Letter 98. John Eccles to Mary Hays, Tuesday evening, 16 November 1779.¹

[f. 363]

My dearest Maria,

         Though we cannot go where we intended to day, yet the time which we then should have passed together shall still be yours; – ’tis dedicated to you; – the minutes would then have glided along more sweetly, but this pleasure remains to delude them with; by any means to suffuse the softness of complacency o’er my little girl’s countenance, is always a pleasing employ; and may I not hope this will have that effect? It will, or else I flatter myself. – I am half afraid you will be so much engaged now that Mrs Collier is returned home, that you will forget me; – I own, for several reasons, I ought not to complain yet, but I thought it would be prudent just to suggest the hint now, that I may not have cause to complain of you in reality: is not this a good scheme to keep you faultless? – There I think you must allow the latter part of that sentence to be very civil; – I am disposed to be rather polite this evening; indeed I was going to compliment you, but on second thoughts, and on looking towards your window, – I think I had better not; – I am doubtful you have not been writing to day; indeed hitherto you have been punctual, and I know not why you should begin to be lazy now; you cannot plead me for a precedent; – my two last letters indeed [f. 364] have been something concise, but then consider how much longer mine in general are than yours. –

     The impressions your letters have made on my heart are indelible; – never, never can I cease to remember your tenderness; it is ever new in my memory; – not a minute passes without bringing you to my thoughts; ever shall I feel the most grateful returns of affection for all your kindness; – ’tis productive of that peace and consolation which the universe without you could not bestow. – How disinterested is true sincere love! – It wishes nothing but the heart; – every thing else is of the most diminutive value, in comparison with that. – What are titles, estates and grandeur? – Can they give happiness? – Are they to be considered with those pleasures which arise from sympathy of souls? – Where two hearts are united by that exalted passion, which virtue and purity of mind inspires, no prospects or advantages whatever, have sufficient weight to part them; – ’tis enough for each to possess the other’s undivided affections, every thing else they can leave to the disposal of the all-wise author and giver of all. – How few are endued with that susceptibility of soul, which gives the most delicate cement to love! – How few are capable of a refined attachment! – Fortune, something attracting in the person, and perhaps an apparent share of good nature, are sufficient qualifications for most; – these only are consulted, and thought the only requisites to happiness; – many [f. 365] a marriage, I believe, has been hazarded on these circumstances singly. But is this love; is this soft affection? – Oh! no: they are but small requisites towards it. – What is it to,

                “Thought meeting thought, and will preventing will?”

                            What is it to,

Perfect esteem, enliven’d by desire

Ineffable, and sympathy of soul?”¹

Oh! my Maria, ours is an attachment of a purer kind; – it is not founded on such trifles as any thing this low world can give; it is of the soul; has it not stood the refining fire of bitter affliction? – Has any opposition been able to weaken it? – No; – I may answer for both, it has not; and for myself I can say it has enabled me the better to see and esteem your virtues; and by it, the refined and elevated principles of your soul, have been rendered more conspicuous. – I have infinite obligations to you, such I never shall be able to fulfill; – the confidence you reposed in me, from the commencement of our acquaintance, has been most generous; but it has not been committed to one who can be ungrateful; no, it always has, and ever will be preserved inviolate. – Unknown as I was, [f. 366] without any friends to countenance me, young and utterly inexperienced in the ways of love and of the world, my Maria herself was my friend; she on whom I then looked with a fond partiality which I could by no means account for, was my tender pleader; but well she knew who possessed my undivided heart; she knew on whom my affections were fixed. – I have ever thought there was something extraordinary in our first intimacy; – from the first time I ever had an opportunity of observing you, I felt something in your favor which I was a stranger to before; (for I was not such an adept in the science of love as you have been persuaded to believe) and I thought I saw the same prejudice depicted in your countenance; this was several months before I had the courage to speak to you; but I suppose you can recollect I was constant at the meeting though it was seldom you ever saw me look at you; – I was then diffident and entirely artless; I was fearful of offending you should I presume to take any liberties; – this might have been a sufficient evidence to my power of discernment, that I was but little skilled in the ways of love; – for it is very seldom such are over modest. After some time I ventured to speak to you, and found you, “all I wished”; nor was you (like many of your sex) severe to me; I foresaw many difficulties, but, my dear Maria, I loved you: and ever will you be nearest the heart of your sincerely affectionate

                                            J. Eccles. –

Tuesday evening Nov^r 16^th 1779.

¹ Brooks, Correspondence 195-97; Wedd, Love Letters 171-72. 

2 Lines from Thomson’s The Seasons, “Spring.”