our selves to what wou'd make our Lives as uncomfortable as yours Especially when you can't expect Love shou'd last when the Cement of it and the very End of Matrimony ceases unless you can give an Instance of any that fell in Love in an Hospital always excepting the Famous Gondibert and his Apothecary's Daughter James Strattford Answer to LETTER XXVI That 't is possible to love as well after Marriage as before and the way to do it By M H WHen the Histories of all Nations are full of the Examples of excellent Wives who for their Constancy and Fidelity to their Husbands and Conjugal Duty and Affection have justly been made Immortal it looks like a very ill-natur'd Paradox to assert that never can be which so often has been and therefore may be agen and of which we have as many present living Instances as there are of marry'd Persons that live happily which I am apt to believe are many more than live otherwise because Happiness and Content are generally silent but Misery is querulous and noisy and we hear every where of the Disorders which happen in any such unfortunate Families Indeed it is observeable of most of the Arguments that are brought against Marriage or the Happiness of such a State that not one in twenty of them have so much as the shadow of Reason but are just such as an ingenious Person says of them fit for Men rather to wheedle with than in good earnest think what they speak And of this sort are all those which pretend to prove there is no such thing as Love after Marriage for we will not stand to the Experience of a bad Husband in these matters Grant that they never had any that something baser than Love was the motive of their Courtship and that their Flame was so impure that it could not long shine after it was lighted by the Torch of Hymen Yet it is so far from Truth that Love cannot last at all after Marriage that I am satisfy'd many have lov'd much better after than they did before nay in some Instances have lov'd very tenderly after that Sacred Bond had united 'em though perfectly indifferent if not averse when both single although Instances of these last are so rare that it is ill venturing together unless there be at least some Affection between them But this I affirm as Magisterially as ever our Antagonist can the contrary although with much more Truth and Reason that marry'd Persons have more cause to Love better than others and more Advantages to do so For they have now left all the World for each other which must needs be a great Endearment on both sides their Word and Honour and Oath are all publickly engag'd and unless they forfeit all these they must continue to Love one another and cannot but be Happy Their Love is both Honourable and Lawful and now they have all they sigh'd for and possess each other's Affections and Persons and Fortunes without any fear of a Rival Shame on him that loves a fine Woman less when he has her in his Arms than when he only throws sheeps-eyes and makes ugly Faces at her It is true if Men form Romantick Notions of Love and Friendship and find themselves deceiv'd when they come to apply 'em to common Life they may be angry without pity or regard He that expects more from a Mortal than it can give him deserves to be disappointed There 's no perfect Happiness here and it's pity there should but yet we may make a shift to pick up a good comfortable share of it with good Management and there are certainly degrees of it and one is much more Happy than another and I am still of the mind that a marry'd condition is in it self the happiest Estate of Life and will never believe but that it would always be so did not Lewdness or Imprudence or some uncommon Misfortune prevent it and thus happy I am sure it never could be without a good degree of Love The little Endearments of a marry'd condition the soft Hours the very Fondnesses and Follies and Particularities and to others insignificant Fancies and Humours have yet all of 'em something new in 'em and diverting and obliging Nay even the little Matrimonial Quarrels the short-liv'd Anger of Lovers makes 'em but love better A little Water sprinkled on their Fire makes it blaze more strongly than before if there be not enough to Quench it Most kinds of Pleasure seem to be little more than the curing of some Pain What else is that we perceive in the Gust of the most delicious Wines when extream Thirsty or the Tast or Smell of a well cook'd Dish when soundly Hungry And the longer we have been Fasting the sharper we are kept the more ravenously we fall to when once we sit down to Table However none but Gluttons will gorge themselves and if afterwards they complain of want of Appetite Wou'd they not be laugh'd at rather than pitied Yet you cannot tell Mr. S whether the Answerer of this Letter be a Man or a Woman a Maid Wife or Widow nor shall you ever know it if I can help it But whatever I am Zeal for Truth has engag'd me in the Controversie and no Aversion to Marriage has drawn these Thoughts from me which you must take as they come without any more Accuracy or Regularity than I find in some of yours But to return to my Subject Even Absence it self is so far from divorcing Lovers that it only more