Anxiety in Action : Letters of Advice Between the Constables of East Bergholt in the Early Nineteenth Century

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Article: Broughton, Trev orcid.org/0000-0003-1513-1647 (2017) Anxiety in action : Letters of Advice between the Constables of East Bergholt in the early nineteenth century. Nineteenth-Century Studies. pp. 101-118.

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[email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ Anxiety in Action: Letters of Advice

between the Constables he correspondence of John T Constable (1776–1837), edited for the Suffolk Records Soci- of East Bergholt in the ety by R. B. Beckett in the 1960s, has been thoroughly trawled for the evidence it offers of the evolution of, and chang- Early Nineteenth Century ing influences on, his life and work as a landscape artist, as well as for the touching picture it affords of his prolonged and ultimately successful courtship of the local rector’s granddaughter, Maria Bicknell (1788–1828).1 Here, I examine the TREV BROUGHTON letters through a different lens, focusing on that portion of the family correspondence radiating from the family home in East Bergholt, and asking a series of questions at the interface of the biographical, the literary, and the historical. What do these letters do, and how do they do it? What do they suggest about the role and practice of correspondence in everyday family life in the early years of the nineteenth century? What part does the epistolary circulation of advice play in the maintenance of the correspondence and of family ties? Much scholarly work on letters has taken as its starting point the history and ubiquity of the letter-writing manual, an approach that neglects the study of letter writing as a social practice.2 The impact of this branch of conduct literature on ordinary letters has largely been

Nineteenth Century Studies 101 taken for granted or ignored, and stud- CONDUCTING CORRESPONDENCE ies of ordinary correspondence that do There is now a well-established corpus take letter-writing manuals into account of scholarly work attentive to the signifi- tend to find that their influence was cance of letter manuals and model letters relatively modest. Here, I investigate the within various literatures of conduct and practice rather than the theory of letter pedagogy, notably the French and An- writing, construing practice in two ways. glophone. Educational texts in a range First, I see the Constable family corre- of genres, including but not restricted spondence as transaction – that is, as the to letter-writing manuals (or so-called virtual enactment of quotidian relation- secretaries), have been shown to stress ships. In this context, letter-writing con- the importance of correct habits of cor- ventions might be said to matter insofar respondence and of familiarity with rel- as they can accommodate contingency evant conventions, as part of the wider and negotiation. Secondly, I suggest that project of disseminating what Dana C. the correspondence is pragmatic: it is Elder dubs an “ethics of obligation.”3 The about making things happen. One thing exemplary letter as featured in letter- the letters bring about is the correspon- writing manuals not only illustrates for dence itself, since correspondence needs its reader rhetorical competence and the to be self-perpetuating, so much rhetori- correct relations between classes, gen- cal effort goes into achieving that end. ders, generations, and even nations;4 it Finally, I suggest that letter writing in the may also model more aspirational quali- Constable family is concerned with in- ties, such as wit, financial probity, sensi- fluencing conduct, not because the let- bility, confidentiality, and integrity.5 Nor ters are in thrall to the advice literature is correspondence between intimates ex- on letter writing, but because the letters empt from the battery of recommenda- in themselves constitute a literature of tions. Written communications between advice. I argue that the Constable family family members and between friends – correspondence is an evolving conduct often called familiar letters – are, accord- literature, in which key members offer, ing to the letter-manual paradigm, as not just advice, but models of advice- hemmed about by rules and ideals as are giving, striving in this way to perpetuate communications between employee and both the familial and the correspondent employer, client and patron. Even when elements of the textual transaction. The the ideal in question is naturalness, it re- family-in-writing is understood by its mains a learned, and normative, value. members as work in progress, and that While scholarship increasingly takes understanding forms a part of their on- account of social change and competi- going work. tion between constituencies, the cur- I will illustrate this argument by ex- rent scholarly concern with the letter ploring Ann Constable’s (1748–1815) self- as part of print culture’s armory of man- construction as an anxious mother, a ners tends to foreground the ideologi- persona that legitimizes her advice-giv- cal element of correspondence. Seen in ing role in her children’s lives long after this context, letters are primarily about they have attained adulthood, and that conforming and confirming, about gen- leaves traces in their own interactions erating, reproducing, and regulating an once she is gone. Combining affect with assumed social consensus.6 Given what authority, this disposition is intelligible we now recognize as the longevity, popu- as a site of tender vulnerability, but also larity, multiplicity, and attention to detail as an exercise in persuasion and power. of conduct literature, and especially of As such, her expressions of anxiety illu- the letter manual, everything about cor- minate how epistolary advice-giving, like respondence, from the choice of paper to other apparently ritualized conventions the manner of folding it, from the pitch of letter writing, were key to family cor- of a compliment to the layout of the ad- respondence not just as genre but as dy- dress, from the appearance of spontane- namic social practice. ity to the rhetorical organization,7 would appear to be predetermined by deeply 102 Anxiety in Action ingrained standards of propriety and convention. When one adds to this the ual mean that it may lend itself to a range recognition that, until at least 1840, the of readings, from the pleasurably compli- British postal service was itself a matrix ant to the consciously transgressive. She of surveillance and counter-insurgency,8 goes on to hypothesize “resistant read- any idea of the letter as self-expressive, as ings of [eighteenth-century] conduct lit- subjective rather than subjected, seems erature which might have emerged from, utterly quaint. Insofar as letters conform and contributed to, that atmosphere of to well-established epistolary conven- family negotiation and public debate tions, offer formulaic advice to their around issues of desire, pleasure, duty recipients, and model decorum on the and property.”10 If the impact of prescrip- part of their senders, they can appear to tive writing on any particular behavior function as a transparent medium of so- or belief is seldom straightforward or cial regulation. According to this way of predictable, and in any case difficult to thinking, the maxims and pious sayings prove in retrospect, the case of letter we find in the Constable family’s cor- writing is especially refracted. Even the respondence do little more than regis- survival of a tenet or protocol derived ter their successful interpellation by an from print culture in a given familiar inescapably conservative letter-writing letter does not guarantee its impact on regime. the letter’s addressee and hence on the The existence, or even the consump- correspondence. The relationship be- tion, of a letter manual does not, how- tween epistolary dogma and actual cor- ever, mean its advice is followed. The in- respondence – between the normative fluence of conduct literature in general, and the normal – is thus complicated, to and of a body of letter-writing conven- say the least.11 For an epistolary ideal to tions and exempla in particular, is noto- make its mark on human interaction it riously difficult to gauge.9 For one thing, must take its chances in a disconcerting letter-writing guides were not as inter- bagatelle of incommensurate interests nally consistent with their own prin- and forces, including competing ideals ciples as their authors pretended and as and pragmatic (and therefore nonideal) some commentators imply. Extraneous negotiations. Needless to say, the stock values – such as celebrity, tradition, cu- figures and standard exchanges of the riosity, excitement, and fun – frequently letter manuals – “an officer in the army, overrode morality in the selection of ex- to his son at a boarding school, recom- empla. Recent scholars have noted the mending diligence in his studies,” or “a consequent moral divergences between young woman, just gone to service in the exemplary letters offered for imita- London, to her mother in the country”12 tion by secretaries and manuals, and the – seldom survive the complex situations exemplary correspondents the readers and shifting relationships that real corre- are supposed to aspire to be. Challenging spondence mediates. Instead, as we shall the idea of conduct literature as purely see, correspondents developed their an instrument of repression and con- own personae through which to harness finement, Vivien Jones has warned that affect to effect. Ann Constable’s letter- we tend to “underplay . . . those