Letter VII

Summary

My dearest Child,

Your Mother and I have as well considered the Case you put, as we are able; and we think your own Reasons very good; and it is pity, a thousand Pities, your honoured Husband will not allow them, as you, my Dear, make it such a Point with you. Very few Ladies would give their Spouses, we believe, the Trouble of this Debate; and few Gentlemen are so very nice as yours in this respect; for I (but what signifies what such a mean Soul as I think, compar’d to so learned and brave a Gentleman; yet I) always thought your dear Mother, and she has been a pretty Woman too in her Time, never look’d so lovely, as when I saw the dear Creature, like the Pelican in the Wilderness, feeding her young ones from her kind Breast:—And had I had ever so noble an Estate, I am sure I should have thought so.

But since the good ‘Squire cannot take this Pleasure; since he so much values your Person; since he gives you Warning, that it may estrange his Affections; since he is impatient of Denial, and thinks so highly of his Prerogative; since he may, if disobliged, resume some bad Habits, and so you may have all your Prayers and Hopes in his perfect Reformation frustrated, and find your own Power to do Good more narrow’d, as I may say; we think, besides the Obedience you have vowed to him, and is the Duty of every good Wife, you ought to give up the Point, and acquiesce; for this seemeth to us, to be the lesser Evil; and God Almighty, if it should be your Duty, will not be less merciful than Men; who, as his Honour says, by the Laws of the Realm, excuse a Wife when she is faulty by the Command of the Husband; and we hope, the Fault he is pleased to make you commit, (if a Fault, for he really gives very praise-worthy Motives for his Dispensation) will not lie at his own Door. So e’en resolve my dearest Child, to submit to it, and with Chearfulness too.

God send you an happy Hour! but who knows, when the Time comes, whether it may not be proper to dispense with this Duty, as you deem it, on other Accounts?