closely cements their Affections Every occasional Journey renders the happy Pair more impatient of meeting and when they meet again more pleas'd with each other encreases their vertuous Love and heightens their mutual Satisfaction and the longer they live together the closer still is the Knot ty'd the more indissoluble it grows and yet the more easie Time and Age file off by degrees any little roughness in their Temper and polishes the Inequalities of their Humour while they grow more acquainted with each others Excellencies and Vertues and therefore more in love with them and can more easily bear with those unavoidable Imperfections those little Blebs which will be found in whatever is moulded of Clay and therefore with the less difficulty may be mutually over-look'd and forgiven Tho' were there nothing but length and continuance of Acquaintance and a long Intimacy under the same Roof on the same Road and in the same Circumstances of Life yet even from hence we often see such Friendships contracted that nothing but Death can divide ' em And these of necessity must be much stronger where the Obligations are dearer and the Intimacy closer and the Secrecy more entire Where Tenderness and Interest and Inclination join their Forces and 't is so much the Concern of both Parties to make each other Happy I never said or thought that Love was more furious the longer it lasted for I believe the quite contrary 'T is more calm and rational but 't wou'd
that Mind good Mr. H. never spoil two Families let the Widow you wot of alone and disturb her no further Be contented that you have turn'd one Wife over and got rid of her by one means or another But if you think to make your Court to a Second in this manner certainly unless she Longs already and that for some such odd things you were lately discoursing of she 'll never take you to save her from Miscarrying for all Women don't doat on such as you speak of tho' sometimes the Proverb helps ' em If we have this Discase from our Cradles which on my word if it be true is a rare Discovery in Nature why then are you so unjust as to bear so hard upon us for what for that further Reason we cannot alter Why don't you chide your selves or your Friends for bringing the Gout or Stone or other Hereditary Distempers with 'em into the World Which if it be true never blame 'em as if their own Extravagancy had pull'd 'em on them But no Creature Longs but Woman The more unhappy she then and the more pity does she deserve But are you in earnest Mr. H Did you never hear of Men that long'd too and that as passionately and violently as any of those whom they despise and reproach for the same Reason Nay even for those very Persons at least their Fortunes and had Infallibly miscarry'd had hang'd or stabb'd themselves or else they are lustily Perjur'd if they had not obtain'd ' em But more than this Men have long'd for some of those silly things for which they make such loud out-cries on the poor Women for Fruit for a Dish of Meat and twenty other things after which their depraved Appetites have rambled to that degree that they have swoon'd away when disappointed And when they 'll assign us a Reason of such an odd Effect as well as of those ridiculous Antipathies which disturb many Men all their Lives then we Promise to give 'em another and a better why Teeming Women are so often afflicted with Longing contrary to their own desires Prudence Radford LETTER XXXI Of the Remedies of Love By Sir Thomas AFter the innumerable Mischiefs whereof your vexations Sex are the Causes and Authors some of which I have endeavour'd to set in a just light that the World may beware both of them and you I shall end as I began with Love the most dangerous and fatal of 'em all and take my leave of that and you together And that I may not only discover this Epidemical Distemper but like a good Physician apply some Remedies to those who are visited with it I intend to conclude my present Address to your most egregious Vanities with a few choice Receipts for the Cure of this Fatal Passion which if taken time enough is not perhaps so impossible as you wou'd have us imagine And in order to this desirable Alteration on all such as are not yet quite past hope I must first advise 'em to remove the Cause which I cou'd never find was any other than an Idle and wretchless disposition Laziness is as near a-kin to Love as a Fever is to an Ague and I verily believe that hard Working wou'd be as good a Cure for one as 't is for t'other Chambers and Couches and Alcoves and Beds of Moss or Roses are the dear delight of that Jack a-napes of a God that Coelestial Bastard the Son of Venus and she scarce her self knew whom There he lolls and stretches himself and swaggers and domineers and is wonderful Valiant on his own Dunghil Where you wou'd almost mistake him for Mars himself his Mothers Gallant he looks so big and terrible on all those who are tame enough and Fools enough to be his Vassals who lie groaning and cry 't is impossible to break their Chain or rise from under so many Pelions and Ossa's of Flowers and Billet-deuxs which Oppress and Fetter 'em because they han't the Resolution to make one brave Effort to recover