aspects writing persona, while not a vehicle for of conduct books which might suggest some essential or pre-discursive self, is that their ideological effects were rather never, even at its most prescriptive or more precarious and mixed: the differ- trite sounding, merely a passive inscrip- ences between individual texts; the ways tion of disciplinary regimes.13 in which they draw on a variety of, po- Most of the surviving East Bergholt tentially contradictory, generic motifs; correspondence covers a period when and the fluid and various context of a Golding Constable (1739–1816), a success- newly burgeoning print culture within ful miller and grain merchant, was gradu- which they were produced, and within ally handing over the reins of his business which, even more importantly, they were to his youngest son Abram (1783–1862), actively consumed.” Following Jones, we might say that the internal contradictions of the letter man- Nineteenth Century Studies 103 having reluctantly countenanced John, nally, and sometimes in tension with this the eldest, in his vocation as a painter system, is a more contingent and thus and consequent removal to London. precarious array of patronage relations: In addition to Abram, there were still a set of favors and obligations whereby three adult offspring living at home: un- those who cannot or do not travel (such married daughters Ann junior, usually as carers and dependents) rely for com- known as Nancy (1768–1854), Mary (1781– munication on letters physically con- 1862), and Golding junior (1774–1838), a veyed by those who can and do (usually son who seems to have had learning dis- the wealthy and/or independent). Ann abilities of some kind. Another daughter, Constable thus occasionally finds herself Martha (1769–1845), had already married writing an extra letter to John simply to and moved to London by the onset of the acknowledge a favor offered by an im- published correspondence. While their minent visitor to the metropolis: “Mr. mother, Ann, was overseeing communi- Travis senior [the local physician] is go- cations between the nucleus of six East ing to London tomorrow, and has been Bergholt Constables and the two absent so kind as to offer to take a letter &c. for siblings, she seems also to have kept in me. I am unwilling to neglect this courtesy contact with a wide network of cousins, – therefore I write by this friendly con- aunts, and uncles. veyance to you.”15 Frequently, the content Reading the correspondence, one is of a particular letter is perceived to be immediately aware that it consistently less socially significant than the condi- participates in at least three overlap- tions of its delivery: the opportunity thus ping, but not necessarily fungible, moral afforded to recognize an act of kindness economies, each with its portion of ob- or express an obligation. The medium, in ligations and responsibilities. The first is such instances, is the message. that represented by the family as a unit. Ann Constable’s location in these con- It is dominated by the idea of duty to current economies is complex and fluc- one’s parents, which forms the apex of tuating. Rhetorically, she must resolve, a hierarchical network of familial loyal- or at least fudge the difference among, ties perceived to be structural to Chris- several roles: her relatively powerful po- tian conduct, as well as necessary to the sition as maternal preceptress and the prosperity and stability of the family more conditional roles she occupies as business. Individually, the letters iterate family mediator, female dependent, and this structure through performances of provincial onlooker. Her earliest extant authority and deference; cumulatively, letter follows her twenty-two-year-old they reinforce it through the attentive- eldest daughter Nancy to London, where ness and regularity of the correspon- she is spending Christmas with her aunt dence. The second moral economy is Gubbins. The letter accompanies a gift of that of credit and debit, which underpins fruit and a turkey for the Gubbins house- the protocol of family correspondence hold, as well as some spare shoes for as it proceeds over time. “I am certainly Nancy to counteract the “dirty” weather. in point of etiquette a letter in debt to Despite its festive occasion, the missive is your Aunt Gubbins and Cousin Jane,” characteristically but unselfconsciously concedes Ann Constable to her absent pious, reminding Nancy not to let her son, adding tartly that “as writing I know “joy for the birth of a Saviour . . . evapo- is a trouble to them, I cannot but think rate into sin & sensuality,” and drawing reading my letters may be more so.”14 In from the Christmas text “good will to- this sense of credit and debit, letters are wards men” a brisk lesson in Christian part of a wider domestic budget of gifts charity. Within the category of good will sent, acknowledgements returned, com- she enumerates “duty to our Parents, pliments and remembrances circulated: such as cheerful compliance to their law- a moral economy manifest in the matter, ful wishes & desires (& no other would as well as the materiality, of letters. Fi- good parents ever give), tender solicitude to their anxieties & care on our account, & kind attention & allowances for the Anxiety in Action infirmities of their age.” Next down in 104 this hierarchy of dispositions is affection then aged thirty-one and pursuing his and kindness to siblings, and “last of all career as an artist in London, is dated 23 . . . that feeling for, & assisting (as far as June 1807 and signed “your Affectionate prudence will permit) the distress of the & Anxious Mother.”17 This is a frequent poor & needy.”16 Rather touchingly, she tag in her correspondence. If affection goes on to attribute her little sermon, is the dominant theme of her letters to not entirely to her own “imperfect ideas,” John, the minor chord of solicitude is but to some “pious extracts” she has never far away. Discernible in almost ev- come across, and the letter is signed off ery missive, it is often explicit, and some- by “your tender Mother.” What is strik- times emphatic: “I remain as ever your ing here is not so much the fluency with truly affectionate tho’ anxious Mother.”18 which Ann parses the Christian message The wonted connotations of anxiety, (“good will”) in the language of everyday consolidated in the eighteenth century, duties and conduct, as the associations stem from its etymology in angere: to she forges between different kinds of choke or oppress. To be anxious, accord- authority: religious text, the discourse ing to the Oxford English Dictionary, is to of proper conduct, and an epistolary be “troubled in mind about some uncer- rhetoric of affect and relationship. Part tain event; being in disturbing suspense; of the effect is pronomial: “Solicitude to concerned, solicitous.” Its orientation their anxieties” segues almost impercep- toward an unknown and uncontrollable tibly into “care on our account” and back future makes it the disposition par excel- again to “kind attention & allowances lence of parenthood, while its quality of for . . . their age.” But a significant role is suspension, of being in the wrong place played too by the abundance of abstract or time, of missing and being missed, nouns: good will, compliance, wishes places it among the emotional keynotes and desires, solicitude, anxieties, care, at- of the familial letter. Parental letters such tention, allowances, affection. Such lan- as Ann’s do not, however, just fret about guage, comprising a supple repertoire of and deplore the uncertain future of off- tones and perspectives, is both personal spring; they strive actively to anticipate, and impersonal, finessing the formal dis- to forestall, and to shape it. So another course of duty with the informal regis- meaning is at play in Ann Constable’s ter of the familiar letter. The warmth of subscription, a more positive resonance the letter survives – may even, I would evident in the happy assonance of “af- suggest, be attributable to – its carefully fectionate and anxious”: to be anxious is crafted intertextual patterning of ser- to be “full of a strong desire to do some- mon, Christmas greeting, pious maxim, thing.” There is a sense in which Ann’s and epistolary commonplace. And em- concern, expressed as an active “desire bedded thus in the hospitable language to do something,” is a badge of honour, of epistolary affect, the serious message, an extension into the realm of writing of too, survives the turkey and the shoes. her status and role as mother. If anxiety is her lot, it is also her pledge, her title, her ANXIETY AS CORRESPONDENCE claim on her son’s attention and conduct. In her exchanges with John, Ann’s itera- A characteristic feature of Ann’s letter tions of maternal disquiet may seem at to Nancy is its emphasis on anxiety as a first glance to express powerlessness, but node connecting the role of the writer they function, as often as not, as grounds and that enjoined on her addressee: invit- of authority and prompts to action. ing children’s “tender solicitude to their The determination to shape the fu- [parents’] anxieties,” the mother mobi- ture that underpins, and expresses it- lizes a traffic of concern that will unite self as, Ann’s maternal prerogative, and the generations while providing the which exacts the ritualized deference, momentum of the correspondence. As courtesy, and attention of a junior to it turns out, maternal anxiety both tem- an elder family member, competes for pers the emotional atmosphere of many of her letters and provides a key to her strategy as correspondent. The first surviving letter from Ann to her son