Letter 91. Mary Hays to John Eccles, Tuesday, 9 November 1779.1 Your last letter, my dearest Eccles, if possible increased my esteem; – I am convinced that your affection is most disinterested a conviction that is productive of the most ineffable delight to me: – You know not how very tenderly your Maria esteems you! – her whole soul is yours; were she capable of bestowing a thought on any other, she would despise herself; – but ’tis impossible! – My ideas are too refined, my sentiments too delicate ever to entertain a second attachment, and (shall I add) neither could I stoop below my notions of p–rf–ct–n in my Eccles –––– there, now! – am I not in a very civil humor? [f. 345] Perhaps I have a better opinion of you than you deserve – I know I am a little partial in your favor; this is true; and I am apt to believe I shall always be so – tell me, from what is it we derive these prejudices? – Is it from that “Certain something, not to be defined, “That’s in no face, but in the lover’s mind.2 ’Tis rightly termed by the French a je ne sae quoy3 – I will flatter myself that you likewise feel the powers of this inexpressible charm! – I know you every day see women ten thousand times handsomer than your little girl; – yet let me hope ’tis she alone who excites in your bosom the sweet sensations of love, and approbation; because you are convinced that your affection is not lavished on an ungrateful object: oh no! – your Maria knows, she feels your worth; – those proofs of your fidelity and tenderness, (which she has experienced) are treasured up in the inmost recess of her heart; – she never can cease to be sensible of them, but when she ceases to exist; – the purest, yet most animated regard engrosses her every thought; – no amusements, no pleasures, can for one moment <--> banish your idea from my mind; indeed pleasure is but an empty sound, unless sharing or with my Eccles.
You
mistook the question that was to be debated at Coachmakers’-Hall; it was this,
“whether considering the badness of the present time in a political view”
– not the depravity of the age; for that certainly could be no alloy to the
happiness of those, who have soul souls capable of enjoying domestic felicity.
– Prays your own –––– Maria Hays. Tuesday Novr 9th 1779. –
2 Lines from Dryden’s play, Tyrannick Love, Act III, scene 1, in The Works of Mr. John Dryden, vol. 1 (London: J. Tonson, 1695), with text from the 1692 edition of the play by H. Herringman, p. 20. 3 je ne sais quoi -- a quality that cannot be described or named easily. 4 The actual text reads: “Place me in a desert wild, Girt with penury and care; Yet!
if my Alex Every transport, wou’d be there.” 5 Surprisingly, the only reference in these letters to the American War of Independence; most English Baptists were sympathetic to the American cause. |
MARY HAYS: LIFE, WRITINGS, AND CORRESPONDENCE > MARY HAYS CORRESPONDENCE > 1778-1780 Volume 1 > Letters 81-102 >