Show Old Love Letters STELLA AND VANESSA However T Jonathan Sw Swifts Swift's ft's biographers ers may explain or apologize for him I have who did never yet seen a woman T not feel for his character both contempt and detestation A man who could deliberately deliberately de de- j and for years outrage the feelings and lacerate the hearts of two women whose worst weakness was in inthe inthe the fact that they devotedly loved him can be looked at in no amiable light by any won woman an with any chivalry for her y sex His sentimental experience is so interesting that the following letters ja could hardly be printed without a prefatory prefatory prefatory pre pre- explanation although the account of Swifts Swift's relations with Stella and fi Vanessa has so often been given before Early in life Swift was secretary in inthe inthe the family of Sir William Temple then I in the declining years of his statesman statesman- ship Here at Moor Park to quote J Macaulay's words Swift attended Sir William as amanuensis for twenty pounds a year and his board dined at atthe atthe the second table wrote bad verses in f praise of his employer and made love loveto to a pretty eyed dark-eyed girl who waited on Lady Gifford Gilford Sir Williams William's sister This pretty eyed dark-eyed girl was Esther Johnson the Stella famous in Swifts Swift's correspondence When Temple died Swift not long i after got his living at Laracor in Ireland Ireland Ireland Ire Ire- land and went there to enter upon his duties as clergyman Stella soon followed followed followed fol fol- lowed him and took up her abode there She was accompanied by Mrs Dingley a respectable elderly woman and the two lived together not far from Swift When he wen went t a away way they moved into his parsonage vacating it on his return and going back to their lodgings lodgings lodgings ings again After Swifts Swift's writings had made him f famous as the great Dean Swift he went more and more frequently to Lon- Lon J. J J h u u fj i W f I don He was a power there in the world of literature and affairs and knew intimately the most most distinguished men of his age In these absences from home he wrote Stella almost daily keeping a letter journal-letter which he dispatched dispatched dispatched dis dis- patched regularly and giving the fullest all he said heard or did This is the Journal to Stella included i in his works from which extracts are given below The letters are charming charming charming charm charm- ing gossiping love letters charming y enough for any man to write a man even who had a sound wholesome human heart in his bosom One can fan fancy cy t. t poor Stella gloating over them extracting extracting extracting extract extract- ing the fondness as a bee does honey sleeping with them at night under her pillow and carrying them about with her by day But with the tendency to I. I hiding and secrecy which makes love seem like a crime with this man Swift never can write out plainly Not content content content con con- tent with calling Esther Stella he hey y calls her M D. D in his letters He HeI I speaks to her in the third person con con- Although the letters are evidently evidently evi evi- dently exclusively hers he writes in the plural to include Mrs Dingley he calls himself Presto and all sorts of hidden allusions vail his letters One ought to doubt a man who goes so into hiding when nobody seeks After some dozen years of this life in Ireland years Ireland years of absolute self tion on Stellas Stella's part part part-in in one of his absences absences absences ab ab- to London Swift met Miss Hester who lived there with her mother and sister ladies of independent dent fortune Swift began visits to them and a special friendship sprang up between himself and Hester a cultivated cultivated cultivated cul cul- witty spirited young woman To believe as Swift evidently would have us that this attractive ve clever girl would have given Swift all her heart and would have behaved as she shedid shedid shedid did all her life after fter unless he had at atthe atthe atthe the outset allowed her to suppose that Y he loved her and that there was no nob b barrier to his making her his wife is a belief that outrages s probability At this time one notices that his letters to Stella are less frequent Stella complains complains complains com com- plains a Ii little of neglect he does not allude to Miss in his letters letters letters let let- to Stella except very casually although he goes daily to drink coffee with Miss Hester whom he calls Hessy and and and thinks no one ever made such coffee as she This This' reserve about mentioning Miss to Stella furnishes a fair inference that Miss is kept in equal ignorance about little M. M D. D After a year or two of this Swift who is as dS cowardly as he