Conventional Correspondence: Epistolary Culture of the Dutch Elite, 1770-1850

Conventional Correspondence

Egodocuments and History Series Edited by

Arianne Baggerman University of Amsterdam

Rudolf Dekker

Center for the Study of Egodocuments and History, Amsterdam

Michael Mascuch

University of California, Berkeley Advisory Board

James Amelang

Universidad Autónoma Madrid

Peter Burke

Emmanuel College Cambridge

Philippe Lejeune

Emeritus, Université de Paris-Nord

Claudia Ulbrich

Freie Universität Berlin

VOLUME 4

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/egdo.

Conventional Correspondence Epistolary Culture of the Dutch Elite, 1770–1850

By

Willemijn Ruberg Translated by

Maria Sherwood-Smith

LEIDEN • BOSTON LEIDEN • BOSTON 2011

Cover illustration: De brief (The Letter). Painting by Albert Neuhuys, 1868. Museum voor Communicatie, ‘s-Gravenhage. Willemijn Ruberg, Conventionele correspondentie. Briefcultuur van de Nederlandse elite, 1770-1850 (Nijmegen: VanTilt, 2005). This translation was made possible by a translation grant from NWO (The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research). This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ruberg, Willemijn, 1975[Conventionele correspondentie. English] Conventional correspondence : epistolary culture of the Dutch elite, 1770-1850 / by Willemijn Ruberg ; translated by Maria Sherwood-Smith. p. cm. -- (Egodocuments and history series, ISSN 1873-653X ; v. 4) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-20973-2 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Elite (Social sciences)--Netherlands-History--18th century. 2. Elite (Social sciences)--Netherlands--History--19th century. 3. Netherlands--Social life and customs--18th century. 4. Netherlands--Social life and customs--19th century. 5. Letter-writing, Dutch--History--18th century. 6. Letter-writing, Dutch--History--19th century. I. Title. II. Series. HN520.Z9E4813 2011 306.44086’210949209033--dc23

2011025628

ISSN 1873-653X ISBN 978 90 04 20973 2 Copyright 2011 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change.

Contents List of Figures����������������������������������尓������������������������������������尓�����������������������vii Introduction����������������������������������尓������������������������������������尓��������������������������� 1 I.╇ Epistolary Theory����������������������������������尓������������������������������������尓��������� 17 Introduction����������������������������������尓������������������������������������尓�����������������17 Etiquette books and letter-writing manuals as a source��������������� 18 Epistolary theory����������������������������������尓������������������������������������尓����������22 Epistolary theory in practice����������������������������������尓�������������������������� 32 Famous letter-writers as models����������������������������������尓�������������������� 43 Conclusion����������������������������������尓������������������������������������尓��������������������51 II.╇ Everyday correspondence����������������������������������尓������������������������������� 55 Introduction����������������������������������尓������������������������������������尓�����������������55 Writing materials and a place to write����������������������������������尓���������� 56 Post����������������������������������尓������������������������������������尓�������������������������������� 62 Languages����������������������������������尓������������������������������������尓��������������������� 67 Salutation, signature and postscript����������������������������������尓�������������� 77 ‘Le stile c’est l’homme’ – style����������������������������������尓������������������������� 84 Themes and taboos����������������������������������尓������������������������������������尓������ 91 Receiving a letter����������������������������������尓������������������������������������尓��������107 Conclusion����������������������������������尓������������������������������������尓������������������109 III.╇ Children’s letters����������������������������������尓������������������������������������尓���������113 Introduction����������������������������������尓������������������������������������尓���������������113 Learning to write letters����������������������������������尓��������������������������������115 Confidentiality, naturalness and individuality�����������������������������125 Character building����������������������������������尓������������������������������������尓�����140 Conclusion����������������������������������尓������������������������������������尓������������������156 â•›IV.╇ Adolescents’ letters����������������������������������尓������������������������������������尓����158 Introduction����������������������������������尓������������������������������������尓���������������158 From schoolboy to student����������������������������������尓���������������������������160 Adolescents’ letters and gender����������������������������������尓��������������������178 Engagement����������������������������������尓������������������������������������尓����������������190 Conclusion����������������������������������尓������������������������������������尓������������������211

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╛╛╛V.╇ Ceremonial correspondence����������������������������������尓�������������������������213 Introduction����������������������������������尓������������������������������������尓���������������213 Means of communication and customs����������������������������������尓������214 The content of ceremonial letters����������������������������������尓����������������225 The function of ceremonial correspondence�������������������������������239 Cult of sincerity����������������������������������尓������������������������������������尓����������243 Conclusion����������������������������������尓������������������������������������尓������������������250 Conclusion����������������������������������尓������������������������������������尓�������������������������252 Appendices����������������������������������尓������������������������������������尓�������������������������259 Bibliography����������������������������������尓������������������������������������尓�����������������������267 Index����������������������������������尓������������������������������������尓�����������������������������������279

List of Figures 1.╇ Madame de Sévigné����������������������������������尓������������������������������������尓�������44 2.╇Cross-written letter from Ambrosius Hubrecht to Paul Hubrecht����������������������������������尓������������������������������������尓��������������������������59 3.╇ Kornelis writing a letter to his friend����������������������������������尓������������114 4.╇ Silhouette portraits of Paul and Ambrosius Hubrecht������������������124 5.╇ Pen and ink drawing by Alexander Ver Huell��������������������������������148 6.╇ Portrait of Otto Hora Siccama����������������������������������尓������������������������196 7.╇ Daguerreotype of Petronella Anna Catharina van Capellen��������197

Introduction Correspondence was an important means of communication in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Letters were the means by which families and friends kept one another up to date about their health and well-being, and announced births, marriages and deaths. But correspondence was more than simply a means of communication. Like other aspects of the social life of the elite in this period, such as table manners or paying calls, letter-writing was subject to elaborate rules. An etiquette of letter-writing grew up, prescribing what sort of letters one should write in what situation. Both the content and form of the letter could reveal something about the sender’s social class, literacy level and education. Letters were of enormous importance for social intercourse. In the present book, I shall explore how correspondence actually functioned in practice within the circles of the Dutch elite in the period from 1770 to 1850, and especially what norms attached to the exchange of letters within families and between friends and acquaintances. How could letters be used as a medium to demonstrate, teach, or learn correct behaviour? In taking this approach, the present study dovetails with new developments in research into egodocuments such as autobiographies, diaries and letters. With the rise of cultural history and the history of ideas, egodocuments have increasingly been used as sources for Â�historical research. They are used particularly to throw more light on the daily lives of ‘ordinary people’ in the past. In this, the main focus has tended to be on the contents of the egodocuments. Over the past few years, however, the emphasis has shifted to the text as object, the writing process that gave rise to these documents, and the function of this writing. This approach is sometimes referred to as ‘writing as practice’.1 1 ╇For a general introduction to research into egodocuments, see R. Dekker, ‘Introduction’, in: Idem ed., Egodocuments and history. Autobiographical writing in its social context since the Middle Ages (Hilversum 2002) 7–20, and J. Blaak, Geletterde levens. Dagelijks lezen en schrijven in de vroegmoderne tijd in Nederland 1624–1770 (Hilversum 2004) 36–40. Specific studies about letter-writing as a social practice include D. Barton and N. Hall, ‘Introduction’, in: D. Barton and N. Hall eds, Letter writing as a social practice (Amsterdam/Philadelphia 2000) 1–14; R. Chartier ed., La correspondance. Les usages de la lettre au XIXe siècle (Saint-Amand-Montrond 1991);

