, they say that your ladyship’s mind is turned, and will not sell. Wherefore, if it be your pleasure to sell it, I pray you, madam, to call to your remembrance what ye promised me, that ye willed me divers times to desire one thing of you when I should espy my time; and you of your own goodness promised me that I should obtain therein. Wherefore I heartily pray you, madam, that I may be your farmer thereunto, as there is or shall be offered for with reason, so that I may be somewhat the better therefore, as my special trust is in you. For I ensure you it is very necessary for me, dwelling here under your goodness, towards the augmentation and amendment of my poor living, as in apparelling and welcoming your Ladyship’s friends whensoever they come, for your sake and honour, the which is chargeable unto me in buying all things, as corn, flesh and fish.
And I pray you send me word whether I shall maintain your taper in the chapel of our Lady of Alston, the which hitherto I have done; and as for the cleanly keeping of your house, the which is very uncleanly. I pray you, good madam, send me some good works.
By your daughter, Jane Basset
ED. M. ST CLARE BYRNE, THE LISLE LETTERS (1985)
Saint Teresa of Avila, in the sixteenth century, displayed spiritual and entrepreneurial qualities. Here she writes to her brother in the Indies, where he prospered, about help he sent to found a convent.
Avila 23 December 1561
Sir,
May the Holy Spirit be ever with you. Amen. And may He repay you for the trouble you have taken in helping us all and the great diligence you have shown about it. I hope in God’s Majesty that it will profit you much in His sight, for it is certain that all those to whom you are sending money have received it just at the right moment, and personally I found it a very great comfort. And I believe it was an inspiration from God that moved you to send me so much.
I have written to you already, at great length, about something which, for many reasons and causes, I have been unable to avoid doing, because the inspiration came from God. I ought not to write about such things in a letter; I will only say that, in the opinion of holy and learned persons, I must not be cowardly, but put all I can into this task, which is the foundation of a convent. There are to be only fifteen nuns in it, and this number is never to be added to; they will live in the strictest enclosure, never going out, and seeing no one without having veils over their faces, and the foundation of their lives will be prayer and mortification.
I am being helped by that lady, Doña Guiomar, who is writing to you. She is the wife of Francisco Dávila, of Salobralejo, if you remember. Her husband died nine years ago, leaving a million maravedís a year. She has a family estate of her own, as well as her husband’s, and, although she was only twenty-five when left a widow, she has not married again but has given herself devotedly to God’s service. She is an extremely spiritual person. For over four years we have been closer friends than if we were sisters; but, although she is helping me a great deal by giving me a large part of the income for the convent, she has no money available just now, so the purchase of the house and everything that needs to be done to it has to be seen to by me. By the goodness of God I have been given two dowries in advance, so I have bought the house, keeping the purchase secret, but I can find no way of getting the necessary work done on it. However, as God wants it done, He will provide for me, so I have put all my trust in Him and am engaging the workmen. It seemed a foolish thing to do – but now His Majesty comes and moves you to provide the money; and what amazed me most was that you added those forty pesos, of which I had the very greatest need. I think St Joseph, whose name the house is to bear, was not going to let me want for them: I know he will repay you. Poor and small though the house is, it has lovely views and grounds. So that settles the matter of money.
Your servant
Teresa
TRANS. ALLISON PEERS, COMPLETE WORKS OF SAINT TERESA OF AVILA (1946)
Mary Wollstonecraft went to live in France at the time of the Revolution. She met the revolutionary Madame Roland, who told her of the qualities and attractions of life up to 1789, especially for women. We can hear the enthusiasm in this feminist’s voice in this letter.
It is a mistake to suppose that there was no such thing as domestic happiness in France, or even in Paris. For many French families, on the contrary, exhibited an affectionate urbanity of behaviour to each other, seldom to be met with where a certain easy gaiety does not soften the difference of age and condition. The husband and wife, if not lovers, were the civilest friends and tenderest parents in the world; the only parents, perhaps, who really treated their children like friends; and the most affable masters and mistresses. Mothers were also to be found, who after suckling their children, paid a degree of attention to their education, not thought compatible with the levity of character attributed to them; whilst they acquired a portion of taste and knowledge rarely to be found in the women of other countries. Their hospitable boards were constantly open to relations and acquaintances, who, without the formality of an invitation, enjoyed their cheerfulness free from restraint; whilst more select circles closed the evening, by discussing literary subjects. In the summer, when they retired to their mansion houses, they spread gladness around, and partook of the amusements of the peasantry, whom they visited with paternal solicitude. These were, it is true, the rational few, not numerous in any country – and where is led a more useful or rational life?