their Freedom It must be then a full Tyde of Business their Hands and Heads full of some Honest and Brave and Useful Employment which is one of the most proper and probable means to effect a Cure on such as have a mind to be rid of their Distemper and who for the most part fell in Love at first for no better Reason than because they had nothing else to do As is evident from the Character and Quality of those who make up the greatest number of Lovers among whom you rarely or never find Men of Age or Business or confirm'd and ripen'd Judgments but loose Young Men dissolv'd in Riot and Idleness either not capable of any more Noble and Manly Employments or rendring themselves actually unfit for it by affecting to remain unbent and useless to themselves and all Mankind meer Cyphers and Blanks in the Creation But I talk on this Subject like a Lover who is commending his Mistress and scarce know when I 've done Let 's leave this therefore which I look on as the most Effectual Remedy of any other and proceed to enquire what further helps may be found against so dangerous a Distemper There was an honest old rough Fellow among the Grecians who being ask'd what Remedies shou'd be us'd for one in Love He bluntly assign'd only these three following Either says he let 'em Fast it out or let Time Cure it or if both these fail there 's no Cure but one and that 's a Halter The two first will be thought too gross for the nice Pallats of our Silken Gallants yet if they are wise they 'll rather make use of 'em than come to the last which however must be confess'd that many of their Tribe have found Infallible If they wou'd stop short of this last let 'em use others less violent e're the Disease be arriv'd to too great an height Let 'em fly from the fair Cockatrice shut their Eyes their very Souls their Memories their Imaginations Turn her out never so much as Dream of her at least without chiding themselves afterward Never talk of her nor let others do it in their hearing or fly such Discourse and even all those who are themselves in Love and be as careful to weather 'em as you wou'd one that was newly come out of a Pest-house and scatter'd Infection Plague and certain Fate around ' em Fly your Country as you wou'd for any other Tyrant or if it were infected with continual Pestilence For change of Air is sometimes as wholesome to the Mind as 't is to the Body Don't think of her tho' you can't help it that is resolve you will not tho' you do and must at present for in time at least you 'll get some Ground and if it be never so little at first your Heart will by degrees be all your own If she intrude never so often tell her she has nothing to do there her Reign 's at an end and drive her out as you wou'd
whom the Tyrant fastned to Dead Carcasses that they might stink and rot together The Story of Pandor's Box is doubtless mistold by the Poets 'T was the Dressing Box which Nature presented to all your Sex containing as I hope to prove I know not how many hundred Kinds of Poysons Mischiefs and Miseries intrusted all in your Hands to punish and plague Mankind I 'd fain know to what peice of Midwifry a Man must have recourse to find all the Diseases of your Bodies only since these of your Minds are granted innumerable with which if a Man has the hard Fate not to be choakt or poyson'd the first Night as a certain King they talk of used to serve his Wives yet how many a tedious Moon and Year and Age must he languish with some frightful Hag rustling by his side unless he takes a Dose of Opium to break the Charm and give him his Habeas Corpus to an easier and more comfortable Bed in the Dust 'T is one of the least and most tollerable Inconveniences of that whimfical Passion that it turns the Brains of all it seizes and makes 'em so ridiculous that 't is impossible to pity 'em without laughing at ' em And the worst of it is that this Madness is infectious too and better come near any other Venemous Creature than a Lover For not only his Bite or his Sight is mortal but 't is almost equally dangerous to hear him His Sighs kill as certainly as the Breath of a Serpent and infuse the same Poison into others which he himself was so full of that it runs over To speak truth he 's not only a public Nuisance but a common Enemy and deserves as well to be expell'd a regular Commonwealth as the Poets from Plato's or as that Tragedian who put a whole City into a Fever by reciting a Famous Tragedy All wise Law-givers have taken a peculiar Care to punish those very severely who have bin Corrupters of Manners and by their bad Examples debauch'd the Commonwealth and infected it with Riot and Lewdness But nothing effeminates a Man more than this sickly Passion nay it makes him despise or hate all who are healthier and wiser and will have it a mark of Dullness and Nonsence not to play the Fool and is as angry with those who do not as the Sybarite with the poor honest Fellow who was hard at work which so highly displeased him that he was like to have beaten him because it made him sweat to look upon him The subject is so copious that I find 't is easier to say too much than enough upon 't I shall therefore add no more but one just Remark that 