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The historian of culture Peter Burke has been most vociferous in calling for a social history of language. He does not consider the use of language self-evident; rather, he raises questions about the situations in which an individual or group may employ a given type of language. When do people remain silent, when do they speak, and when do they write? When is French or Latin the language of choice? Burke’s hypothesis is that language usage not only reflects the society or culture in which it occurs, but also helps to form this culture.2 Correspondence from the period from 1770 to 1850 furnishes material for a fascinating and highly relevant case study into the questions which Burke poses. In what situations did people write letters to one another, and when did they prefer to speak face to face? Did children learn letter-writing at school, or from members of their family? What characterized a good letter, and when did a letter not live up to the standards etiquette demanded? These sorts of questions make it possible to problematize letter-writing and to approach correspondence as a historical source with all sorts of quirks and snags that need deciphering. At the same time, the answers to these questions can throw more light on the norms and values fostered by the elite. Socialization, performativity and historical anthropology The aim of the present study is to show how correspondence Â�functioned as an instrument of socialization: how letters were used to teach individuals to adapt to the culture around them. With this, I do not mean only that the sender wrote the recipient a letter providing instructions about how he or she should behave. The process is a much more subtle one. The sender too can internalize norms by writing a letter. This can be seen most clearly in the case of children: as Angelika Linke has shown, in writing a letter, children learn both the skill of writing and M.C. Grassi, L’art de la lettre au temps de La nouvelle Héloïse et du romantisme (Génève 1994); R. Earle ed., Epistolary selves. Letters and letter-writers, 1600–1945 (Aldershot 1999); R. Baasner ed., Briefkultur im 19. Jahrhundert (Tübingen 1999). Dutch historical research into writing as practice is scant, but such as there is was carried out in the wake of research into the culture of reading. See, for example: H. Brouwer, Lezen en schrijven in de provincie. De boeken van Zwolse boekverkopers 1777–1849 (Leiden 1995) and Blaak, Geletterde levens. 2 ╇ P. Burke, The art of conversation (Ithaca, New York 1993) 1–33. See also K. Basso, ‘The ethnography of writing’, in: R. Bauman and J. Sherzer eds, Explorations in the ethnography of speaking (New York 1974) 425–432, esp. 426–428.

introduction3 the cultural guidelines contained in the text.3 The form and the content of the letter go hand in hand. Sometimes the relationship between the sender and the recipient is paramount, but in other situations it seems as if the writer of the letter is talking only to himself, as though writing a diary. In historiography, the term ‘socialization’ refers to a dynamic process  in which norms are transmitted, but are also either accepted or rejected.4 Historical studies about the family (either nuclear or extended) or about gender in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries often treat idealized images, such as those found in advice literature, for example, as the opposite of actual practice.5 Some authors view letters as a source which can provide information directly about actual practice, or even ‘disclose’ it.6 In my opinion, this distinction between theory and practice is too absolute. Theory is shaped in practice; equally, idealized images, some deriving from books of etiquette, may play a dominant role in actual practice. It is better to acknowledge the interaction between theory and practice, and to pay more attention to the area in between the two. It is precisely here that the concept of socialization is a fruitful one. Little is known as yet about how people actually acquired and internalized idealized images, how a girl learned

3 ╇A. Linke, Sprachkultur und Bürgertum. Zur Mentalitätsgeschichte des 19. JahrÂ� hunderts (Stuttgart 1996) 297. 4 ╇ The concept of ‘socialization’ has been criticized in the social sciences as being too static and taking too little account of dynamics and change. For after all, the individual is not a passive recipient, but takes an active role in shaping his or her life. A second criticism levelled is that in the perspective of socialization the individual is seen too much as a pre-existing, well-defined subject, whereas in fact each individual is shaped by interaction with his or her surroundings. For an overview of, and response to, these criticisms, see V. Duindam, ‘The concept of “socialization”. Criticisms and alternatives’, in: M. de Ras and M. Lunenberg eds, Girls, girlhood and girls’ studies in transition (Amsterdam 1993) 25–37; M. de Graaf and S. Grotenhuis, ‘Socialization, a useful category for women’s studies?’, in: De Ras, Girls, 38–53, esp. 43. Socialization could also be defined as the construction of an identity, at either the individual, gender, or group level. However, since the term ‘identity’ has been used so often that it has lost its meaning, I prefer the term ‘socialization’. See R. Brubaker and F. Cooper, ‘Beyond “identity”â•›’, Theory and Society 29 (2000) 1–47; W. Frijhoff, ‘Identiteit en identiteitsbesef. De historicus en de spanning tussen verbeelding, benoeming en herkenning’, BMGN 107 (1992) 614–634, esp. 625; W. Zeegers, Andere tijden, andere mensen. De sociale representatie van identiteit (Amsterdam 1988) 57, 82, 83, 103. 5 ╇ M. van Essen and J. Dane, ‘â•›“De heeren trokken derwards. De vrouwen bleeven te huis”. Genderverhoudingen en rolpatronen in drie dagboeken van vrouwen, 1790– 1865’, Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire 80 (2002) 647–668, esp. 648–649. 6 ╇ B. Roberts, Through the keyhole. Dutch child-rearing practices in the 17th and 18th century. Three urban elite families (Hilversum 1998) 11.

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how to behave as an adult woman, for example.7 Was it by reading advice literature, through schooling, parental teaching, play, dress, or in other ways? I believe that correspondence was an important medium for socialization. And this holds true not only of children acquiring norms in the first place, but also for adults maintaining these standards in later life. The family was an important agent in this socialization process, often playing a more significant role than schools, the Church, the State or advice literature.8 In addition to the concept of ‘socialization’, I regard the term ‘performativity’ as a useful one. The linguist J.L. Austin describes performative utterances as language that simultaneously constitutes an act, that creates a reality by evoking it. Examples of such speech acts include the statements ‘I now pronounce you man and wife’, or ‘I express my warmest thanks’.9 The notion of performativity is currently frequently used in gender studies in the footsteps of Judith Butler, who emphasizes that gender identity only takes on a given form through repeated stylized actions of the body. Where many people see behaviour as the expression of a male or female identity, Butler reverses the order. In her view, there is no such thing as initial gender identity; this identity is simply created from behaviour that is indicative of maleness, femaleness, heterosexuality or homosexuality. From Butler’s perspective, gender identity is not what you are, but what you do.10 In characterizing the letter as performative, I wish to stress that social relationships which have not yet been formed beyond the realms of correspondence (or not fully, in any case), are formed, acknowledged or confirmed through letters.11 One such example is friendship that develops through correspondence, whereas the sender and recipient maintain less, or more superficial, contact outside their exchange of letters.