. . . Besides, in France, the women have not those factitious supercilious manners, common to the English; and acting more freely, they have more decision of character, and even more generosity. Rousseau has taught them also a scrupulous attention to their personal cleanliness, not generally to be seen elsewhere: their coquetry is not only more agreeable, but more natural: and not left a prey to unsatisfied sensations, they were less romantic indeed than the English; yet many of them possessed delicacy of sentiment.
CLAIRE TOMALIN, THE LIFE AND DEATH OF MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT (1974)
After her widowed mother’s death, Nellie Weeton found she could not make a living by running their small school, so looked for a job as a governess, at 30 guineas a year. Here she writes to her friend Bessy Winkley, 28 December 1809, describing her first evening at her new employers, the Pedders’ Home, Dove’s Nest.
Mr and Mrs Pedder were seated at their wine after dinner, Mrs P. dressed in a pink muslin, with a very becoming head dress of the same. At supper we had two servants in livery attending, and some display of plate, silver nutcrackers, &c., and some things of which poor ignorant I knew not the use. I felt a little awkward, but as you may suppose, strove not to let it appear. I now feel much more at home, and quite comfortable. For more than a week I was far otherwise, not knowing exactly what was expected of me. I am now better acquainted with the task I have undertaken, and find it both an easy and agreeable one. Mr and Mrs Pedder treat me in a most pleasing, flattering manner. So far from making me feel any dependence, I am treated with so much deference, that I must endeavour to be cautious lest I thoughtlessly assume too much. Mr P. is very good tempered in general, a little passionate sometimes. Mrs P. is a most sweet tempered woman, and of a disposition upright and amiable in the extreme. I have had some instances of it that have delighted and astonished me. I am fortunate to have such an one under my care, for she is my pupil as well as Miss Pedder. The latter is not a pleasing child; far otherwise. Her fits, I think, have an effect upon her disposition. She has them very frequently, sometimes five in a day; seldom a whole day without. I don’t feel so much alarmed with them as I expected. I have frequently to hold her in them. They seldom last five minutes.
I have to attend to the direction of the House, the table, &c., as well as literary studies; to assist in entertaining company in the parlour; and give directions to the servants. I am studying the art of carving, and learning, as far as books will teach me, as well as giving instructions. Mr P. has a most excellent library.
Mrs Pedder was a dairy maid at Darwen-Bank, Mr P.’s house near Preston, when he fell in love with her. Her father heard of the connexion and fearing his daughter might be seduced, sent for her home. He lives nearby here. Mr P. followed her, took her off to Gretna Green and married her. They lived some time at Darwen-Bank, and then took this house, where he intends to live retired until his wife (every way worthy her present rank, in my opinion), is fit to appear in the presence of his relations; and her improvement is so rapid, her application so close, and her disposition and understanding so superior, that a little time will make her all he wishes. He is a lucky fellow to have hit upon such an one. She is not eighteen yet. She expresses herself as much pleased with me, and satisfied with my attentions; and Mr Barton told me, Mr Pedder did the same. – How gratifying!
ED. E. HALL, MISS WEETON: JOURNAL OF A GOVERNESS (1936)
Difficulties in housekeeping at Buckingham Palace were greater than we might imagine. Queen Victoria often complained that her windows were never clean enough, because one department was responsible for washing windows inside, and never co-ordinated its work with the government department responsible for the cleaning of the exterior. Here she writes to the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel.
