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Dorothy Osborne to William Temple, 1653

Dorothy Osborne scolds William Temple for passing within a few miles of her home without stopping to visit, and explains why she cannot easily leave her ailing father to see him.

January 2nd, 1653.

Sir,--If there were anything in my letter that pleased you I am extremely glad on't, 'twas all due to you, and made it but an equal return for the satisfaction yours gave me. And whatsoever you may believe, I shall never repent the good opinion I have with so much reason taken up. But I forget myself; I meant to chide, and I think this is nothing towards it. Is it possible you came so near me as Bedford and would not see me? Seriously, I should not have believed it from another; would your horse had lost all his legs instead of a hoof, that he might not have been able to carry you further, and you, something that you valued extremely, and could not hope to find anywhere but at Chicksands.

I could wish you a thousand little mischances, I am so angry with you; for my life I could not imagine how I had lost you, or why you should call that a silence of six or eight weeks which you intended so much longer. And when I had wearied myself with thinking of all the unpleasing accidents that might cause it, I at length sat down with a resolution to choose the best to believe, which was that at the end of one journey you had begun another (which I had heard you say you intended), and that your haste, or something else, had hindered you from letting me know it. In this ignorance your letter from Breda found me. But for God's sake let me ask you what you have done all this while you have been away; what you have met with in Holland that could keep you there so long; why you went no further; and why I was not to know you went so far? You may do well to satisfy me in all these.

I shall so persecute you with questions else, when I see you, that you will be glad to go thither again to avoid me; though when that will be I cannot certainly say, for my father has so small a proportion of health left him since my mother's death, that I am in continual fear of him, and dare not often make use of the leave he gives me to be from home, lest he should at some time want such little services as I am able to lend him. Yet I think to be in London in the next term, and am sure I shall desire it because you are there.

Sir, your humble servant.

Why this letter

Dorothy Osborne and William Temple, who would later marry after a long courtship opposed by both families, wrote to each other for years while apart, mostly because Temple traveled often and Osborne rarely left her family's home at Chicksands. In this letter she teases him for riding near Chicksands without visiting, then explains that she stays close to home because her father's health has been poor since her mother's death. The letter is typical of their long correspondence: affectionate, witty, and shaped by how much travel kept them apart.

Provenance

Author
Dorothy Osborne (1627–1695)
To
William Temple
Written
2 January 1653
Source
The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, ed. Edward Abbott Parry (1888), via Project Gutenberg Australia
Rights
Public domain — Dorothy Osborne died in 1695; the text follows Edward Abbott Parry's 1888 edition of her letters to William Temple.
Formatting
Paragraph breaks added for readability; the wording is unchanged.

From The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, edited by Edward Abbott Parry (1888); this text follows that edition as reproduced by Project Gutenberg Australia.

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