╇7 ╇ R.B. Shoemaker, Gender in English society 1650–1850 (London/New York 1998) 309. ╇8 ╇ See also L. Gall and A. Schulz, ‘Einleitung’, in: Idem eds, Wissenskommunikation im 19. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart 2003) 7–13. ╇9 ╇ J.L. Austin, ‘Performatieven en constatieven’, in: F.H. van Eemeren and W.K.B. Koning eds, Studies over taalhandelingen (Meppel/Amsterdam 1981) 29–40, here 29. 10 ╇ J. Butler, Gender trouble. Feminism and the subversion of identity (New York/ London 1999) xv. 11 ╇R. Habermas, Frauen und Männer des Bürgertums. Eine Familiengeschichte (1750–1850) (Göttingen 2000), 277–278 does not use the word ‘performative’, but does speak of the enactment of relationships in diaries and letters, which should thus not be seen as the expression of authentic feelings, but more as a stage on which new forms of social interaction are acted out and tested.

introduction5 Butler’s definition of the term performativity leaves little space for the individual. In her view, there are only a limited number of gender roles available to the individual. Moreover, she holds strongly that subjectivity is only formed in the course of acts. Butler denies the existence of a subject that exists from the beginning. This absence of an acting subject is problematic in Butler’s theories, since at the same time she does posit that there is space for resistance, for moulding and redefining gender roles and gender notions. In the absence of an acting subject it is not clear who should carry out this resistance. In my view, therefore, the term ‘performativity’ is enlightening, in that it creates space for individual action and for the way in which identities are formed. It, too, however, is problematic when it comes to the subject behind the acts. This is where historical anthropology offers a helpful perspective. Historical anthropology accords a central value to the individual’s ability to act, known as ‘appropriation’. Willem Frijhoff defines appropriation as ‘the process by which something is invested with meaning, whereby groups or individuals take the signifiers given, imposed or prescribed by others and fill them with their own meaning, in this way making them acceptable, liveable, bearable or decent for themselves’.12 This is a helpful term when studying correspondence. To a certain extent, for example, correspondents are free to choose what exactly they do with the rules of etiquette or from advice literature. They can also use letters to give form to social relationships with others. In addition to the concept of appropriation, historical anthropology provides yet more footholds for studying the culture of correspondence. Although there are those who hold that this field is merely another name for the history of culture, several terms are increasingly coming to be classified under the umbrella of insights from historical anthropology.13 A second helpful term from this approach is that of ‘thick description’. Applied to my own research, this term means that I do not take the act of writing as a given, but rather investigate precisely how the correspondence functioned in practice. Last but not least, applying the approaches of historical anthropology (among others) to studying the elite of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is an interesting 12 ╇ W. Frijhoff, ‘Toeëigening: van bezitsdrang naar betekenisgeving’, Trajecta 6 (1997) 99–118, here 108. 13 ╇ R. van Dülmen, Historische Anthropologie (2nd edn; Cologne/Weimar/Vienna 2001); W. Frijhoff, ‘Inleiding: Historische antropologie’, in: P. te Boekhorst et al. eds, Cultuur en maatschappij in Nederland 1500–1850. Een historisch-antropologisch perspectief (Nijmegen 1996) 11–38.

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venture, because until now this discipline has focused much more on the lower classes in the early modern period.14 Nevertheless, it is not only the level of the individual that is significant for the analysis. It is equally important to examine the elite as a social class, and to bear in mind the hierarchies within this elite. A further function of correspondence was to maintain family links and to reflect the state of family relations. Like Burke, Pierre Bourdieu, for example, has highlighted language’s symbolic and distinguishing function. Bourdieu posits that language is not only a means of communication, but also a way of expressing power relationships. The social positions of the speaker and recipient cannot be ignored here. In speaking, the speaker simultaneously expresses his or her social position. Since the ruling class is fully aware of its power, in Bourdieu’s view, and since its position is unassailable, it can permit itself to use language in a sloppy way, or even to use language that is really associated with lower classes. The elite is so clearly in a position of power that poor use of language will never make it appear part of a lower class. The elite can get away with laziness and sloppiness in use of language without damaging its position, which makes this a means of distinction, as the middle and lower classes precisely do obey linguistic conventions.15 As I see it, Bourdieu’s insights on the subject of spoken language are also applicable to the written language of the elite. Public, private, individual The concept of socialization shows that not only the individual, but also the surrounding society is of importance where letter-writing is concerned. This has not always been self-evident in research into egodocuments, which has sometimes tended to focus only on the writing individual, or at best society as seen from his point of view. The writing of autobiographies, diaries and letters has often been interpreted as a sign of the emergence of the individual,16 which is 14 ╇ Habermas’s book Frauen und Männer is a good example of how fruitful a historical and anthropological approach can be in studying the elite. 15 ╇ P. Bourdieu, ‘De economie van het linguïstisch ruilverkeer’, in: Idem, Opstellen over smaak, habitus en het veldbegrip, D. Pels ed. (Amsterdam 1989) 92–119. 16 ╇ R. van Dülmen, Die Entdeckung des Individuums 1500–1800 (Frankfurt am Main 1997) 105–109; F. Brändle et al., ‘Texte zwischen Erfahrung und Diskurs. Probleme der SelbÂ�stzeugnÂ�isforschung’, in: K. von Greyerz et al. eds, Von der dargestellten Person zum erinnerten Ich. Europäische Selbstzeugnisse als historische Quellen (1500–1850) (Cologne/Weimar/Vienna 2001) 3–31.