Pavilion, 10th February 1845
Though the Queen knows that Sir Robert Peel has already turned his attention to the urgent necessity of doing something to Buckingham Palace, the Queen thinks it right to recommend this subject herself to his serious consideration. Sir Robert is acquainted with the state of the Palace and the total want of accommodation for our little family, which is fast growing up. Any building must necessarily take some years before it can be safely inhabited. If it were to be begun this autumn, it could hardly be occupied before the spring of 1848, when the Prince of Wales would be nearly seven, and the Princess Royal nearly eight years old, and they cannot possibly be kept in the nursery any longer. A provision for this purpose ought, therefore, to be made this year. Independent of this, most parts of the Palace are in a sad state, and will ere long require a further outlay to render them decent for the occupation of the Royal Family or any visitors the Queen may have to receive. A room, capable of containing a large number of those persons whom the Queen has to invite in the course of the season to balls, concerts, etc., than any of the present apartments can at once hold, is much wanted. Equally so, improved offices and servants’ rooms, the want of which puts the departments of the household to great expense yearly. It will be for Sir Robert to consider whether it would not be best to remedy all these deficiencies at once, and to make use of this opportunity to render the exterior of the Palace such as no longer to be a disgrace to the country, which it certainly now is. The Queen thinks the country would be better pleased to have the question of the Sovereign’s residence in London so finally disposed of, than to have it so repeatedly brought before it.
ED. A.C. BENSON, LETTERS OF QUEEN VICTORIA (1907)
Mrs Gaskell here writes to a friend, Eliza Fox, on the difficult balance between household duties and the development of the individual.
Feb 1850
One thing is pretty clear, Women must give up living an artist’s life, if home duties are to be paramount. It is different with men, whose home duties are so small a part of their life. However we are talking of women. I am sure it is healthy for them to have the refuge of the hidden world of Art to shelter themselves in when too much pressed upon by daily small Lilliputian arrows of peddling cares; it keeps them from being morbid as you say; and takes them into the land where King Arthur lies hidden, and soothes them with its peace. I have felt this in writing, I see others feel it in music, you in painting, so assuredly a blending of the two is desirable. (Home duties and the development of the Individual I mean), which you will say it takes no Solomon to tell you but the difficulty is where and when to make one set of duties subserve and give place to the other. I have no doubt that the cultivation of each tends to keep the other in a healthy state, – my grammar is all at sixes and sevens I have no doubt but never mind if you can pick out my meaning. I think a great deal of what you have said.
Thursday – I’ve been reading over yr note, and believe I’ve only been repeating in different language what you said. If Self is to be the end of exertions, those exertions are unholy, there is no doubt of that – and that is part of the danger in cultivating the Individual Life; but I do believe we have all some appointed work to do, which no one else can do so well; Wh. is our work; what we have to do in advancing the Kingdom of God; and that first we must find out what we are sent into the world to do, and define it and make it clear to ourselves, (that’s the hard part) and then forget ourselves in our work, and our work in the End we ought to strive to bring about. I never can either talk or write clearly so I’ll e’en leave it alone.
ED. J.A.V. CHAPPLE, LETTERS OF ELIZABETH GASKELL (1967)
In 1865 a young schoolteacher, Mary, married a farmer who was also a preacher. She moved with him from a relatively prosperous home to a tough homesteading. She had five children in nine years, and had to do virtually all the work single-handed. Even so, she hoped to earn a living teaching the melodeon. She died young.
[Mary Abell to her mother, 12 November 1871]
The rain is falling out of doors and has been all day – but we are snug and warm in comfortable quarters. We never thought of having such a good home for this winter; we are indeed thankful you may be sure. I have commenced giving Alice Fullington music lessons, am going to give her three lessons a week. She is an only child, and they (her parents) are very anxious she should learn music as she has never learned much at school, she is seventeen years old and quite diffident – her father is wealthy, they are all pleased with the idea of my teaching her. I think she is going to do first rate. I could have a large class if I could manage any way to leave home and give lessons or have them come here. I can do nothing till I get my melodeon here. . . .
I had to lug all the water, and do most of the chores for several days. Carrying the water up the hill was the hardest work for me, but Rob is now able to attend to his wonted work himself – though his leg troubles him – pains him a good deal of the time, he is lame in both knees now. He has picked corn two half days – was intending to work a good deal this fall, but he will be able to do scarcely anything. His school commences the first of Dec. . . .
I expect to earn money to get some things after a little. I get all our provisions now by my sewing – Mother Abell sent us two lbs. of tea which will last us at least all winter – so the most we have to get in the grocery line will be sugar. We have soda to last six months at least, the children have got to have new every day aprons, dresses – and must have doublegowns – they have worn their old duds patched and repatched all summer till they are good for nothing but paper rags. Indeed I cannot let them go looking so any longer. You see I have a good winter’s work before me – with the ‘little sewing’ I have to do. I shall take all the sewing I can get aside from Mrs H’s [Humphrey]. . . .