John, Nineteenth Century Studies 105 precedence in the correspondence with is to acknowledge the exigencies of the the particular worries and uncertainties ritual, while also reacting to the urgency produced by her eldest son’s situation: of the occasion. The passage usefully un- his geographical separation from her, the derlines the capacity of correspondence contingencies of the insecure profession to contribute to the regulation of civility of art, and, at various times, his embat- (in “the best managed and most sociable tled courtship and the vicissitudes of ill circles”) while providing opportunities health. In his responses, her son is ex- to address and resolve specific “troubles pected to address both Ann’s rights and and anxietys.” her needs; he must ritually discharge the From the start, then, Ann Constable’s offices of dutiful son as well as assuage his surviving correspondence is unasham- mother’s craving for satisfactory news. A edly, although not unfeelingly, didactic. letter that manages to synthesize both is It draws liberally on a broad repertoire duly congratulated: “I was much pleased of oral and textual advice cultures: wit- with the attention and intention of your ness her casual references, even in a pas- intelligent letter, by this day’s Post,” writes sage as brief as that quoted above, to a Ann to John on 23 August 1812: “the milk Shakespearean aphorism (the “milk of of human kindness is to me an exhilarat- human kindness”)22 and to the senten- ing cup, and most delightful admixture, tiae popularized by school exercises with troubles and anxietys that will arise (“juvenile copys”).23 In her broad survey in the best managed and most sociable of eighteenth-century published letters, circles; besides being so cheap and easily Clare Brant has challenged the idea that given, as even our juvenile copys speci- “letter-writers followed manuals like f y.” 19 The circle is Ann’s favored image literate sheep,” pointing out that letters of her family: the sociability of habitual were as likely to be influenced by such correspondence will, she intends, render miscellaneous resources as fiction, the distance meaningless and the center se- Bible, changing ideals of originality, and cure. As with her emphasis on anxiety, the expectations and needs of fellow her conceptualization of her son’s letter correspondents as by explicit systems of as a “kindness” straddles the customary correspondence.24 Although brimming and the specific, linking it to common with clichés, aphorisms, and saws, Ann courtesy, to the familial ties and moral Constable’s prose constitutes a distinc- imperatives implied by its original syn- tive epistolary voice: one that improvises onymy with “kinship,” and to the actu- a sense of immediacy from the jostling of ality of “this day’s Post.” As a kindness, a traditions, and that deploys a rhetoric of letter represented a sentiment, a disposi- disruptive anxiety in the maintenance of tion, and a service – an act of feeling to- an engaged and enhanced sociability. wards or reaching out to another.20 The distinction she draws between “atten- WRITING ADVICE tion” and “intention” maps neatly onto that between correspondence as dutiful For many reasons, including migration, exchange of courtesies and consider- social mobility, schooling, and training, ation, and the individual letter as a re- familiar letters wrote parental relation- sponse to the immediate contingencies ships into being, partly, as we have seen, of the moment. That her son’s letter is through the communication of anxiety deemed “intelligent” acknowledges not and the distribution of advice. As Clare only his sagacity in recognizing the im- Brant puts it: “Letters helped create and portance of such observances, but also uphold the character of parent,” while al- the letter’s local significance as news (as lowing “parents to put a frame of concern in the Shakespearean usage of “intelli- and love” – a combination I identify here gent” in “Our posts shall be swift and in- with Ann’s self-construction as anxious 21 parent – “around advice and dispense telligent betwixt us”). After all, to reply 25 to a message received by “this day’s Post” that advice in small, letter-sized doses.” According to this view, the rhetoric of affect is the sweetener in the stern business Anxiety in Action of parental regulation. My reading of the 106 Constable letters suggests a slightly more complex picture. Concern is expressed sponds guardedly, for instance, to a letter as advice, and the “anxious mother” per- from John probing the thorny subject sona fuses the character of parent as au- of his expectations from his grain-mer- thority with that of mother as indulgent chant father (or his “future participation and tender carer. As a rhetoric that un- of this world’s goods,” in Ann’s caustic obtrusively unites affect with agency, and paraphrase). After an ominously mini- the structural with the contingent, anxi- mal “Dear John,” she notes acidly that she ety facilitates the role of Ann’s letters as has “received your letter of the 3rd instant an effective medium of advice. and observe every sentence of it with ma- By established precedent and accord- ternal accuracy and attention.”30 In a lan- ing to a shared set of values, correspon- guage whose emotional neutrality (“accu- dence was regarded within the Constable racy and attention”) is pointedly cold in family as a legitimate and capacious fo- contrast to her customary attitude, she rum for guidance and support as house- shows that she can, in extremis, wield holds proliferated, economic interests authority without anxiety. In a distant diversified, and allegiances shifted. In echo of the stickling proprieties of the season and out, the family letters, espe- letter manual, the vigilance and meticu- cially those of Ann to John, overflow with lousness that characterize Ann’s supervi- sage precepts. Moral, spiritual, and bodi- sion of her son’s epistolary conduct serve ly welfare, the minutiae of respectabil- here to remind him of her wider surveil- ity: no element of life but suggests some lance of his filial duties. wise axiom or juicy proverb. Seldom at Clearly, the importance for family co- a loss for a timely platitude or word of hesion of a smooth-running epistolary advice, whether about diet (“the happy sociability, which can accommodate the medium between repletion and abstemi- prompts and suggestions of an anxious ousness”),26 early rising (“Sitting up late, parent, can be challenged by counter- wastes the spirits, the circulation, the vailing loyalties and local emergencies. coals, the candles, & makes the morning At such points, the rhetoric of affection- languid”),27 health (“keep your feet warm ate anxiety is liable to be deposed or de- and dry”),28 domestic economy (“pray railed. Secure in her position of precep- keep out of debt, that earthly Tantalus”),29 tress, Ann Constable seldom gives vent industry, piety, or the maintenance of to anxiety in a form that we would today family peace through the observation of identify as pathological and paralyzing. proper courtesies, Ann Constable effort- Nonetheless, she is hard pressed when lessly assumes the prerogative of a parent confronted by ambiguities in her son’s to supervise, direct, and reprove a child. duty, which arise from conflicts engen- Even when, as in these letters, the chil- dered by his courtship. Her confidence dren in question are adults, duty to paris shaken by interests calling on respect ents remains at the apex of the Consta- for another family’s elders and expecta- ble regime, second only to (but actually tions. On hearing of John’s being at last epitomizing) duty to God in the family granted permission to correspond with creed. When Nancy goes visiting to Lon- Maria Bicknell, the London-based grand- don, when Martha marries, when John daughter of Dr. Rhudde, the wealthy but leaves home to pursue his artistic studies irascible vicar of East Bergholt, Ann finds in London, letters come into their own herself tripped into unwonted uncer- as a medium of parental surveillance and tainty: “[W]hat can this mean! . . . what filial accountability. ought I to think or do – indeed I am in The Constable correspondence re- a great straight. My maternal anxiety is minds us, however, that a parent’s almost overpowering to me.” What does rhetoric of concern may complement this turn of events mean for the family? epistolary advice-giving, but is not a pre- At this point, her fears about a union that requisite. Ann Constable is quite capable could prove disastrous (as defying the of administering the medicine without implacably opposed Rhudde and caus- the spoonful of sugar, and the occasions on which she withholds unction throw into relief her more typical tact. She re- Nineteenth Century Studies 107 ing a rift between the East Bergholt Con- The letters between John Constable stables and their clergyman), mixed with and his family ponder everything from her hopes for a prosperous outcome (as the fashion in shirts to the essentials of linking her son to her rich and respected faith, but the energies of exchange play neighbor), momentarily disrupt her self- most persistently around a few flash- assurance and turn the rhetoric of anxi- points: points of friction between family ety back, chokingly enough, on herself. members, especially over understandings To recover, she immediately prompts of manliness. Whereas everyone in the herself back into her wonted role by ap- family concurs with John that a respect- pealing to a higher power, adducing the able independent position, based on ef- “divine” sermon that Dr. Rhudde has just fort rewarded, is a sine qua non of man- delivered