introduction7 Â� situated either in the Renaissance, the eighteenth, or the nineteenth century. Individualization is seen as part of the development of the concept of the ‘private sphere’. This development, too, has variously been localized in the early modern period or in the nineteenth century. And it is not only when to date the emergence of the concept of the private sphere that is the matter of debate; the very definition of the terms ‘public’ and ‘private’ is far from unanimous.17 The debate is further complicated by a discussion about the role of gender in the supposed division between the public and the private sphere. This refers to the physical separation between the male world of work and the domestic sphere, the province of women, as well as to the increasing differences between men and women in people’s perceptions.18 Opinions also differ concerning the precise role of letters in this process. Jürgen Habermas describes the letter of the eighteenth century as the expression of a new subjectivity: correspondents used writing in a quest for the inner self, but always addressed their letters to others, meaning that in fact it was always a matter of intersubjectivity. Habermas likens the letter to the institution of the salon: both are extensions of private individuals, who enter into contact with others through oral and written communication, thus creating the new public sphere whose preliminary contours Habermas purports to discern in the eighteenth century.19 Other historians, too, situate the letter (both in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) in the public or semi-public sphere, because many letters were read aloud in relatively large circles and were sometimes composed by several people at once.20 Peter Gay, on the other hand, accords letters a central position on the private sphere of the nineteenth century: letters were pre-eminently suited to the self scrutiny so vital for the bourgeoisie, and bore witness 17 ╇J. Weintraub, ‘The theory and politics of the public/private distinction’, in: J. Weintraub and K. Kumar eds, Public and private in thought and practice (Chicago 1997) 1–42; D. Goodman, ‘Public sphere and private life: toward a synthesis of current historiographical approaches to the old regime’, History and Theory 31 (1992) 1–20. 18 ╇Shoemaker, Gender in English society, passim. Habermas, Frauen und Männer, 145, 257. T. de Nijs, In veilige haven. Het familieleven van de Rotterdamse gegoede burgerij 1815–1890 (Nijmegen 2001) 17, 189–193. 19 ╇J. Habermas, The structural transformation of the public sphere (10th edn; Cambridge 1999) 48–51. 20 ╇ A.C. Trepp, Sanfte Männlichkeit und selbständige Weiblichkeit (Göttingen 1996) 34–35. Habermas, Frauen und Männer, 276 ; C. Dauphin, P. Lebrun-Pezerat and D. Poublan, Ces bonnes lettres. Une correspondance familiale au XIXe siècle (Paris 1995)  162; C. Chotard-Lioret, La socialité familiale en province: une correspondance privée entre 1870 et 1920. Unpublished doctoral thesis, Université Paris V 1983, 2 vols, 21–22, 62.

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to a deep desire for privacy and secrecy.21 Several chapters in the present book contain indications of the increasing importance of the individual and the private sphere. Nevertheless, I believe it is impossible to do justice to these private aspects of letter-writing without also examining the public, or semi-public aspects. It is precisely this tension between the public and the private functions of letters, then, that will be at the centre of the analysis. In correspondence to mark specific occasions, such as New Year’s letters, letters of congratulations, or letters of condolence, for example, correspondents were torn between a desire for individual expression and sincerity, on the one hand, and the obligation to live up to the convention surrounding the sending of standard letters, on the other. Sources When it comes to analyzing eighteenth and nineteenth-century letterwriting in the light of the concepts of socialization and performativity, the most significant source is formed by correspondences preserved in family archives. One is dealing necessarily with the elite, since it is only from this class that large collections of letters have come down to us. And, since literacy had a much firmer hold in the higher than the lower classes, they also simply wrote more letters. Though I did draw on several printed editions of letters as supplementary material for the chapters on letters by children and adolescents,22 the major part of my source material consists of letters in manuscript. I studied over 2300 letters in total, preserved in the archives of the Hubrecht family (Leiden), the Van Lanschot family (‘s-Hertogenbosch), the De Constant Rebecque family (The Hague), the Hora Siccama family (The Hague)23 and the Van Schinne family (The Hague). The appendices contain family trees showing the relationships within these families. In considering the relevant variables for studying correspondence, religious 21 ╇ P. Gay, The naked heart. The bourgeois experience. Victoria to Freud. vol. 4 (London 1995) 310–329. See also M. Perrot, ‘Le secret de la correspondance au XIXe siècle’, in : M. Bossis ed., L’épistolarité à travers les siècles (Stuttgart 1990) 184–188. 22 ╇ C. Elderink ed., Een Twentsch fabriqueur van de achttiende eeuw. Uit brieven en familiepapieren samengesteld in 1923 (Hengelo 1977); J.A.A. Bervoets ed., De briefwisseling van de student Alexander Ver Huell 1840–1849 (Westervoort 1997). 23 ╇ The Hora Siccama family originally came from Utrecht, but the figure at the centre of the archive, Otto Hora Siccama, went to live in The Hague as a young man and stayed there for the rest of his life.

introduction9 denomination and social class seemed to be particularly significant. This was the reason to juxtapose three Protestant families from the upper Â�echelons of the bourgeoisie (the Hubrechts, Hora Siccamas and Van Schinnes) with a Catholic bourgeois family (the Van Lanschots) and a protestant family of the nobility (the De Constant Rebecques). InciÂ�dentally, several members of the Hora Siccama and Van Schinne families were admitted to the nobility in the nineteenth century.24 The male members of the four upper middle-class families exercised professions that were typical of their class. Thus Pieter Hubrecht (1805– 1874), for example, was an attorney at law, the owner of a lime kiln, and the local mayor, in addition to being a member of several boards. His two oldest sons, Paul (1829–1902) and Ambrosius (1831–1853) sÂ� tudied Law. The Catholic family of the Van Lanschots, from ‘s-Hertogenbosch, set up a trade in colonial wares in 1737. This family business gradually metamorphosed into a large bank.25 Many of the male members of the Utrecht branch of the Hora Siccama family also studied Law, including the father and brothers of Otto Hora Siccama (1805–1879), who bequeathed us a great deal of archive material. Otto himself, however, did not go to university; instead he started work as a clerk in The Hague in the government ministry of which his uncle, Anton Falck (1777– 1843), was Minister. The Van Schinnes, finally, were a family of merchants and trustees; it is above all the women of the family we will hear from in the course of this study.26 As for the nobility, the De Constant Rebecques of The Hague included both men of law and men of arms. Baron Charles de Constant Rebecque (1805–1870) was a lawyer, a Clerk of State, Secretary of the Council of State, and gentleman-in-waiting to King William I, King William II and King William III of the Netherlands. His son, Victor (1838–1860), was sent to the Military Academy. Victor’s younger brother Jan Willem (1841–1893), a lawyer like his father, held several positions in local and provincial politics and was active at the court of King William III of the Netherlands.

24 ╇ Isaac van Schinne (1759–1831) was elevated to the nobility in 1816, and Otto Hora Siccama (1805–1879) in 1876. 25 ╇ Ch. Jeurgens and H. Meulenaars, Inventaris van het archief van de familie Van Lanschot 1294–1900 (1982) (‘s-Hertogenbosch 1994); F. Govers, Het geslacht en de firma F. van Lanschot 1737–1901 (Tilburg 1972). 26 ╇ See A. Dik, ‘Inleiding’, in: A. Dik ed., Het dagboek van Magdalena van Schinne (1786–1795) (Hilversum 1990) 7–21.