The calico you sent, I am very much obliged for. I needed it so much for the children, shall have to get twice as much to make up besides, for I must do my sewing for some months to come – I can not do much in that line after another ‘little stranger’ comes, even if I could my eyes are always so weak, my limbs swell badly, but have not felt as bad for a few days. I’ve not been on my feet as much.
[Mary Abell to her mother, 31 December 1871)
This is the last day of 1871. The 1st I spent in Attica [her parents’ home] and I remember it quite well – I wish I were there this year, but it will be perhaps many years before I shall see you again – my cares increase instead of diminish. No sooner are the children a little out of the way than another comes – and so they come along. I have been quite nervous for a couple of weeks. More so than before this winter. The children worry me completely out by night – and none of them sleep any through the day, and it is a continual worry – when I am sewing as hard as I can all the time.
H. JORDAN, LOVE LIES BLEEDING (1979)
Isabella Bird trekked through the Rocky Mountains, on horseback, mainly alone. Her letters home given an informative picture of the life of the new settlers in America in 1873.
Great Platte Canyon Oct 23
Denver is busy, a distributing-point for an immense district, with good shops, some factories, fair hotels, and the usual deformities and refinements of civilisation. A shooting affray in the street is as rare as in Liverpool, while asthmatic people form a veritable convention of patients cured and benefitted.
Numbers of invalids who cannot bear the rough life of the mountains fill its hotels and boarding-houses, and others who have been partially restored by a summer of camping out, go into the city in the winter to complete the cure. It stands at a height of 5000 feet, on an enormous plain, and has a most glorious view of the Rocky Range. I should hate even to spend a week there. The sight of those glories so near and yet out of reach would make me nearly crazy. Denver is at present the terminus of the Kansas Pacific Railroad.
The number of ‘saloons’ in the streets impresses one, and everywhere one meets the characteristic loafers of a frontier town, who find it hard even for a few days or hours to submit to the restraints of civilisation, as hard as I did to ride sidewise to ex-Governor Hunt’s office. To Denver men go to spend the savings of months of hard work in the maddest dissipation, and there such characters as ‘Comanche Bill,’ ‘Buffalo Bill,’ ‘Wild Bill,’ and ‘Mountain Jim,’ go on the spree, and find the kind of notoriety they seek. A large number of Indians added to the harlequin appearance of the Denver streets the day I was there. They belonged to the Ute tribe, through which I had to pass, and ex-Governor Hunt introduced me to a fine-looking young chief, very well dressed in beaded hide, and bespoke his courtesy for me if I needed it. The Indian stores and fur stores and fur depôts interested me most. The crowds in the streets, perhaps owing to the snow on the ground, were almost solely masculine. I only saw five women the whole day. There were men in every rig: hunters and trappers in buckskin clothing; men of the Plains with belts and revolvers, in great blue cloaks, relics of the war; teamsters in leathern suits; horsemen in fur coats and caps and buffalo-hide boots with the hair outside, and camping blankets behind their huge Mexican saddles; Broadway dandies in light kid gloves; rich English sporting tourists, clean, comely, and supercilious-looking; and hundreds of Indians on their small ponies, the men wearing buckskin suits sewn with beads, and red blankets, with faces painted vermilion, and hair hanging lank and straight, and squaws much bundled up, riding astride with furs over their saddles.