on the subject of considering hood, there is considerable difference of one’s latter end, before she ends with the opinion as to how this quest for indepen- first of several requests for John to “be dence is to be reconciled with his imme- explicit to your affectionate and anxious diate need to keep his own body and soul Mother.”31 For once almost lost for words, together, with the complex interdepen- she turns to the bland finality of the ser- dencies of kinship and patronage, and mon as a source of guidance, before re- with Christian virtue. From one point of questing more words (“be explicit”) to view, the issues at stake are simply actu- enable her to untangle the moral knot. arial, and the letters advise by laying out In this instance, anxiety uncoupled from alternative outcomes. Can John afford advice proves positively troublesome. to defy the family elders from whom he Such disruptions to Ann’s characteris- might have financial expectations? Can tic harnessing of affect to agency – mo- he afford to marry a genteel person such ments at which she offers advice without as Maria given his uncertain prospects? anxiety or vice versa – make plain the Can he afford to be as indifferent as he strategic effort with which, more often seems to immediate gain (such as might than not, she quietly drives the corre- be available through portrait painting) spondence forward. in the hope of long-term success (in the much less assured market for landscape THE ART OF ADVICE painting)? Drawing liberally on the rhetoric of parental concern, Ann, Golding Ann Constable’s role as epistolary lynch- senior, and Ann’s wealthy brother David pin in the family is the more necessary Pike Watts (1754–1816), a supporter of to the success of the correspondence, John’s career, lay out the risks and urge because parents can be at cross purposes calculation. and parental styles of letter writing can The need to secure a respectable in- be wildly different, even when the par- dependence is the main thrust of the ents agree. Some family elders – Ann and, advice that John regularly receives from later, her son Abram – achieve a felicitous his family – counsel that is no less irritat- tonal balance between concern and love; ing for being apparently unarguable. As those who do not or cannot achieve this a characteristic letter from his mother balance can cause the correspondence puts it: “Would you but make yourself in- to become a precarious medium either dependent, how much would you exalt for the transmission of guidance or the my heartfelt anxieties on your account. maintenance of family ties. The ways in Your valuable Uncle D. P. W. is kind and which the senior family members strove good but the best friend will tire of giv- to retain John within the family as a ing and lending, without they see great moral, emotional, and economic unit, industry and a desire to gain – which despite his usual absence from home, re- must be in such times and such a world as veal as much about their attitudes to and this, but we are fast travelling to another proficiency in letter writing as they do and a better – if we live & act uprightly.”32 about household friction over his choice The gist of Ann’s diatyposis is clear: for a of profession. man, independence is to be sought as the greatest blessing this imperfect world Anxiety in Action has to offer. Equally significant, however, 108 is Ann’s decision to express that advice turns out to be built on shaky premises. conditionally (“would you . . . would Commenting on John’s recent visit to you”) rather than as a potentially con- the retrospective exhibition of work by frontational imperative, or even in the Joshua Reynolds (1723–92) at the British more emphatically obligative should. That Institution in 1813, his mother ventures a odd phrase, “exalt my heartfelt anxieties,” little egging on. The extent of Sir Josh- meanwhile, conveys some of the positive ua’s achievement offers the opportunity resonances of anxiety, while making it of a pointed lesson to the dawdling aspi- clear that, paradoxically, independence rant: “[W]ho can then be satisfied with will always be dependent on a favorable one landscape, a few sketches & some “account” of John within the family. The unfinished portraits, for an annual em- whole passage is syntactically effortful, ployment?”35 John’s perceived tendency veering awkwardly between tenses and to lose interest in a project before it is moods, and between practical, ethical, completed proves a constant source and Christian registers, in a way that un- of tension, and the strategies of episto- derlines the difficulty in reaching a se- lary intervention adopted by his elders cure consensus about manliness as “val- are revealing. Ann’s cautious rhetorical ue.” Here, independence, industry, and question betrays her consciousness of “desire to gain” sit uncomfortably along- entering a minefield. Her husband’s epis- side the virtues of the patron (“kind and tolary persona is quite different. One of good . . . giving and lending”), and even Golding senior’s rare but hard-hitting more uneasily beside the implications of interventions urges: “When once you “another and a better” world. These three have fixed on a subject, finish it in the fields of merit imply, at the very least, best manner you are able, & not through different relationships to money and to despair put it aside & so fill your room futurity (figured as, respectively, desire with lumber.”36 The rhetoric is direct, ac- for economic gain, family expectations, cusative, imperative. Whereas Ann Con- and unworldly piety). Incommensurate stable’s idiom of parental advice strives hopes and fears are offered up as, and to balance unarguable commonplaces of momentarily stabilized in, an anxiety duty and loyalty with the finessed strat- that cannot finally be assuaged but can egizing necessary – as both mother and be “exalted” through hard work. son see it – to maximize John’s expec- For the senior Constables, the im- tations from his patrons and from the portance of application and regularity patriarchs of the family (Ann’s husband, of conduct appear safe themes, in that Golding senior, her brother David Pike they provide common coin in the vari- Watts, and John’s putative father- and ous currencies of manliness. The fam- grandfather-in-law, Charles Bicknell and ily wealth has been built on punctuality, Dr. Rhudde), Golding dispenses with di- businesslike habits, and the careful hus- plomacy and models a direct, peremp- banding of opportunity – as Ann some- tory style of authority. Constitutionally times cannot resist underlining: “All our skeptical about John’s chance of making harvest, was finished on Saturday to satis- a financial success of his chosen profes- faction and thankfulness.”33 Although the sion, Golding seldom pulls his punches. Constables have by this time secured a Writing a solemn New Year’s Eve mes- genteel social standing as merchants and sage in 1811, he characteristically foregoes property owners, their primary reliance affectionate preliminaries with a stark on milling, and hence on agriculture, is “Dear John,” before launching into a central to the familial self-image and lex- businesslike assessment of the situation: icon. When Golding senior approves of “Your present prospect & situation I con- his son’s application to his artistic stud- sider as far more critical than at any for- ies over the summer, Ann relays his com- mer period of your life; as a single man I mendation in the family idiom: “[H]e fear your rent and outgoing, on the most thinks you was very industrious & made frugal plan, will be found equal to the hay as it were while the sun shone.”34 Even this consensus about indus- triousness and completion, however, Nineteenth Century Studies 109 produce of your profits. . . . If my opinion himself a connoisseur of art as well as a was requested it would not be to give up collector of artists (and who, in fact as your female acquaintance in toto; but by well as in imagination, was a generous all means to defer all thoughts of a con- sponsor of his nephew’s career)39 is per- nection until some removals have taken haps the most readily disposed of John’s place, & your expectations more certain- relations to shift from avuncular advice ly known.” Golding’s advice-giving ab- to art criticism. A surviving letter of 1810 jures the dispositions used by Ann (anxi- offers twenty-five carefully numbered ety, care, and so on) in favor of cooler comments on Constable’s altarpiece for language (fear, consideration, opinion). St. James’s Church, Nayland, Christ Bless- Imperatives are used freely, rhetorical ing the Elements (1810), only two of which questions are immediately and unrhe- are unqualified praise, and the longest of torically answered. Euphemisms (“your which complains that “The Face, Neck female acquaintance,” “some removals”) and Hands are left in an unfinish’d state are deployed not to obscure the cash . . . so crude and smeared as to show real nexus, but to draw attention to it by haste and want of care.” Recommend- their very transparency; after all, Gold- ing that Constable return to “complete ing’s own removal is partly at issue here. the Face & Neck” before long, Watts, To Ann’s pleas that John should apply never one to hold back, opines that “It himself industriously, Golding senior is scarcely justifiable for any Picture to adds the more brutal qualifier to focus be shewn so raw, unless a Testimony was on “such parts as pay best” and to “Think affixed that the Artist died before he less and finish as you go.” Shunning inte- could finish it.”40 Three years later, when riority and self-reflexion in his own dis- Watts yet again hazards “that unpleasant cursive style, he recommends an equally thing, advice,” it is on the familiar theme. matter-of-fact approach in his artist son: He begins playfully enough, suggesting “[Y]our too great anxiety to excel may that John should “place or paint a little have carried you too far above yourself; Starling on [his] Easel with the words ‘Fin- . . . you make too serious a matter of the ish! Finish!’” before reporting, more sen- business & thereby render yourself less tentiously, the “great struggle” that has capable.” Whereas anxiety powers Ann’s prevented him purchasing John’s recent efforts as advisor, Golding codes such an canvas Water Gates (1813):41 that is, the attitude as feminine and unmanly. Get- struggle between “the desire to oblige ting on with the job should require nei- you . . . and the Revolt which will check ther discussion, nor faffing about, nor such a desire when the Eye perceives Un- emotional turmoil. Only toward the end finished Traits.”42 In a response sent on the of the letter does the stern demeanor re- same day, Constable echoes his uncle’s lax a trifle, and then the cordiality serves shift from familiarity to patronage, mov- only to underscore the authority of his ing rapidly from filial duty (“Accept my advice: “Be of good cheer John; as in me best thanks for the excellent advice”) to you will find a parent & a sincere friend.”37 chilly professional courtesy: “Your kind The austerity of his fatherly style is miti- solicitude respecting my picture of the gated three weeks later by the favor of a Lock . . . may now cease, as the picture check for twenty pounds appended to a has become the property of Mr. Carpen- letter of business, although the fact that ter, who purchased it this morning. He is the check survives intact suggests that a stranger, and bought it because he liked John remained stubbornly averse to the it.”43 Here we see the uncle’s attempts at gesture of concession that cashing it affectionate anxiety being echoed back might have implied.38 to him in the altogether cooler guise of In a parallel correspondence, yet an- “kind solicitude.” other mode of advice addresses the issue The sketches and trial canvases that of finishing. John’s “valuable” maternal seem like so much wasted time (“lum- uncle, David Pike Watts, who fancies ber”) to his family are, of course, part of John’s self-training as a landscape special- ist, as well as a portfolio of details, ideas, Anxiety in Action and techniques for future reference. And 110 the “finishing” of a canvas, needless to bachelor establishment. She rejects the say, is as much a matter of aesthetics as of arrangement on the grounds of cost and character. This is an area in which John’s class (“he may be company but he can- professional judgment – and not just his not be a companion, & that is what you pertinacity – is at stake, and in which his want to ascend”), but also on the grounds identity as dutiful son and nephew does that Johnny may be contaminated by the not always hold at bay his more combat- same morally debilitating relations as ive persona as artist. Reciprocally, this is she attributes to her son: “[H]e will prove a topic on which the authority vested in like his patron; & never again regard his correspondents as family elders can all home & parental ties, as he did before.”45 too easily mutate into the pressure avail- Letters consistently promoting “home & able to them as patrons. The survival of parental ties” are intended to trump the relatively few of John’s letters to his fam- more fickle enticements of patronage, ily makes it difficult to discern how suc- although, as we have seen, the two rela- cessfully he negotiated the exasperation tionships could merge disconcertingly this must have caused him, although in questions of financial support, ex- a contemporaneous letter to his boy- pectations, and inheritance. At the same hood friend and sketching partner, the time, John’s parents and uncle use letters plumber and glazier John Dunthorne to shore up their seniority by hinting at (1770–1844), finds him making important ways in which his apparently eccentric resolutions: “I have much to say to you attitude to the marketplace seems incon- about finishing of my studies more in sistent with filial duty. According to their future – but I look to do a great deal bet- advice, his exacting definition of profes- ter in future. I am determined to finish a sional attainment, repeatedly coded in small picture on the spot for every one I their letters as his failure to “finish” paint- intend to make in future. But this I have ings, effectively prolongs his dependence always talked about but never yet done.”44 on his natal family’s resources. The fam- His equation of “finishing” and the future ily correspondence as a whole struggles – here almost obsessively underscored – with the paradox that the patronage re- suggests, on the one hand, that his rela- lations integral to professional success tives’ hints, counsels and warnings have curtail Constable’s moral independence not been entirely ill aimed. The fact that while subtending his prospects for finan- his resolutions are addressed to Dun- cial autonomy. It is an area in which the thorne, rather than to his family, sug- ideology of family loyalty and duty can gests, on the other hand, that these ad- be jeopardized by the (almost) equally monitions are not entirely welcome. exacting ideology of independence: the The particular conditions of John duty of a grown man to be self-support- Constable’s chosen profession, then, ing and self-determining. exacerbate the potential for epistolary This paradox, as we have seen, makes umbrage, or even rift. His need to cul- the correspondence between father and tivate influential friends, nurture “ex- son particularly unstable, and in need pectations,” and to keep the peace with of careful supervision by other family actual or potential benefactors and their members. While Golding senior’s incur- demands often seems nettlingly at odds sions in the correspondence represent a with the exigencies of both family dig- rare but avowedly authoritative interven- nity and personal integrity. The dilemma tion in the circulation of advice, it is un- seldom results in open conflict, although derstood within the family that his con- when it does, Ann, as we have seen, can tributions lack the emotional plenitude be severe. Attuned as her advice-giving of Ann’s pleas, and thus must be contex- is to the nuances of respectability, she tualized within wider evidence of his can rise to stinging rebuke as well as attachment. She finds ways of testifying nudge with persuasion. She condemns to her husband’s good intentions, even his decision to enlist Johnny Dunthorne as she supports the tenor of his argu- (1798–1832), son of his artisan-class village friend, as his assistant, and his invitation to Dunthorne to share his London Nineteenth Century Studies 111 ments. He may consciously disavow the antor of domestic unity and material rhetoric of anxiety, but anxious he must stability. While Golding’s letters are in- nonetheless be seen to be. “Thank God frequent and businesslike, and although your Father is purely [well],” Ann reports, other family members appear some- “& often talking of you, both when awake times to run epistolary rings round him, & sleeping – so you must be convinced, respect for his position is consistently how near your welfare is to him. His ear- represented as the anchor of family co- nest wish, is to have you what he terms, herence. On Golding senior’s recovery earn money.” 46 Despite Ann’s respectful from one of his regular seasonal ail- deference to her husband’s prudence ments, his wife trusts that “we may still and wisdom, such letters constitute an (I hope) continue some time united by epistolary subculture within the family the band of his respectability and undi- in which the (adult) children and their vided property in the family circle.”49 The mother discreetly “manage” Golding death of the father, and the consequent senior’s impressions and responses, re- redistribution of power, credit, and re- framing his imperative to “earn money” sources from one generation to the next, as “wishes” for “welfare.” Many a “volun- are foreseen not just as a cause of grief tary” action by the father in a desirable in and of themselves, but also as a site of direction is noted by the mother with a potential conflict and class hazard. With short but conspiratorial comment: “[S]o the inevitable division of property, whose far – so good,” “so much the better.”47 Al- respectability, and whose efforts, will suf- though Golding’s letters, so formal and fice to “unite” the family circle? Can the final in their dispensation of wisdom epistolary circulation of anxiety and at- that they appear neither to require nor tention be maintained as one generation invite a written response, threaten to yields to another? Who will respect, wor- short circuit the flow of correspon- ry about, and advise whom? dence and with it the flow of attention, As his parents decline in health, the other family members are alert to the youngest Constable, Abram, assumes danger. In a letter accompanying funds, more responsibility for the family busi- which had been coaxed from Golding ness, and it gradually falls to him – re- senior sufficient to acquit John of a re- puted the siblings’ “readiest writer” – to cent debt, his younger brother Abram take on, not always comfortably, the role reminds John that “money comes loath of epistolary advisor, broker of the fam- from our Father . . . without value appar- ily’s reputation, and champion of its val- ent,” and that a letter of thanks would ues.50 Abram’s style