10

introduction

In 1869, Jan Willem de Constant Rebecque married one of the daughters of Otto Hora Siccama. Otto himself had married a member of the nobility, namely Petronella van Capellen (1814–1848), in 1841. Intermarriage of this kind, and the elevation to the nobility of two members of the Hora Siccama and Van Schinne families, led to a blurring of the distinctions between the higher ranks of the bourgeoisie and the nobility in these families. For this reason, in this book I shall generally speak of the ‘elite’, as an umbrella term, rather than distinguishing between the upper bourgeoisie and the nobility. Research into the elite in the Netherlands has also shown that, as far as their social and financial position and lifestyle was concerned, the distinctions between the nobility, governing classes, and upper middle classes were rather small.27 Nevertheless, we should not lose sight of the question of whether these families did indeed feel they belonged to a certain class. Historical research in recent years has stressed that the mental and/or cultural concept of ‘sense of class’ is perhaps more revealing of belonging to a certain class than socio-economic criteria such as paying taxes. Historians expect that this sense of class can be distilled from egodocuments.28 The role played by correspondence in this sense of class will also be discussed indirectly in this study. For the time being, I shall confine myself to a few sporadic occasions in the correspondence of the five families on which a sense of class is alluded to explicitly. On a visit in 1822, for example, Henri van Lanschot (1797–1887) found himself in the company mainly of members of the nobility. Henri wrote in a letter to his sister that he did not like to be too familiar in his doings with them until he knew them properly.29 This was normal enough, since Henri belonged to the bourgeoisie. A warning issued by Baron De Constant Rebecque to his son Victor, then at the Military Academy, also fits in with such thinking along class lines: the son was urged to steer clear of officer’s wives of the bourgeoisie, who, ‘though they may indeed be very worthy, do not always possess the refined tone

27 ╇J.L. Price, ‘The Dutch nobility in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries’, in: H.M. Scott ed. The European nobilities in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Vol. I (London/New York 1995) 82–113; Y. Kuiper, Adel in Friesland 1780–1880 (Groningen 1993) 409–411; M. Prak, Gezeten burgers. De elite in een Hollandse stad, Leiden 1700–1780 (Amsterdam 1985) 10. 28 ╇ B. de Vries, ‘Een weldadig verschil? Standsbesef en het onbehagen van de burgerij’, De Negentiende Eeuw 22 (1998) 25–35. 29 ╇ RANB, FAVL, inv. nr. 228, Henri van Lanschot to Theodora van Lanschot, 26 Nov. 1822.

introduction11 demanded by good company’.30 What is more striking, however, is that it was not only the baron who made slighting remarks about the bourgeoisie, but also members of the bourgeois Van Lanschot and Hora Siccama families.31 The term ‘bourgeois’ was often associated with the petty bourgeoisie, or with small-mindedness. Historians have labelled concepts such as ‘order’, ‘self-discipline’, ‘domesticity’ and ‘punctuality’ as typically bourgeois values.32 The question of whether the socializing function of letter-writing also led to the acquisition of ‘bourgeois’ values is another aspect I address in the current study. The archives of the five families in question are a problematic source from several points of view. One disadvantage, for example, is the uneven distribution among the generations of the correspondences that have come down to us within a given family. Some of the correspondents burned their letters. And each family had specific preferences as to what sort of papers were preserved. The Hubrecht family archive, for example, preserves more ceremonial letters than the other archives. Letters from the eighteenth century are in the minority in nearly all the archives. Often family archives grew up around a famous man. This need not mean that all the letters by women were thrown away, but does imply that they were less central in the formation of the archive. All in all, the database I compiled on the basis of the five family archives numbers almost twice as many letters by men as by women. Family archives are also often set up with the aim of passing on a certain image to posterity. This means one should always bear in mind the reason why a particular letter may have been preserved.33 The letters passed down in family archives are not necessarily representative of the total number of letters originally sent. The letters preserved are just a tiny proportion. Equally, the five families selected cannot simply be taken as representative of the elite as a whole. They were chosen specifically to reflect, to some extent, the range of class differences possible within the elite (nobility and upper echelons of ╇ NA, FADCR, inv. nr. 120A, Charles de Constant Rebecque to Victor de Constant Rebecque, 21 Nov. 1856. 31 ╇ RANB, FAVL, inv. nr. 231, Pauline van Lanschot-van der Kun to Theodora van Lanschot, 20 Oct. 1836. See also 2.5. 32 ╇ De Nijs, In veilige haven, 14–19; H. te Velde, ‘Herenstijl en burgerzin. Nederlandse burgerlijke cultuur in de negentiende eeuw’, in: R. Aerts and H. te Velde eds, De stijl van de burger. Over Nederlandse burgerlijke cultuur vanaf de middeleeuwen (Kampen 1998) 157–185. 33 ╇ De Nijs, In veilige haven, 301–322; A. Baggerman, ‘Autobiography and family memory in the nineteenth century’, in: Dekker, Egodocuments and history, 161–173. 30

12

introduction

the bourgeoisie), as well as religious diversity. Four of the five families lived in the more urbanized western part of the Netherlands, though the inclusion of the Van Lanschot family from Brabant ensures a slightly broader geographical distribution. This study is more than a collection of isolated case studies. The families studied maintained a broad network of correspondence and were thus in contact with a great many people, some of whom were to be found in quite remote parts of the country. In the current study, I have sought out similarities between the bodies of correspondence in the various family archives in order to identify common patterns. Furthermore, I create a more complete picture of the phenomenon of correspondence by comparing this archive material with other sources. Sixty-nine published collections of letters and etiquette books were studied alongside the five family archives. Various bibliographies were consulted to track down as many such books as possible. The first chapter includes a detailed discussion of the problematic aspects of advice literature as a source and how it relates to actual practice. Contemporary commentaries on the practices of correspondence constitute a second additional source; these can mainly be found in journals, reflections on literature, and, sporadically, in novels of the period. My systematic study of this type of source was limited to two journals devoted to culture in general: the Vaderlandsche Letteroefeningen [Dutch Essays in Letters] and De recensent, ook der recensenten [The Reviewer, also of Reviewers]. For these two periodicals, which also include a few reviews of collections of letters, I studied all the issues published within the period selected for my research. These two journals were chosen because they occupied a particularly prestigious position in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The authoritative Vaderlandsche Letteroefeningen (1760–1876) focused predominantly on the Netherlands and aimed to be educational and opinion-forming. The other journal selected, De recensent, ook der recensenten (1806– 1857), was slightly more oriented towards current affairs. It tolerated counter criticisms and noted developments abroad.34 It is precisely this juxtaposition of diverse sources – letters in manuscript, published collections of letters, and journals – that distinguishes the current study of epistolary practice. The scant research undertaken abroad into letter-writing as social practice is mainly based only on 34 ╇ G.J. Johannes, De barometer van de smaak. Tijdschriften in Nederland 1770–1830 (The Hague 1995) 117–139.