I. BIRD, A LADY’S LIFE IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS (1982)
Hannah Cullwick (1833–1909) was the daughter of a servant. She began ‘service’ at the age of eight, and moved to London in her teens when her parents died. She met the writer Arthur Munby, who was so interested in the details of dirt and drudgery that he asked her to write about her work. This extract was written in 1864 when she was a servant in a boarding-house:
I often thought of Myself & them, all they ladies sitting up stairs & talking & sewing & playing games & pleasing themselves, all so smart & delicate to what i am, though they was not real ladies the missis told me – & then me by myself in that kitchen, drudging all day in my dirt, & ready to do any thing for ’em whenever they rung for me – it seems like been a different kind o creature to them, but it’s always so with ladies & servants & of course there is a difference cause their bringing up is so different – servants may feel it sharply & do sometimes i believe, but it’s best not to be delicate, not mind what work we do so as it’s honest. i mean it’s best to be really strong in body & ready for any sort o rough work that’s useful: but keeping a soft & tender heart all while & capable o feeling. How shamed ladies’d be to have hands & arms like mine, & how weak they’d be to do my work, & how shock’d to touch the dirty things even, what i black my whole hands with every day – yet such things must be done, & the lady’s’d be the first to cry out if they was to find nobody to do for ’em – so the lowest work i think is honourable in itself & the poor drudge is honourable too providing her mind isn’t as coarse & low as her work is, & yet loving her dirty work too – both cause it’s useful & for been content wi the station she is placed in. But how often poor servants have to bear the scorn & harsh words & proud looks from them above her which to my mind is very wicked & unkind & certainly most disheartening to a young wench. A good hard day’s work of cleaning with a pleasant word & look from the Missis is to my mind the greatest pleasure of a servants life. There was two Miss Knights, & one was always in bed, & couldn’t bear a bit o noise, so it was tiresome often to be stopp’d doing a job when i was doing it as quiet as ever i could, but i bore it patient knowing she was ill & that it vex’d the Missis so to have her disturb’d, & Miss Julia (the Missis) was the first real lady that ever talk’d to me, & she doing all the light part o cooking was a good deal wi me in the kitchen – she lent me a very nice book (The Footsteps o St. Paul), & said she was sure I shd not dirty it & I read it through wi a bit of paper under my thumb & give it her back as clean as when she give it me. She used to tell me things too about the moon & stars & fire & earth & about history that I knew not of & it surprised me, & she advised me to read the Bible now i was got older for that i may understand better than when i was younger – But she said it was difficult in some parts even to her & she’d study’d a great deal having bin a governess – And so I enjoy’d Miss Knight’s company in the Kitchen & she sat one day ever so long seen me clean the paint, & she said she could watch me all day, there was something so very interesting in cleaning & that i seem’d to do it so hearty & i said i was really fond of it. But the poor thing couldn’t wash a plate or a saucepan or peel a tato, nor even draw a cork of a bottle, which was unlucky for her, been so poor in pocket – & she did wish she could afford to give me more wages.
ARTHUR J. MUNBY: LIFE AND DIARIES (1972)
The poet Marina Tsvetayeva was at first enthusiastic about the Russian revolution, but underwent great hardships. In July 1919 she was invited to read her poems in the Palace of Arts and chose as her theme ‘the three-fold lie of freedom, equality and brotherhood’. This letter to her sister, Anastasia, was written later in 1919. Seryozha, her young husband, whom she adored at first, was ‘missing’.
I live with Alya and Irina (Alya is six, Irina two) in our same flat opposite two trees in the attic room which used to be Seryozha’s. We have no flour and no bread. Under my writing desk there are about twelve pounds of potatoes which is all that is left from the food ‘lent’ by my neighbours. These are the only provisions we have. I walk all over Moscow looking for bread. If Alya comes with me, I have to tie Irina to a chair, for safety. I feed Irina, then put her to bed. She sleeps in the blue armchair. There is a bed but it won’t go through the door. I boil up some old coffee, and drink it, and have a smoke. I write. Alya writes or reads. There is silence for two hours; then Irina wakes up. We heat up what remains of the mashed goo. With Alya’s help, I fish out the potatoes which remain, or rather have become clogged in the bottom of the samovar. Either Alya or myself puts Irina back to bed. Then Alya goes to bed. At 10 pm the day is over.
ELAINE FEINSTEIN, MARINA TSVETAYEVA (1989)
Just over a year later, in December 1920, she wrote again to her sister, Anastasia.
Forgive me if I keep writing the same things – I’m afraid of letters not getting through. In February of this year Irina died – of hunger – in an orphanage outside Moscow . . . Irina was almost three. She could hardly speak all the time rocking and singing. Her ear and her voice were astonishing – if you should find any trace of Seryozha, write him that it was from pneumonia.
ELAINE FEINSTEIN (1989)
However, by spring the worst of the famine was over and the government allocated her a ration of food, which led her to encourage her sister:
Asya! . . . Come to Moscow. You have a miserable life. Here things are returning to normal. We have bread! there are frequent distributions for children; and since you insist on having a job I could arrange for a grand position for you, with rations and firewood. I hate Moscow, but I cannot travel, so I must wait for S. I love only him and you. I’m very lonely. . . .