't is easie to observe what an useful and innocent Passion we ought to esteem it when we find nothing more common than for the Ravisher the Incestuous the Adulterer and sometimes the Murderer to plead Love to excuse them which therefore shou'd seem not only a Pretence for the blachest Villanies but even the Cause of them THOMAS Answer to Letter I. By the Athenians ALL Men must Love and this Sir you grant and that Nature it self obliges 'em to do so which if true it must be Good and Rational and the contrary unnatural then which nothing more can be desir'd to the prejudice of your opinion nor can any thing be pleaded more to the Advantage of Love then that 't is necessary in our present State of Life When we come to be Angels 't is another matter but what 's that to those that make the objection Would not a Man desire to Eat and Sleep when he has occasion and if he shou'd quarrel with Nature for obliging him to it wou'd he not thereby highly bring in Question both his Piety and Wisdom it being no less then taking it ill that he 's made a Man not a Stone or a Tree tho even they Love too in their way or a senceless Lump of Earth when she was at Liberty into what mould she 'd cast his yet undetermin'd matter What is there stronger more certain or more unaccountable and wonderful then Sympathy and Instinct But had the Loadstone that Reason we boast of 't wou'd surely make better use on 't then to find fault with Nature for making it so dearly Love the Iron But there 's more then this in 't there 's something highly rational in the very Essence of virtuous Love abstracted from that muddy sence we have been so long talking of tho the objection makes it all nothing else as if Sir Thomas had no Notion of any purer Love and yet it concludes against Love in General which is by no means a fair way of arguing If there be no reason below the Girdle sure there 's some above it or else we are in a worse condition then those which some esteem their Fellow-Reasoners and Fellow-Lovers too if they Love promiscuously and make it all a matter of sence only But that there 's something more refin'd in Love is evident to any who will but be at the pains to reflect on the cause and manner of it and nothing is more certain then that the mind of Man perceives it is not nor can be in it self compleatly happy It therefore looks abroad coasts about and surveys the whole Creation as the first Man did in Innocence to seek for something like it and suitable to it till it meets at last with some imbody'd Soul and that it Loves for were it the body only 't wou'd Love a Carcass as well as an Animal at least one Person as well as another the contrary whereof is evident to all the World and that only Brutes or those who are very near 'em have no choice in these matters It finds 't is true no perfect satisfaction in what it Loves even when it possesses it and what 's the reason but because the Body lags behind comes between and obstructs its happiness no other weakness then is to be found in all sensible pleasures But the reasonableness of Love reaches further The sympathy of Souls is rational and we are conscious of it and can reflect upon it there 's not only as has been said something of choice but even of delicacy in 't whereas there 's none in any Magnet either Dead or Living a subject indeed fit to be wrote upon by none but a Transported Lover However nothing can be weaker then the remaining objections which this angry Gentleman produces against that best of passions the direct contrary to most of what he asserts being evidently true He calls it a â—azy distemper when 't is the most Active Principle in the World wou'd perswade us that no Wise man is or wou'd be in Love whence it follows by the Rule of contrarys that either hatred or at least a stoical Apathy wou'd better become him which needs no confutation So far is Love from being an Argument of Folly that we defy him to instance in a Fool that ever was in Love Tho o' t'other side
you have an Art beyond Transubstantiation and can swallow a greater bulk than your selves as the Serpents in Africa a whole Calf while their Bodies give way to make room for 't And if the Whim runs o' tother side and you are rather for Liquids you 'll make no more to fuddle your Husbands with Drinking with you than you wou'd if they were to eat with you to burst 'em By which you gain a double Advantage and satisfie the Canine Appetite of your Mind as well as Body for when you have once ' turn'd your Masters into Brutes who so fit as you to ride ' em It may be you 'll pretend there 's a necessity of Nature in these Infirmities and that we our selves occasion it This would be something if you never long'd till you were marry'd but alas you began it a great while before you were in a Longing Condition from your Infancy nay from your very Creation You begin it in your Hanging-Sleeves there 's a sort of oddness in your Palate that you always had and which will never be reform'd You begin with Chalk and Wall and Oatmeal you eat your Dirt-Pies as soon as ever you have made ' em You show your Judgment in your Choice Trash is your Delight and will be so In this only you are of a Thread and you as surely