of counsel develops not come amiss: “[H]owever my Father over time and is in some ways distinct appears to condemn, he likes outward from that of either parent. While Gold- attention as much as most.”48 Any sugges- ing’s letters often look and sound like de- tion that John can dispense with diplo- crees, and Ann’s dispense maxims freely macy because his father does so meets and unapologetically, Abram’s approach opposition: what might be acceptable as is much more cautious. Advice to his plain-spokenness from the elder is not brother John is dealt out sparingly, smug- tolerated from the junior. gled inside of a large budget of news. Aware of the sensitivities of appearing A CORRESPONDENCE IN to hector a brother who, although older TRANSITION (and indeed by now middle aged), is still Despite the quiet maneuvering and an active drain on the household re- stage management evident in the cor- sources, Abram seldom resorts to direct respondence, Ann Constable is keen to guidance. Instead, he tends to model self- underline, and her offspring formally to accounting for his brother, interjecting acknowledge, the financial, social, and tiny homilies to himself within family symbolic significance attached to the gossip: “Poor Uncle Thomas’s was a mel- figure of the father as provider and guar- ancholy finish . . . I pray to profit by his example & in a review of his faults not to overlook my own, which are many.” Anxiety in Action Warnings to John, which might other- 112 wise strike his reader as priggish or sen- and the unmarried siblings – Ann junior, tentious, are offered as arising naturally Mary, Abram, and Golding junior – had from ruminations about his own spiri- dispersed to separate establishments.54 tual and moral welfare. Hence the lesson These events – as far as we can see from of Uncle Thomas’s fate is gently passed the surviving letters – slow and narrow on: “[L]et not your spirits be cast down, but do not arrest the flow of epistolary as we do not know what awaits us. . . . a support to John. The professed duty to few years will put an end to all cares & express and, where possible, mitigate pleasures.” 51 Writing to John is presented anxiety, remains part of the epistolary as an opportunity to reflect on, and at- currency shared among the siblings, just tempt to balance, the benefits and costs as that duty prevailed in their mother’s of being his father’s successor in the correspondence.55 They soon find ways, business – a fate that has tied him to the too, of conflating their mother’s pi- provinces and the family establishment, ous moralizing with their father’s more but that at least promises financial re- worldly good sense. The exhortation, as wards commensurate with his enterprise the ever-cautious Abram puts it, to thank (unlike his brother’s less certain efforts): “kind providence for the blessings with- “[T]he more I do, the more I can do, and in our reach” – with its watchful balance the better I like it . . . idleness can never of submissiveness and enterprise – is be happy . . . I hope I shall be able to pass traded back and forth, especially at times through Life, with some sort of happi- of potential strife over money.56 ness, independent of all that one would All, but especially Abram, deplore the wish to be independent of.”52 Abram uses need to interfere in any matter touching the tactic of a lecture to himself on the on John’s (always twitchy) sense of per- satisfactions of hard work as a vehicle sonal dignity: “Nothing could induce me for recommending his own attitude to thus to write to you, perhaps hazarding John (a potentially insubordinate stance your censure, but my sincere regard for in a younger brother). The final phrase your interest, & future welfare, therefore is telling, encapsulating as it does the I trust you will make those allowances moral and emotional, as well as financial, for me I require.”57 Family loyalty and pressures on masculine self-definition, affection have some purchase, but do and the difficulty of recognizing and ac- not automatically exact that “cheerful knowledging, never mind attaining, the compliance to [parents’] lawful wishes & proper forms of independence. In ten- desires (& no other would good parents tatively proffering himself as fraternal ever give).” The affective epistolary cur- exemplum, Abram proposes a relative rency – anxiety, regard, trust, allowance – and thus ironically dependent – defi- – of which parents are the guarantor, has nition of independence: a strategy de- to be earned by a sibling, and the basis for signed to smooth out incompatibilities epistolary intervention has to be renego- between his own professional ethos and tiated. his brother’s. Epistolary care is tendered The generational shift and its coinci- less in the form of direct advice than in dence with John and Maria’s marriage “hopes” and “wishes” that the brothers thus mark a moment of renegotiation of can feasibly share. epistolary authority within the family, as Such tact marks Abram’s awareness well as a tentative retuning of the famil- that, in due course, he will inherit his iar advice-giving voice to accommodate parents’ responsibilities as head of the John’s changed domestic and legal cir- East Bergholt Constables, without their cumstances. Advice must now take into moral leverage as parents. In fact, the account what Ann junior (Nancy) tact- decisive transition between generations fully calls “your whole self.” 58 The unself- came rather suddenly. The deaths of Ann conscious platitudes and aphorisms so and Golding Constable senior in 1815 and characteristic of the matriarch’s idiom, 1816 respectively, were followed swiftly by although they do not disappear com- John’s decision to defy his fiancée’s family and marry Maria Bicknell.53 By early 1819, East Bergholt House had been sold, Nineteenth Century Studies 113 pletely, gradually fade from the family vious of the blessings of marriage and idiolect as sibling correspondence su- fatherhood. At the same, time he offers persedes more direct parental surveil- an echo – distant but discernible – of his lance.59 As time goes by, and as John be- mother’s efforts to soothe all the “trou- comes more firmly established as the bles and anxietys that will arise.” head of his own growing household in the metropolis, the hitherto unques- LETTERS AS FAMILY tioned sense of his behavior, reputation, and expectations as common property – Writing of eighteenth-century letters shared not just within the family at East of parental advice, Clare Brant observes Bergholt but even in the village as a per- that the genre typically required the rec- ceived open invitation for commentary onciliation of conflicting agendas: “[P]ar- – is gradually modified. The unmarried, ents should advise their children on two childless siblings remaining at home counts: how the world works and what should be unchanging in a world that find their sphere of legitimate influence 62 curtailed by distance and difference in changes.” The Constable correspon- experience, and by the gradually diverg- dence, trading back and forth between ing interests and expectations of John’s early nineteenth-century provincial and London professional circle. The family metropolitan communities, between correspondence finds many ways of ac- mercantile and professional interests, commodating and managing such dif- between traditional piety and temporary ferences and thus keeping the ball rolling expedience, as well as between genera- – often by asking for advice and, thereby, tions and genders, illustrates the role of tactfully acknowledging unfamiliar cul- letters in coordinating, in the name of an tural capital. Hence, John and his mar- ideal of family coherence and stability reso- ried sister Martha are urged to partici- (an ideal that Ann senior labels “the lution 63 pate in the potentially divisive sale and of a Constable”), divergent claims distribution of the contents of the East and interests in an unpredictable world. Bergholt house: “us unmarried ones want Correspondence, as part of the traffic of a little assistance from those of more ex- sociability and obligation, goes some way perience in the wants of housekeeping.”60 to reconstituting the middle-class fam- Likewise, a complaint from Abram – all ily circle in absentia. This reconfigured, the more wistful for its comparative rar- geographically dispersed, and in some ity in his letters – about the pressures ways fragile entity, the “family in letters,” of running the family business in hard functions as a conduit for care in its re- times, and a gentle nudge to his self-ab- sponsive as well as reactive senses, chan- sorbed brother to count his blessings, are neling both affect and power. couched in terms of his own disadvan- To suggest that letters have a place in tages as a bachelor: “I hope Mrs. C. & the the cultural history of parental nagging little ones are well, and the boy mending. is to state the obvious. As we have seen, It requires a good deal of manly courage Ann Constable frequently expresses her as & resolution to bear up against the many concern advice, and vice versa. And little troubles that continually arise in while her role, as Brant would say, is not this life, and I look at your conduct with just to teach duty but, more subtly, to admiration & affection. I assure you I be- “explicate an ideological tangle in which feelings, moral beliefs and duty have to gin to feel the want of a true friend to 64 lighten the gloom . . . I have found more co-exist,” she is seldom at a loss for a sleepless nights within a twelvemonth pattern of appropriate conduct. Hospi- than in all the former years of my life.”61 table to a wide variety of didactic