ELAINE FEINSTEIN (1989)
Daily life in the Appalachian mountains was tough at the turn of this century, as testified by this letter taken from Lee Smith’s novel.
Dear Mister Castle,
You do not know me, I am your grand-daughter, Ivy Rowe. The daughter of your girl Maude who left Rich Valley to come to Blue Star Mountain with my daddy John Arthur Rowe. My daddy is sick now Momma is not pretty no more but crys all the time now I thoght you migt want to know this I thoght you migt wan to help out some iffen you knowed it and send some money to us at the P.O. at Majestic, Va., you can sent it to me, Ivy Rowe. I am hopen you will send us some money. I am hopen you will get this letter I will send it to you at Rich Valley, Va. by Curtis Bostick he comes up here courting Beulah who has not been bleeding for a while now, we do not know iffen she will marry Curtis Bostick or not his momma is pitching a fit agin it so they say. It is one more thing to contend with, Momma says. Beulah says she wuldnt have him on a stick but she wuld I bet, nevermind what she says. We have not got hardly a thing up here now but meal and taters and shucky beans. Danny has a rising like a pone on the side of his neck and Daddy breths awful. Please if you are alive now send us money, tell no one I am writing you this letter they wuld kill me for axing but I know you are a rich man I will bet you are a good man too. I remane your devoted granddaghter,
Ivy Rowe
LEE SMITH, FAIR AND TENDER LADIES (1989)
Mary Delany corresponded with many well-known women writers in the eighteenth century. She was a member of the ancient Granville family. Her letters are not distinguished, but describe the manners and attitudes of her circle. Her almost daily letters to Ann, her younger sister, form an epistolary diary, rather like Fanny Burney’s to her sister.
22ND JAN. 1739
After such a day of confusion and fatigue as yesterday, my dearest sister I am sure is too reasonable to expect my head should be composed enough to write a folio, so I very prudently, knowing my own strength, undertake but a quarto.
Lady Dysart, Miss Dashwood and I went together. My clothes you know. I was curled, powdered, and decked with silver ribbon, and was told by critics in the art of dress that I was well dressed. Lady Dysart was in scarlet damask gown, facings, and robings embroidered with gold and colours, her petticoat white satin, all covered with embroidery of the same sort, very fine and handsome, but her gaiety was all external, for at her heart she is the most wretched virtuous woman that I know! The gentle Dash was in blue damask, the picture of modesty, and looked excessively pretty. She danced, and was only just so much out of countenance as to show she had no opinion of her own performance, but courage enough to dance very well. The Princess’s clothes were white satin, the petticoat, crowned with jewels; and her behaviour (as it always is) affable and obliging to everybody. The Prince was in old clothes and not well; he was obliged to go away very early. The Duchess of Bedford’s clothes were the most remarkably fine, though finery was so common it was hardly distinguished, and my little pretension to it, you may imagine, was easily eclipsed by such superior brightness. The Duchess of Bedford’s petticoat was green paduasoy, embroidered very richly with gold and silver and a few colours; the pattern was festoons of shells, coral, corn, corn-flowers, and sea-weeds; everything in different works of gold and silver except the flowers and coral, the body of the gown white satin, with a mosaic pattern of gold facings, robings and train the same as the petticoat; there was abundance of embroidery, and many people in gowns and petticoats of different colours. The men were as fine as the ladies, but we had no Lord Clanricard. My Lord Baltimore was in light brown and silver, his coat lined quite throughout with ermine. His lady looked like a frightened owl, her locks strutted out and most furiously greased, or rather gummed and powdered. The Duchess of Queensbury was remarkably fine for her, had powder, and certainly shewed she had still a right to be called ‘beautiful.’ My Lord Carlisle, his lady, son, and two daughters, were all excessively fine. But I grow sick of the word ‘fine’ and all its appurtenances, and I am sure you have enough of it. The ball began at nine.
ED. A. DAY, LETTERS FROM GEORGIAN IRELAND (1992)
Here Jane Austen writers to her sister Cassandra.
STEVENTON: SATURDAY JANRY 3d [1801]
My dear Cassandra
As you have by this time received my last letter, it is fit that I should begin another . . .
My mother looks forward with as much certainly as you can do, to our keeping two maids – my father is the only one not in the secret. We plan having a steady cook, and a young giddy housemaid, with a sedate, middle-aged man, who is to undertake the double office of husband to the former and sweetheart to the latter. No children of course to be allowed on either side . . .