doat on Trifles from the beginning as you 'll afterwards flight a Man of Sense and throw your selves away on a Blockhead If you had but so much as a Chance to be in the right and were but upon even Ground you might as well sometimes light on a Prize as otherwise But where there 's but any possibility of erring you have a Million to One against you You are false within you have a Jaundice in your Minds that discolours every thing you do but think on Neither can you cast the blame on your Sex only for no She-Creature ever longs but a Woman especially for what 's forbidden and as an infallible Proof on 't let but any when you are walking in a Garden forbid you any one Tree tho' the veriest Crabs in Nature and your Grandmother will certainly work in you and you 'll fall upon that without mercy tho' you had a Paradice round about you Gabriel Hollis Answer to LETTER XXX In Defence of Womens Longing By Madam Radford I Can't tell whether you 'll be so Charitable to give me Credit if I shou'd assure you I am not yet in a Longing Condition and probably never may be and therefore mayn't perhaps sufficiently understand the Subject to give you a compleat Answer But when you fall thus fouly on our Sex only for being Women when you are so disingenuous and so unnatural to accuse 'em for what 's no more in their own power than those other Miseries of Life which but for you they cou'd never know 't is then a Common Cause and we are all engag'd in 't and must try according to the best of our knowledge to defend one another And in the first place then how much soever you pretend to hedge your Betts 't is a clear Case that if this be a mischief it is to your selves that its Original is owing 'T is the perverseness of your own Sex wherewith you have infected ours all other Longing is but trifling some little Qualms which we owe to our Fathers and brought with us from them into the World Most of the Instances you bring do evidently relate to your own handy-work Much in the same manner you deal with those of our Sex who without something surer than your own Oaths and Honours have no more Wit or Vertue than to believe you first ruine 'em and then insult over ' em And when we have you as fast as the Laws of Heaven and Earth together can hold ye what strange Creatures do you quickly make us Our Beauty vanishes almost as soon as you blow upon it our Complexion our Shape our Health is utterly ruin'd we contract a Hundred Diseases which we owe either to your Vice or at least to your Pleasure we undergo the most terrible Pains and the greatest Hazards and often more than die for every Child is born you and these are your Thanks this your Kindness these the Generous Returns you make for all we endure for your Satisfaction Wou'd any be in pain unless they cou'd help it or mortally tormented and run the imminent hazard of their Lives if they knew how to avoid it What Pleasure is it to Long any more than to be Hungry We are forc'd for the sake of Decency to put a constant Violence upon our Nature on these Occasions Are your Minds indeed as you boast so much stronger than ours Has your Reason so absolute a Command over your Appetites Let us then see you refuse a Glass of Delicious Wine sparkling before ye when you are just ready to die for Thirst We do this and more and for you and often repeat these and greater pieces of Self-denial and thus it is you Reward us If 't is so painful as you seem to acknowledge to be despis'd and ridicul'd why do you treat us in that manner your selves when you have first expos'd us to all that know us If we Long sometimes for such things as are nauseous and frightful by the common Rule of Taste this is a demonstration that from the very beginning 't is not in our power to avoid it Were it only for the best Viands and most Delicious Dainties you wou'd have some Pretence to think ours was no more but when you acknowledge the contrary one wou'd think you might be contented with your own Answer You had pleaded enough for us already but you still extend your Kindness farther and alledge another Argument which proves as strongly as the last that this troublesome Affection of many of our Sex when in that Condition is perfectly involuntary And that is that it often injures our Children which are parts of our own Bodies Well and are we so unnatural to do this out of Delight and Choice Wou'd any Mother choose to have a Child deform'd and monstrous But there 's more than this in the case for both Child and Mother not rarely lose their Lives on these Occasions It may be you 'll say they were desperate Yes it may be the ill Usage of the Brute their Husband made the miserables desirous to leave the World and not leave any of their unhappy Race behind ' em But you cannot say it is always so for we must be so just to Mankind to acknowledge there are some few who know better how to value us who have a juster tenderness for us and from whom we meet with fairer Vsage And I 'm mistaken if such as these think much of every Glass of Wine that goes besides their own Insatiable Weasand or are so extreamly Thrifty as not to allow their t'other self what a Friend nay a Servant has every day at his Command But if you are of