introduction13 advice literature, or on a single family archive. Moreover, correspondence from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has never been studied extensively from this perspective in the Netherlands. Specialized studies have been made of letter-writing manuals and letters of betrothal, for example, but generally letters are scrutinized primarily for the information they provide about daily life. This book focuses on the actual process of writing and the function of correspondence itself. Period chosen The period chosen for the study is 1770–1850. The following considerations underlie this choice. The publication of the treatise Briefe, nebst einer Praktischen Abhandlung von dem guten Geschmacke in Briefen (Letters, complemented by a practical treatment of good taste in letters) by the German author Christian Fürchtegott Gellert (1715– 1769) in 1751 marked a turning point in the development of epistolary theory. In this work, Gellert advocated abandoning the gallant style and the stilted, bureaucratic style known as Kanzleistil, in favour of a ‘more natural’ style of letter writing. The contents of Gellert’s treatise will be discussed in detail in Chapter 1. What is important here, however, is that in 1766 the Dutch commentator Rijklof Michaël van Goens expressed a desire for a Dutch translation of Gellert’s letter-writing manual, and that this was duly published in 1776. Although it took a few decades for the concept of ‘naturalness’ to actually take hold in epistolary style, and the understanding of the term varied somewhat depending on actual practice, nevertheless new ideas about letterwriting seem to emerge under the influence of this concept from about 1770 onwards. Furthermore, in other respects, too, the last few decades of the eighteenth century and the first few of the nineteenth century were a time of great social change. Reinhart Koselleck coined the phrase ‘Sattelzeit’ to refer to the years between 1770 and 1850, due to the significant social and political concepts that emerged at this time.35 But Joost Kloek and Wijnand Mijnhardt have also characterized the period around 1800 as an era of lively debate, in which the parties in the discourse strove to 35 ╇R. Koselleck, ‘Einleitung’, in: O. Brunner, W. Conze and R. Koselleck eds, Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland. Dl. 1 (Stuttgart 1972) xiii–xxvii, here xv–xix.

14

introduction

change the Netherlands and above all to define the content of the term ‘citizen’.36 We shall see that changes in ideas about bringing up children, for example, also had an influence on letters by and to children. More specifically, the first half of the nineteenth century has been described as a period of moderation, the triumph of bourgeois ideas such as domesticity and order. Romanticism is held to have passed the Netherlands by, certainly in comparison with other European countries. Although the historical and literary research of recent years has added some question-marks and nuances to this characterization of Dutch culture, it has not succeeded in setting it aside completely.37 This increases the relevance of investigating whether traces either of this ideology of moderation or of Romanticism can be found in epistolary theory and practice. The major socio-economic changes of the second half of the nineteenth century gave this period a completely different character.38 Social conventions gradually became stricter, probably in reaction to increased social mobility. This also affected ideas and customs associated with sending letters. In addition, infrastructural changes, such as the advent of the railways, influenced the postal system. The system was completely reorganized in about 1850, the end of the period covered by my research. In 1852, in the wake of the new Post Office Act of 1850, postage stamps were issued for the first time. Before that time, the custom was for the recipient of the letter to pay for postage; now the new possibility opened up of the sender paying in advance using stamps. 1852 also saw the introduction of the National Telegraph Service. Although the precise influence of these new communications options is difficult to ascertain, they certainly constituted a caesura with former practice. The possibility of informing family members very quickly by telegram on the birth of a child, for example, was a very different procedure to having them notified or sending printed or handwritten letters as a birth announcement. This turning point in 36 ╇ J. Kloek and W. Mijnhardt, 1800. Blauwdrukken voor een samenleving (The Hague 2001) 22, 583. 37 ╇T. Streng, ‘Romantiek als spookbeeld. Het “juste milieu” in de schilderkunst in Nederland tussen 1815 en 1848’, Feit & Fictie 3 (1997/1998) 30–45; J. van Zanten, Schielijk, Winzucht, Zwaarhoofd en Bedaard. Politieke discussie en oppositievorming 1813–1840 (Amsterdam 2004) 10–16; M. Mathijsen, Nederlandse literatuur in de romantiek 1820–1880 (Nijmegen 2004) 12–15, 89–99. 38 ╇ J.L. van Zanden and A. van Riel, Nederland 1780–1914. Staat, instituties en economische ontwikkeling (Amsterdam 2000) 317, 412–414.

introduction15 communications in the mid-nineteenth century makes 1850 an appropriate ending date for the current research. The structure of this book The first chapter of this book treats epistolary theory. It discusses the contents of Gellert’s epistolary theory and his concept of ‘naturalness’, and looks also at the ideas propagated by the authors of letter-writing manuals and etiquette manuals. A further element in the discussion is the status of advice literature and how it relates to actual practice. This theme is picked up again in chapter two, which focuses on everyday correspondence. Here I investigate what advice from Â�etiquette books and letter-writing manuals tallies with actual practice. The material prerequisites for correspondence, such as space and writing materials, are also described. A further important aspect of everyday letter-writing is the language used: Dutch, French or Latin. Did the choice of language depend on the situation, the period of writing, or the correspondents’ gender? The content and style of everyday correspondence, finally, are also addressed. In chapter three, the socialization aspect of letter-writing comes to the fore: this chapter examines how children learned to write letters. Children often received comments from members of the family on their letter-writing. Parents wanted their children to be open and honest towards them in their letters; but they also wanted them to write properly, both in terms of handwriting and contents, as befitted children of the elite. Chapter four centres on the letters of adolescents. Boys of the elite wrote to one another in Latin, used colloquial language, and developed romantic friendships in their letters. This meant that adolescents’ letters were fundamentally different from all other letters. And precisely in adolescence, ‘proper’ male or female behaviour was rehearsed through letters. Engagement and marriage formed the transition from adolescence to adulthood. Analysis of two bodies of correspondence between fiancés leads me to conclude that these exchanges served to establish the roles for the couple’s future married life together. This means that correspondence between adolescents and fiancés reveals the performative nature of letter-writing. The final chapter of the book examines letters for specific occasions, such as New Year letters, birthday greetings, and letters of condolence.