is hearted cold-hearted begins to be alarmed at the state of affairs Hesters Hester's mother dies and she resolves to come to Ireland to live Stella has begun to be jealous Swift writes to Hester If If you are in Ireland when I am I shall see you but seldom I It t is not a place for any freedom I will write te you as soon as I Ican Ican Ican can but I shall always write under cover If you write me let someone else direct it He has already given her the pseudonym of Vanessa and d he is or Cad He is perpetually perpetually perpetually counseling her to secrecy N Next ext from fretting and jealousy Stella fell seriously ill It was urged the only thing the Dean could do was to marry her The only reason he urged against marriage was that he did not mean to marry till he had a certain amount of fortune he finally consented on condition the marriage should be kept secret and in 1716 in the garden of the the- Deanery with Mis Mrs Dingley as witness he married the woman who for sixteen years or more had devoted her life and soul to him Some one tells the story of a friends friend's meeting Swift just after the ceremony and how the great Dean looked pale and haggard and rushing past said You have met r a most wretched man but on the subject subject subject sub sub- of his wretchedness you must ask no question Much time has been spent in guessing what this mysterious cause of Swifts Swift's misery was One would fancy that even to a cold-blooded cold and hearted cold-hearted man like Swift the tear-stained tear face of poor Vanessa looking look leok- ing out for him through the lonely shade of Marley Abbey must have floated beside him like a spectre as he pronounced his vows to Stella in this sunny garden One would think he f needed no worse cause for wretchedness Y on his wedding da day than that After the marriage Stella returned t to her het lodgings and the Dean to his r Deanery where poor Stella was never admitted to live as his wife to her dyIng dying dying dy dy- ing day Meantime for seven years more the visits to Vanessa continued although he advises change of air occupation visits evidently as distractions of her affection for him She lived at Marley Abbey near and her old servant pointed out to a visitor tor after her death a clump of laurels trained into a bower where her writing-table writing and books were placed and where when the Dean came she used to sit with him Whenever he lie came it was washer washer washer her custom to plant a laurel tree to hallow the day and a clump of these trees marks the place where she used to watch and long for his coming If as Boccaccio relates the basil tree grew green and flourishing from the head of Isabella's murdered lover surely these laurels drew their freshness and beauty from a womans woman's hearts heart's blood At the last worn out by years of such uch waiting Vanessa took the fatal step of writing to Stella SteHa to ask what relation she bore to Swift Was she his wife Stella who seems gentleness itself must have been stung by the question She made no answer to Vanessa but enclosed the letter to Swift He took it it and at once set out for Marley Abbey He entered found c ci Vanessa and wi with th one of those a awful looks which she says struck her dumb he threw the crumpled letter before her s sand and went away Vanessa never saw him again and in a few weeks she J died died died-died died literally of heart She left directions that her letters and Swifts Swift's should be published but the originals were destroyed Those that are left are copies and there are not W enough remaining to tell the whole of i this sad story Swift published the poem of Cade mus and Vanessa which is his account account account ac ac- count of the affair and it was much read and admired Somebody said to Stella Dr Swift writes beautifully j jabout about Miss to which she answered Oh yes Dr Swift could f write beautifully about a broomstick a speech whose little malice even poor Vanessa could forgive for Stella too had suffered Stella outlived her rival five years and when she was on her death-bed death the great Dean wrote beautiful prayers to read lead to her no doubt he read them too beautifully But a story which j some of his biographers have discredited discredited discredited relates that when at the last she 1 pleaded to be allowed to die under the j roof of the Deanery where she she had sa SL never lived as his wife he strode away with one of the black frowns which smote Vanessa's life and refused even that poor last comfort to the dying woman This is the story of Stella and Vanessa which has become almost as famous as the story of Abelard and Heloise and which remains still untold to the depths There is much in this sad episode on which neither the letters nor any written history throws a full light |