styles, Characteristically, Abram finds ways of tones, and genres, from encouragement dissipating the offense of criticism by to remonstrance, from traditional wis- implying that the fault or lack may be dom to subtle ad hominem persuasion, partly within himself as a bachelor, en- the familiar letter enables her not just to intervene, but to model Christian parenthood for the next generation. At the Anxiety in Action same time, the letter as a unit of corre- 114 spondence is volatile and contingent: advice must be calibrated to accommodate modified from one generation to the divergent agendas, local sensitivities, and next. Furthermore, the agency afforded shifting power relations; agents as well as by advice-giving as a means of synchro- recipients of advice have to be carefully nizing individual and family interests managed if the sometimes precarious was sometimes lubricated, and some- family consensus is to be maintained. times fueled, by gestures of affect(ion) Ann writes: “You see my maternal energy so familiar to the epistolary form as to – but I must not urge you too much.”65 be virtually indistinguishable from it: at- The Constable family letters are tention, regard, anxiety, care, allowances, shaped by a didactic tradition that condi- wishes. tions their form, encourages their use as Bridging the gap between the plati- moral intervention, and simultaneously tudinous and the particular, the axiom- supports their role in self-advancement. atic and the accidental, Ann Constable’s As such, this tradition inscribes hierar- “anxious mother” persona is crucial to chies, but also provides a forum for their the correspondence as guidance. In her constant renegotiation. In some ways hands, letters can function as a species highly conventional, the didacticism is of conduct literature adapted to the un- nevertheless thoroughly implicated in, predictability of everyday life. Anxiety, and contributes to, the dynamic micro- I have suggested, is the keynote of Ann politics of everyday life. In particular, I Constable’s letters, modulating many would suggest, the frequency of advice of the exchanges within the family net- in familiar correspondence makes it a work. Today, anxiety is typically treated productive site for the study of the trans- as a problem, a symptom in need of a actions between the ideological and the cure.67 In cultural theory, it often denotes subjective.66 Adapting the flexible con- the contradictions in the social sphere ventions of the familiar letter, the Con- supposedly soothed by ideology. In my stable family, as a gradually evolving for- reading, anxiety as an epistolary subjec- mation, develops a nuanced repertoire of tivity has a more positive function in that advisory voices, manners, gestures, and it actively mediates divergent expecta- idioms, which serves to mitigate poten- tions of class, gender, and generation. As tial or actual conflicts of interest and to anxiety in action, letters, I argue, grant ward off the threat of division. us a lens onto the way individuals and There is little evidence that the Con- groups could generate acceptable, if not stable correspondence was informed in always accepted, modes of advice-giving any systematic way by a particular letter- and, hence, negotiate the often ticklish writing manual, and, as we have already transactions of daily life. According to witnessed, sermons, commonplaces de- my reading, anxiety, along with wishes, rived from both print and oral culture, attention, care, and consideration, con- and other modes of traditional wisdom stitute what Linda Pollock has recently held equal – if not greater – promi- called a “cluster concept”: an umbrella nence in the well-wrought familiar let- term that links “a diverse array of related ter. It is not their subscription to codes ideas, providing bridges between and of conduct, much less their fidelity to connective pathways through the asso- published templates, but their finessing ciated attributes.” Such concepts can be of such codes and templates to the con- hospitable to the normative and the per- cerns of the moment that enables these sonal, to the ethical and the pragmatic, to letters to function as correspondence. To action and affect, and may draw together read Ann Constable’s letters, along with these disparate impulses in ways we may the wider family correspondence both not readily recognize today.68 By their during her lifetime and after her death, very versatility and capaciousness, these is to witness the establishment and evo- concepts afford vital links between dif- lution of a local but elaborate literature ferent and sometimes competing modes of conduct as it transmits itself between of sociability: kinship, civility, patronage, generations and adapts to changing social and economic circumstances. Modes of epistolary counsel were inherited and Nineteenth Century Studies 115 friendship, love. Those cluster concepts Pleasures: Sex, Scandal and Victorian Letters (Ox- that I have identified in the Constable ford: Oxford University Press, 2012). A further correspondence are not exclusive either literature probes the relationship between to letters or to advice-giving, although the epistolary and the changing institutions they may, I suggest, contribute to the and technologies of correspondence: see, for example, James How, Epistolary Spaces: English correlation between the two genres. As Letter Writing from the Foundation of the Post Of- such, they may be structural to the letter- fice to Richardson’s Clarissa (Aldershot: Ashgate, acy of early nineteenth-century familiar 2003); and Catherine J. Golden, Posting It: The letters, rather than simply conventional Victorian Revolution in Letter Writing (Gainesville: to the form.69 They remind us that our University Press of Florida, 2009). Frances desiccated epistolary “good wishes” and Austin, “Letter Writing in a Cornish Com- “kind regards” have their basis in a desire munity in the 1790s,” in Letter Writing as a So- to shape circumstances for the better. cial Practice, ed. David Barton and Nigel Hall (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2000), 43–62, is more attuned to the issues I address here, as NOTES are Clare Brant, Eighteenth-Century Letters and I am grateful to Linda Pollock, Emma Major, British Culture (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmil- and Helen Rogers for help in shaping this es- lan, 2006), Sarah M. S. Pearsall, Atlantic Families: s ay. Lives and Letters in the Later Eighteenth Century 1. John Constable’s Correspondence (JCC), ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), and R. B. Beckett, 6 vols., Suffolk Records Soci- Susan E. Whyman, The Pen and the People: Eng- ety (SRS), vols. 4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12 (Ipswich: SRS, lish Letter Writers, 1660–1800 (Oxford: Oxford 1962–68); reprint, vols. 1–6 (Woodbridge: University Press, 2009), although these three Boydell & Brewer, 1970). Quotations from the texts treat of a slightly earlier phase in the cul- correspondence are made by kind permis- ture of letter writing. sion of the SRS (www.suffolkrecordssociety. 3. Dana C. Elder, “Letter-Writing Instruc- com), and are referenced in my text both by tion Home on the Range,” Huntington Library the volume number of JCC and the volume Quarterly 66, nos. 3–4 (2003): 425–45, 437. number of SRS. Recent works based on the 4. See, for instance, Lawrence D. Green, letters include Anthony Bailey, John Constable: “French Letters and English Anxiety in the A Kingdom of His Own (London: Chatto & Win- Seventeenth Century,” Huntington Library Quar- dus, 2006), and Martin Gayford, Constable in terly 66, nos. 3–4 (2003): 263–74; and Sue Walker, Love: Love, Landscape, Money, and the Making of “The Manners of the Page: Prescription and a Great Painter (London: Fig Tree, 2009). The Practice in the Visual Organization of Cor- first biographer to make extensive use of the respondence,” Huntington Library Quarterly 66, Constable letters was his friend C. R. Leslie nos. 3–4 (2003): 307–29. (1794–1859), who wrote Memoirs of the Life of 5. See Victoria Myers, “Model Letters, Mor- John Constable (London: J. Carpenter, 1843). al Living: Letter-Writing Manuals by Daniel 2. See Roger Chartier, Alain Boureau and Defoe and Samuel Richardson,” Huntington Cécile Dauphin, Correspondence: Models of Library Quarterly 66, nos. 3–4 (2003): 373–91; and Letter-Writing from the Middle Ages to the Nine- Nichola Deane, “Reading Romantic Letters: teenth Century, trans. Christopher Woodall Charlotte Smith at the Huntington,” Hunting- (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ton Library Quarterly 66, nos. 3–4 (2003): 393–410. 