Thomas Beddoes to Davies Giddy, 26 May 1793
Dear Giddy
You praise me too much. I have only acted in conformity with the principles of common honesty: And I had a motive besides, which must, notwithstanding your partiality to me, deprive me of all claim to commendation even in your opinion. – The obstacles which you state in your letter had often occurred to me & they appeared to me as to you extremely difficult to surmount, if not absolutely insuperable. These reflections abated nothing of my admiration for the person in question but they damped considerably my ardour in pursuit of her. However as among the women I had seen <in the mean time> not one raised any emotion in my mind, & still less was any comparable to her in the essential qualifications for a wife, I rested in a state of almost helpless uncertainty, wishing rather than expecting that some occurrence might turn out in my favour; nor till within these 3 months I had any motive to urge the affair to an issue. Within that period I became intimately acquainted with a girl whose character began by pleasing me & has almost ended in astonishing me, overawing me. I had attended her brother & have <of late been> much acquainted with her father. Her conduct to her sick brother was so affectionate & so unaffected as to engage my attention extremely. In the conversations which our being together occasionally brought on I used to begin with some of those uninteresting topics which are so well calculated to relieve the distress of persons who must say something to each other <& know not what to say> She with admirable dexterity turned the conversation to something interesting & introduced remarks very far beyond the measure of her age & almost of her sex, as the condition of the sex is at present. I can assure you that she has often expressed, nearly in your words, many of the sentiments I have heard you utter or read in your letters: & these by no means common-place <or even obvious> sentiments. I found her thirst for knowledge very ardent; & was very soon aware that, though elegant & handsome, she had a disgust for dissipation. I also discovered that her opinions on politics & religion coincided with my own. Her extraordinary proficiency in arithmetic afforded me an agreeable proof of the steadiness of her attention & her powers of application: <& her conversation within the last 2 or 3 days has convinced me how much & how justly she has considered life.> Indeed I am persuaded she would sit down to study mathematics with as great readiness as you ever did. She writes a different but as good a style as I do. Her morals appear to me equal to her understanding; indeed with such an understanding & witht any temptation to vice (for she has never even been at a boarding school) how can her morals be other than pure? Her manners are extremely agreeable & if you were to see her in company or employed at her needle you wd only take her for a reserved young woman, though she is extremely gay where she is acquainted. I have tired you with this panegyric upon a being <unknown & therefore> uninteresting to you; & now I am going to treat you with an horse laugh at my expense by adding that this is the history of a girl not one-&-twenty. I intended to detail it at length even had your s—’s answer been opposite to what it is & to have added that it was the reason of my writing to her at the particular time I did. I cd not introduce it in my first letter without insolence or indelicacy at least, though I believe in one passage I insinuated something of the kind. –– I lost no time in explaining to her my sentiments with respect to her – The 3 essential things I had to do were to discover whether she had any predilection – whether the disparity of age was in her opinion an objection of much importance & to relate to her what had passed between [Beddoes leaves a blank here] & myself, suppressing, as propriety & delicacy required, all names. The first circumstance proved as I wished – To the 2nd her answer was that (her father (whose character is of the highest respectability & whose admirable plan of education has made his daughter what she is) that a wife should be 10 years younger than her husband) she thought in the present case that if the dispositions were alike the difference of age was not a circumstance worthy of consideration – As to the 3rd she had never been so romantic as to imagine that only one woman in the world wd suit a particular man & vice versa – She was extremely struck with the style & sentiments of ––’s letter, which I hope there was no impropriety in shewing: she observed it to be the production of a person very far above the common run of women <& wished to see the writer of it> – & I believe that letter has proved a very strong recommendation of your hble sert I did not keep a copy of the letter to which it is an answer – I much wish to shew it her as she was so extremely interested by the answer & if you cd obtain it for me or a copy of it, you would confer another obligation upon me – You will be so good as read <or shew> this letter to you know who. I shall write to you soon again & will venture to continue the subject.
Yours very sincerely,
T.B.
Endorsement: May 25th or 26th / Dr Beddoes / 1793/ May the 26th
MS: Cornish Archives MS DG 41/27