I have now attained the true art of letter-writing, which we are always told, is to express on paper exactly what one would say to the same person by word of mouth: I have been talking to you almost as fast as I could the whole of this letter . . .
My mother bargains for having no trouble at all in furnishing our house in Bath – and I have engaged for your willingly undertaking to do it all. I get more and more reconciled to the idea of our removal. We have lived long enough in this neighbourhood, the Basingstoke Balls are certainly on the decline, there is something interesting in the bustle of going away, and the prospect of spending future summers by the sea or in Wales is very delightful . . . It must not be generally known however that I am not sacrificing a great deal in quitting the country – or I can expect to inspire no tenderness, no interest in those we leave behind.
My father is doing all in his power to increase his income by raising his tithes etc., and I do not despair of getting very nearly six hundred a year. In what part of Bath do you mean to place your bees? We are afraid of the South Parade’s being too hot . . .
Yours affectly J.A.
ED. R.W. CHAPMAN, JANE AUSTEN: LETTERS (1932)
Emily Eden (1797–1869) longed for a home in England, yet went to live in India. She was one of fourteen children born to the affectionate Baron Auckland. She and her brother George were devoted to each other, and as neither married she agreed to accompany him to India when he was made Governor-General in 1835. She wrote numerous letters back to her family, which she later published as Up The Country: Letters from India (1872), from which these extracts are taken.
Oct 1835
You cannot think what a whirl and entanglement buying and measuring and trying-on makes in your brain. Nightdresses with short sleeves, and net night-caps because muslin is too hot. Then such anomalies – quantities of flannel which I never wear at all in a cool climate, but which we are to wear at night because the creatures who are pulling all night at the punkahs sometimes fall asleep. Then you wake from the extreme heat and call to them, they wake and begin pulling away with such vigour that you catch your death with a sudden chill . . . Indeed it is so very HOT I do not know how to spell it large enough . . .
I get up at eight, and with the assistance of three maids, contrive to have a bath and be dressed for breakfast at nine. When I leave my room I find my two tailors sitting cross-legged in the passage making my gowns, a sweeper plying his broom, two bearers pulling the punkahs and a sentry to mind that none of these steal anything. I am followed downstairs by my Jemdar or head servant, four couriers who are my particular attendants, and by Chance, my spaniel, carried under his own servant’s arm. At the bottom of the stairs I find two more bearers with a sedan chair in case I feel too exhausted to walk to the immense marble hall where we dine. All these people are dressed in white muslin with red and gold turbans and sashes, so picturesque that when I can find no other employment for them I make them sit for their pictures.
E. EDEN, UP THE COUNTRY: LETTERS FROM INDIA (1872)
But by December 1837, she was writing:
We are a very limited group and have lost all semblance of cultivation. We are very nearly savages – not the least ferocious, not even mischievous – but simply good natured, unsophisticated savages, fond of finery, precious stones and tobacco, quite uninformed, very indolent and rather stupid. We are all dying of fever brought on by the rainy season. The only way I’ll survive is by embarking on an interminable course of sketching.
E. EDEN (1872)
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu describes to her daughter, the Countess of Bute, the beautiful life she made in her old age in Italy.
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 to 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).
This spot of ground is so beautiful, I am afraid you will scarce 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 walls 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 it, 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 Via, all considerable towns. This little wood is carpeted, in their succeeding seasons, 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 . . .
I am afraid you will think this a very insignificant letter. I hope the kindness of the design will excuse it, being willing to give you every proof in my power that I am,
Your most affectionate mother,
M. Wortley
ED. R. HALSBAND, THE COMPLETE LETTERS OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU (1965)
Fanny Burney gained almost immediate fame for her novel Evelina. However, she was exceedingly shy, and avoided praise, preferring the company of her adored sister Susan. When they were separated she wrote to her regularly. After turning her letters into a diary for the sister, Fanny had the idea of publishing it, thanks to which we learn about the details, trials and joys of the daughters of the musicologist Dr Burney.
Friday 8 October 1784
For Susan,
I set off with my dear father for Chessington where we spent 5 days very comfortably. Father was all humour, all himself, such as you and I mean by that.