16

introduction

These kinds of letters are the most firmly bound by conventions. They served to perpetuate bonds of friendship, but also to affirm important elite values and religious norms. From this point of view, they again highlight the aspect of socialization. On the other hand, this ceremonial correspondence could also be used to make subtle distinctions in intimacy within the elite and to express class differences. Let me comment, finally, on what I do not address in this book. This is emphatically a historical study of letter-writing, and not a literary or literary-historical one. For this reason, I have not discussed epistolary novels, or famous letter-writers, unless the latter are adduced as examples in letter-writing manuals or by correspondents themselves. Furthermore, the focus is primarily on correspondence between family and friends or acquaintances, and not on business letters, letters to the authorities, or letters between scholars. Incidentally, letters between scholars in the early modern period have already been the subject of extensive research.39 Finally, a note on the translation. The majority of the letters quoted in this study were written in the Dutch language. For the sake of readability, these quotations have been translated into English throughout. In the few cases where the letters were written in a language other than Dutch, the letter is quoted in the original language and the translation is given in parentheses or in a footnote. Titles and forms of address were also a problematic aspect of the translation. Dutch society and British society evolved differently, resulting in very different social structures. Whereas the elite in Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was largely made up of the higher ranks of the aristocracy and the landed gentry, in the Netherlands, as stated above there was effectively little distinction between the nobility and the large and powerful urban patrician class of the upper bourgeoisie. This means that the forms of address used in the Dutch letters often do not have any equivalent in the English system of titles. For this reason it was decided to provide a literal translation of the term rather than to use an English term that might suggest an equivalence that did not exist.

39 ╇ S. Stegeman, Patronage en dienstverlening. Het netwerk van Theodorus Janssonius van Almeloveen (1657–1712) (Nijmegen 1996). See also T. van Houdt et al. eds, Selfpresentation and social identification. The rhetoric and pragmatics of letter writing in early modern times (Louvain 2002).

Chapter One

Epistolary Theory Introduction Before we move on to the actual practice of letter-writing in the chapters to come, the present chapter takes a closer look at epistolary theory. What constitutes an ideal letter? What stylistic ideals underlie this conception? What famous letter-writers were extolled as models? There are various sources one can turn to in search of an answer to these questions. In the first place, there are etiquette books and letter-writing manuals, often collectively referred to as ‘advice literature’. Secondly, one finds opinions about what constitutes an ideal letter in various other kinds of publications: reviews of letter-writing manuals and published collections of correspondence in literary journals; books about rhetoric and style; and sometimes even contemporary novels. First, we will examine the different types of advice literature. The precise function these books fulfilled and how they relate to letter-writing in practice is still a matter of debate. Epistolary theory as evidenced in the letter-writing manuals will be the next area of exploration. The focus here will be on the influence of rhetoric and the ideal style, which is described as ‘the natural style’. But what was meant by ‘natural’ in this context? We will analyse the various connotations of the term ‘natural’ in this period. The section about epistolary theory is followed by a discussion of how the authors of letter-writing manuals interpreted this theory in concrete terms. Aspects addressed here include the characterization of women as letter-writers par excellence, the discussion of the letter as a private matter, how writing was taught, the different types of letters, and the outward appearance of letters. The final subsection of the chapter describes illustrious letter-writers in the Netherlands and abroad, and pinpoints precisely what the literary critics appreciated about the letters they reviewed. The focus of the present chapter is on general ideas about correspondence. More specialized advice from the etiquette and letter-Â� writing manuals, concerning letters by children, or letters of condolence, for example, will be discussed in the relevant chapters below.

18

chapter one Etiquette books and letter-writing manuals as a source

The relationship between theory and practice The eighteenth, and particularly the nineteenth century, saw the publication of a great deal of advice literature. This general heading covers a wide variety of different sorts of books: treatises on how to bring up children, etiquette books, books of instructions for married life, and letter-writing manuals. Etiquette books and letter-writing manuals were nothing new. Treatises on the art of letter-writing had existed since Antiquity, and books about good manners, with rules for social engagement, also had a centuries-old tradition. From the Renaissance, books about proper behaviour were written for the nobility at court. These books of manners addressed both proper conduct in society and the formation of character. At the end of the eighteenth century, this genre subdivided into etiquette books and the like, which focused only on good manners, and other advice books which were primarily  concerned with moral aspects. As the nineteenth century progressed, there was a substantial rise in the number of etiquette books and letter-writing manuals published, and the etiquette book increasingly became a female genre: books written by female authors for female readers.1 Letter-writing manuals are entirely devoted to the subject of correspondence. Etiquette books, which discuss such matters as table manners, correct dress, and social behaviour in general, also frequently include advice about letter-writing. This advice sometimes features as a separate chapter at the back of the book, with headings such as ‘writing’, ‘reading’ and ‘secrets’, or at the end of the section about paying calls. Since correspondence, like conversation, was a significant element of social interaction, it received a good deal of attention in advice literature. There was considerably less advice to be found about keeping a diary. Only pedagogical advice books, generally with a Christian slant, expounded on the reasons for young people to keep a diary, often as part of a chapter on self-appraisal.

╇ M. Curtin, ‘A question of manners: status and gender in etiquette and courtesy’, The journal of modern history 57 (1985) 395–423, here 395–396. See also P. Spierenburg, Elites and etiquette. Mentality and social structure in the early modern Northern Netherlands (Rotterdam 1981); B. Dongelmans, ‘Comme il faut. Etiquetteboeken in de negentiende eeuw’, De Negentiende Eeuw 23 (1999) 89–123, here 104. 1



epistolary theory19

Historiography in the Netherlands has paid little attention to the status of advice literature as a source.2 Scholars assume that etiquette books provide prescriptive rules, but the origin and observance of these rules remain rather obscure. And who actually read these books? To start with the latter question: the great diversity and sheer numbers of advice books available, as well as the numerous reprints, certainly show that there was a great demand for these sorts of books. Often the authors of advice literature indicated in the title, subtitle and foreword of their book for whom it was intended: young members of the bourgeoisie, for example. The books of the Maatschappij tot Nut van ‘t Algemeen (Society for Public Welfare) were specifically addressed to the lower middle class. But it is very possible that this class also sometimes read advice literature that was originally intended for their social superiors. In this way, they could learn the manners of the higher echelons of society, and might be able to advance themselves.3 Or perhaps the lower classes read etiquette books simply to satisfy their curiosity about the life of the elite.4 The family archives consulted for this research provide only one instance of proof of the possession of a letter-writing manual. Ambrosius Hubrecht’s catalogue of the books in his possession in 1850–1851 includes R. van der Pijl’s Oorspronkelijke Engelsche koopmansbrieven, ten dienste der jonge lieden, die zich aan den handel wijden: ook ingericht tot een vertaalboek op de scholen [Original English merchants’ letters, for the benefit of young people devoting themselves to trade; also designed as a translation book for schools] (Haarlem 1818). This work was intended to teach people to write business letters in English.5 In this case, then, the letter-writing manual had a practical purpose. Reading advice literature as a way of learning good manners and attaining a higher position in society is one possible function of etiquette books. Another function is that of a ‘social catechism’, as Linke

2 ╇ Dongelmans, ‘Comme il faut’ and M. van Tilburg, Hoe hoorde het? Seksualiteit en partnerkeuze in de Nederlandse adviesliteratuur 1780–1890 (Amsterdam 1998) do not address this aspect. 3 ╇ Curtin, ‘A question of manners’, 395–423. 4 ╇R. Chartier, ‘Des “secrétaires” pour le peuple? Les modèles épistolaires de l’Ancien Régime entre littérature de cour et livre de colportage’, in: Chartier, La correspondance, 159-20, here 195. 5 ╇ GAL, FAH, suppl. II, box 1, catalogue of the books in the possession of Ambrosius Hubrecht.