1997); Cécile Dauphin, Prête-Moi Ta Plume . . . As Deane argues, “Urged on by what they Les Manuels Épistolaires au XIXe Siècle (Paris: perceived as a moral crisis in English society, Editions Kimé, 2000); and Eve Tavor Bannet, particularly among the newly well-off middle Empire of Letters: Letter Manuals and Transatlantic classes, Defoe and Richardson pressed letter- Correspondence, 1688–1820 (Cambridge: Cam- writing instruction into the service of a moral bridge University Press, 2005). There is also resuscitation and thereby not only gave new an extensive literature on letter writing as vitality to the genre but also laid the essential a feature of various literary discourses: see, foundation for transforming collections of for example, Janet Gurkin Altman, Episto- epistles into the epistolary novel” (p. 373). larity: Approaches to a Form (Columbus: Ohio 6. Deane, “Reading Romantic Letters,” 399. State University Press, 1982); Mary A. Favret, 7. On the tradition of the genre, see Romantic Correspondence: Women, Politics and the Chartier, Boureau, and Dauphin, Correspon- Fiction of Letters (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni- dence. On layout see Walker, “The Manners versity Press, 2003); and Kate Thomas, Postal of the Page,” 307 and passim. On the spread, influence, and social adaptability of the fashion for letter manuals, see Bannet, Empire of Anxiety in Action Letters, xiv. 116 8. See Deane, “Reading Romantic Letters,” the People, 25–27; and on the variety of influ- 394–96. ences on the epistolary style of the merchant 9. See Linda C. Mitchell, “Women’s Roles class, see p. 219. in the English Epistolary Tradition,” Hunting- 24. Brant, Eighteenth-Century Letters and Brit- ton Library Quarterly 66, nos. 3–4 (2003): 331–47, ish Culture, 8–9. Respecting the period in ques- 336. tion, one should add to this list the influence 10. Vivien Jones, “The Seductions of Con- of those fetching and carrying letters: bodies duct: Pleasure and Conduct Literature,” in who may contribute directly to the produc- Pleasure in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Roy Porter tion and consumption of the letters without and Marie Mulvey Roberts (Basingstoke: Pal- ever actually reading them. grave Macmillan, 1996): 108–32, 109–10, 114. 25. Ibid., 60, 66. 11. For an early example of conduct lit- 26. Ann Constable to John Constable, 2 erature apparently informing letters written June 1810, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 44. by mothers to sons, see Raymond A. Ansel- 27. Ann Constable to John Constable, 12 ment, “Katherine Paston and Brilliana Harley: April 1812, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 78. Maternal Letters and the Genre of Mother’s 28. Ann Constable to John Constable, 8 Advice,” Studies in Philology 101, no. 4 (autumn January 1811, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 54. 2004): 431–53, esp. 436. 29. Ann Constable to John Constable, 6 12. Thomas Cooke, The Universal Letter-writ- January 1815, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 111. er; Or, New Art of Polite Correspondence (London 30. Ann Constable to John Constable, 6 and York: Bookseller and Thomas Wilson, December 1814, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 109. 1812), 27, 32. 31. Ann Constable to John Constable, 3 13. Even recent accounts of letter-writing November 1811, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 67–68. practice, attuned to the significance of affect 32. Ann Constable to John Constable, 10 and to developments in the history of emo- June 1813, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 96–97. tions, have been exercised about the rela- 33. Ann Constable to John Constable, 27 tionship between epistolary subjectivity and August 1811, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 66 (emphasis in ideology. For a differently weighted version original). of this debate, stressing the significance of 34. Ann Constable to John Constable, 6 letter-writing conventions for historical in- November 1814, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 107. quiry, see Fay Bound, “Writing the Self? Love 35. Ann Constable to John Constable, 10 and the Letter in England, c. 1660–c. 1760,” Lit- June 1813, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 96. erature and History 11, no. 1 (spring 2002): 1–19. 36. Golding Constable to John Constable, 14. Ann Constable to John Constable, 7 31 December 1811, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 74. July 1808, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 27. 37. Golding Constable Sr. to John Consta- 15. Ann Constable to John Constable, 26 ble, 31 December 1811, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 73–74. June 1809, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 33 (emphasis in 38. Golding Constable Sr. to John Consta- original). ble, 21 January 1812, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 76. 16. Ann Constable to Ann (Nancy) Consta- 39. In John Constable’s Correspondence, the ble, 22 December 1789, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 16, 17. editor tellingly locates Watts in the volume 17. Ann Constable to John Constable, 23 reserved for Patrons, Dealers, and Fellow Artists June 1807, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 20. (JCC, 4; SRS, 10) rather than in that for The Fam- 18. Ann Constable to John Constable, 18 ily at East Bergholt, 1807–1837 (JCC, 1; SRS, 4) January 1811, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 57 (emphasis in 40. David Pike Watts to John Constable, 24 original). November 1810, in JCC, 4 (SRS, 10): 22 (empha- 19. Ann Constable to John Constable, 23 sis in original). August 1812, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 82. 41. Water Gates was first exhibited at the 20. Linda Pollock maps these resonances Royal Academy in 1813 under the title Land- of “kindness” in “The Practice of Kindness in scape: Boys Fishing. It is presently held by the Early Modern Elite Society,” Past and Present National Trust and exhibited at Anglesey Ab- 211, no. 1 (2011): 121–58, 123. I am indebted to Pol- bey. lock’s essay for many useful suggestions. 42. David Pike Watts to John Constable, 12 21. William Shakespeare, King Lear, in The April 1814, in JCC, 4 (SRS, 10): 37 (emphasis in Arden Shakespeare: Complete Works, ed. Richard original). Proudfoot, Ann Thompson and David Scott 43. John Constable to David Pike Watts, 12 Kastan (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 3.7.9–10. April 1814, in JCC, 4 (SRS, 10): 38–39. References are to act, scene, and line. 44. John Constable to John Dunthorne Sr., 22. Shakespeare, Macbeth, in The Arden Shake- 22 February 1814, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 101. speare, 1.5.17. 23. On the importance of copybooks to epistolary literacy, see Whyman, The Pen and Nineteenth Century Studies 117 45. Ann Constable to John Constable, 24 March 1815, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 115 (emphasis in February 1814, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 103. original). 46. Ann Constable to John Constable, 9 64. Brant, Eighteenth-Century Letters and Brit- February 1813, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 90. ish Culture, 70. 47. Ann Constable to John Constable, 2 65. Ann Constable Sr. to John Constable, 16 December 1807, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 22. February 1812, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 77 (emphasis 48. Abram Constable to John Constable, 19 in original). June 1808, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 25. 66. The challenges of the history of subjec- 49. Ann Constable to John Constable, 20 tivity, as distinct from subjection to norms, February 1810, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 39. are usefully outlined by Michael Roper in 50. Ann Constable Jr. (Nancy) to John Con- “Slipping Out of View: Subjectivity and Emo- stable, 17 May 1816, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 134. tion in Gender History,” History Workshop Jour- 51. Abram Constable to John Constable, 24 nal 59 (2005): 57–72. May 1813, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 95, 96 (emphasis in 67. Francis O’Gorman’s richly illuminating original). Worrying: A Literary and Cultural History (Lon- 52. Abram Constable to John Constable, 19 don: Bloomsbury, 2015) postdated the writing January 1812, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 75. of this essay. 53. The wedding took place on 16 October 68. Pollock, “The Practice of Kindness,” 124. 1816. 69. Letteracy is Bannet’s term for “the col- 54. Mary seems to have remained with lection of different skills, values, and kinds Abram at Flatford Mill as housekeeper. of knowledge beyond mere literacy that were 55. See, for example, Ann Constable to Ma- involved in achieving competency in the ria Constable, n.d. [November 1816], in JCC, 1 writing, reading and interpreting of letters” (SRS, 4): 143. (Empire of Letters, xvii). 56. Abram Constable to John Constable, 8 November 1818, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 172. See also John Constable to Maria Constable, 24 October 1819: “I have got through all my money matters much to my own satisfaction & through Mr. Revans and Abram cannot be thankful enough to providence for what I have. How many comforts are within our reach” (in JCC, 1 [SRS, 4]: 184). Mr. Revans was the senior Golding Constable’s steward. 57. Abram Constable to John Constable, 25 December 1816, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 150. 58. Ann Constable Jr. to John Constable, 15 December 1816, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 148. 59. Family nicknames (such as “Ab” for “Abram”) now appear occasionally, while Dr. Rhudde, of whom Ann senior even at the worst times spoke respectfully, is now sometimes dubbed “wretched” or even “wicked” in the family gossip. See Ann Constable Jr. to John Constable, 5 May 1817, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 165; John Constable to Maria Constable, 25 October 1818, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 171; Abram Con- stable to John Constable, reporting a conver- sation with Rhudde’s coachman, Thomas, 8 November 1818, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 173. 60. Abram Constable to John Constable, 18 January 1819, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 176 (emphasis in original). 61. Abram Constable to John Constable, 6 September 1819, in JCC, 1 (SRS, 4): 184. 62. Brant, Eighteenth-Century Letters and Brit- ish Culture, 91. 63. Ann Constable Sr. to John Constable, 7 Anxiety in Action 118