Thursday, Oct 14, I arrived at dear Norbury Park, at about seven o’clock, after a pleasant ride in the dark. Mr Locke most kindly and cordially welcomed me; he came out upon the steps to receive me, and his beloved Fredy [Mrs Locke] waited for me in the vestibule. Oh, with what tenderness did she take me to her bosom! I felt melted with her kindness, but I could not express a joy like hers, for my heart was very full – full of my dearest Susan, whose image seemed before me upon the spot where we had so lately been together.
Next morning I went up stairs as usual, to treat myself with a solo of impatience for the post, and at about twelve o’clock I heard Mrs Locke stepping along the passage. I was sure of good news, for I knew, if there was bad, poor Mr Locke would have brought it. She came in, with three letters in her hand, and three thousand dimples in her cheeks and chin! Oh, my dear Susy, what a sight to me was your hand! I hardly cared for the letter; I hardly desired to open it; the direction alone almost satisfied me sufficiently. How did Mrs Locke embrace me! I half kissed her to death. Then came dear Mr Locke, his eyes brighter than ever – Well, how does she do?
Nothing can be more truly pleasant than our present lives. I bury all disquietudes in immediate enjoyment; an enjoyment more fitted to my secret mind than any I had ever hoped to attain. We are so perfectly tranquil, that not a particle of our whole frames seems ruffled or discomposed. Mr Locke is gayer and more sportive than I ever have seen him; his Fredy seems made up of happiness; and the two dear little girls are in spirits almost ecstatic; and all from that internal contentment which Norbury Park seems to have gathered from all corners of the world into its own sphere.
Our mornings, if fine, are to ourselves, as Mr Locke rides out; if bad, we assemble in the picture room. We have two books in public reading, Madame de Sévigné’s ‘Letters,’ and Cook’s last ‘Voyage.’ Mrs Locke reads the French, myself the English.
Our conversations, too, are such as I could almost wish to last for ever. Mr Locke has been all himself – all instruction, information, and intelligence – since we have been left alone; and the invariable sweetness, as well as judgment, of all he says, leaves, indeed, nothing to wish.
ED. A. DOBSON, THE DIARY AND LETTERS OF MME D’ARBLAY (1904)
This is a recent letter from a Buddhist friend. When her husband lost money in business and the bank threatened to foreclose on their jointly owned house, she went to live on a tiny boat near her work. She soon realized that simplicity and calm are more important than having a large income.
21 June 91
Dear Olga,
It’s three weeks now since I’ve been living on my small boat, alone for virtually the first time in my life. Trying to enjoy it, and succeeding – most of the time. I still feel so torn about my work, about whether to stay working here or go back to London.
On a more positive side, by living here on my own, I’m learning to become less attached to the house, other than physical comfort; and towards the family, I’ve become more open and less dependent.
It is sometimes a bit too lonely, but by writing letters to people like you and just knowing that friendship is always with me in thought, is very comforting. That weekend we Buddhist women all spent together was inspiring. With which other group of people could one discuss so openly, so trustingly?
I usually write part of a letter each evening and the rest of the time I listen to the radio, but more often read Buddhist books. I enjoy the peace and the slow pace of life. The local canoe club often come by and swans and ducks make very welcome visitors. A few people from work have come for meals and trips up the canal too. But just observing nature and having the time to listen to its sounds is one of the best things.
The setting is quite lovely. Where I’m moored there is a bank of willow trees inhabited by several birds. Their dawn chorus is a delightful advent to the day. Buttercups and daisies are my back garden together with a sloping bank of grass. When the weather is good it is the ideal place for me to practice my Tai Chi. I go once a week, on Mondays, to my Tai Chi class, which gives me a focus for the week. It is a difficult discipline and very exacting of mindfulness but it is also extremely energizing. Unfortunately I have disturbed my equanimity by fancying the instructor! It’s all pure fantasy and obviously something I will have to work at.
Living on the boat itself is an extreme exercise in mindfulness as well as control of energy. The above fantasy has made me realize how important it is to use one’s energy in positive and useful ways rather than dissipating it on ephemeral dreams. My mind is continually considering how to make a reasonable living without all the hassles which intrude into our equanimity in a normal working day. Living here in a simple way has made me aware of how little money I need to make life pleasurable. That’s an incredibly comforting lesson. Come soon and try it – any weekend. Write!
Love, Barbara
O. KENYON (1992)