10
better’, but clearly not well enough to write her own letters. 22 Throughout their courtship the implication is that his visits to Isabella are infrequent and while she sits in Ashbourne he regales her with his pleasurable trips to Brighton and Portsmouth and meets with friends. 23 Isabella seems rarely to have been without illness from this time and I would conject that this was first manifested for lack of her mental wellbeing.
Analysis
This correspondence, although a small sample, is rich in its contextualisation of a late eighteenth century courtship of a middle-class couple through their social interaction, and against the backdrop of different religious movements. The physical letters are on sturdy paper and written with a steady hand in a uniform script; they were easy to read and transcribe. These attributes indicate the status of Joseph, his financial capacity to use good paper and on occasion be wasteful with it. His superior handwriting tells of his education which would have started at a young age; his young son displays similar writing in a letter to Isabella. 24 The infrequency of Joseph’ s letters could be indicative of the actual time between the letters, the loss of some along the way, or the result of a collection cropped by archivists. The only hint is that Joseph admits to Isabella that he had not written to her from 26 th October to 13 th December 1788 and expressed surprise at his own tardiness. Of most value for a historian of sentiment is the contextualisation of the group pressure which each part of the courtship brought to bear, illuminated not just by the prima facie meaning of each letter’ s content, but also by the language and style used to persuade, coerce and manipulate Isabella into the ideal partner.
Joseph used his interpretation of Unitarianism, backed by his peer group as well as his family, to mould Isabella into the person he needed and expected in a wife, a person who would come to represent him and his business socio-economically. His candour was blunt but was led by expediency to achieve the desired result within his own timescale, to save face within his social set. Joseph implies that when he and
22
Letter from Joseph to Isabella, 14 th March 1791( BAHPS MS3101 / C / E / 4 / 8 / 22).
23
Letter from Joseph to Isabella, 31 st July 1791( BAHPS MS3101 / C / E / 4 / 8 / 28).
24
Letter from J. Douglas Strutt to Isabella(‘ Mama’), 7 th July 1802( BAHPS MS3101 / C / E / 4 / 8 / 44) sent with a letter from Joseph of the same date.