20

chapter one

describes it: social conventions are set down in etiquette books in order to preserve them. This ensures that the identity of a social group is not lost. Advice literature can thus have both an idealizing and a consolidating function. According to Linke, certain norms may be discussed in these books if they are unclear or in the process of changing, if particular groups have demonstrated a lack of awareness of them, or if it is difficult to live up to them.6 This means that the relationship between advice literature and practice is not clear cut.7 Advice literature can be more than merely a practical aid to teach people the right habits. Sometimes the authors of etiquette books repeatedly advocate certain behaviour, but this is never adopted by society, so the advice falls on deaf ears. In other cases, an advice book may actually provide a solution to a thorny issue of etiquette, in the face of norms that are contradictory or in a state of flux. Or the etiquette book may be behind the times, belatedly sanctioning habits that have been common practice for years. The following chapter will look in more detail at the relationship between the counsels on writing given in advice literature, on the one hand, and, on the other, actual epistolary practice as revealed by the exchanges of letters preserved in the various family archives consulted. The function of letter-writing manuals Many of the authors of letter-writing manuals use the foreword or introduction to set forth their views on the function of such books. Letter-writing manuals should help people to master the art of corresponding because it is an important skill for daily life and also a requirement of good manners: ‘After all, is not a good letter a recommendation in society, the hallmark of true refinement’?8 It would be a disgrace to have to engage the services of a scribe, thus having to reveal any possible secrets to a third party.9 Professional scribes of this kind were used primarily by the illiterate lower classes in the early modern period.10 ╇Linke, Sprachkultur und Bürgertum, 35–38. ╇A. Bryson, From courtesy to civility: changing codes of conduct in early modern England (New York 1998) 7, 279. ╛╛╛╛8 ╇P.J. Andriessen, Handleiding tot het leeren stellen van brieven en het maken van opstellen over opgegevene onderwerpen (3rd edn; Amsterdam 1854) iii. See also J.V.D.L., De wellevendheid en de gebruiken der wereld (The Hague 1841) 134. ╛╛╛╛9 ╇H. Jacobi, Gemeyne zend-brieven ([1597]; Antwerp 1774) 2. 10 ╇ C. Métayer, ‘La résonance sociale et culturelle du métier d’ écrivain public à Paris sous l’ Ancien Régime’, Histoire sociale-Social History 24 (1991) 149–167. ╛╛╛╛6 ╛╛╛╛7



epistolary theory21

In  the nineteenth century, with increasing literacy levels, this figure seems to have become superfluous for most people. Nevertheless, L.F. Geerling feels it necessary in his letter-writing manual to encourage his readers to write their own letters and not to employ people from the lower classes to do so. He does not here assume that people cannot write letters, but he does warn his readers that it is insulting to ‘use very lowly people as letter-writers’. The sender should simply write the letter himself. This is a mark of respect for the recipient.11 One reason frequently given by the authors of letter-writing manuals is the low level of writing skills.12 Writing instruction for the lower classes, especially, is often claimed to be inadequate. Children left school at an early age, and their parents did not stimulate them to read and write after that. Moreover, children in rural areas only attended school for part of the year.13 Another criticism was that children only learned to write mechanically: their writing skills were allegedly limited to writing with a neat hand and copying out texts.14 D.H. Engelberts, the author of a late-nineteenth-century etiquette book, believed that schools for children of the higher classes also paid too little attention to teaching letter-writing, because the teachers assumed that children who could write well would automatically be able to compose a good letter; Engelberts emphatically did not agree.15 Letter-writing manuals for children were sometimes designed to serve also as readers. One such example was De brieflezer [The letterreader] (1859), which contained letters in various hands so that children could learn to decipher different types of handwriting.16 A letter-writing manual for adults might comprise not just epistolary theory, but also a consecutive series of letters to illustrate that theory, so that the reader could follow the whole correspondence. Such books

╇L.F. Geerling, De Nederlandsche briefsteller (Arnhem 1838) xxiii. ╇Anonymous, De volmaakte secretaris/ Le parfait secretaire (Amsterdam 1707) foreword. 13 ╇ W. Plokker, Oeffeningen in het stellen van brieven, voor leerlingen op de lagere scholen (The Hague 1836). 14 ╇Anonymous, Voorschriften tot het opstellen en schrijven van brieven en andere schriftelijke opstellen (Leiden, Deventer and Groningen 1806) 3. W.H. Suringar, Onderzoek naar de oorzaken van het vervloeijen van aangeleerde kundigheden bij jonge lieden, na het verlaten der scholen, met aanwijzing van gepaste middelen, ter voorkoming daarvan (Amsterdam 1822) 25. 15 ╇ D.H. Engelberts, De goede toon ([1881] 4th edn; Amsterdam 1890) 323. 16 ╇ J.M.H. Bosman, De brieflezer. Leesboek voor de beide hoogste klassen eener lagere school (Nijmegen 1859). 11 12

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could also function as an epistolary novel, as in the case of the love letters in the Post-comptoir van Cupido en Mercurius [The Post Office of Cupid and Mercury] (1787).17 One last motivation for publishing a letter-writing manual, finally,  was dissatisfaction with the existing literature on the subject. Koolenkamp, for example, based the book of instructions he produced in 1764 on the centuries-old book by H. Jacobi, but omitted the prescripts that no longer suited ‘the style of our own day’.18 Epistolary theory Rhetoric Most letter-writing manuals consist of a theoretical section, containing recommendations about content and style, and a section presenting model letters as examples. In the theoretical section, the writer gives a definition of what a letter is, addresses the function of exchanging letters, and gives further instructions on how to write. Epistolary theory in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was still largely based on concepts from classical rhetoric, as formulated by Cicero, for instance, which had been in vogue again since the Renaissance. In this approach the letter was described as a ‘conversation between absent parties’ or a ‘mirror of the soul’, whereas in the Middle Ages the letter tended to be compared more with a speech delivered before an audience.19 Particularly the definition of the letter as a conversation is common in eighteenth and nineteenth century letter-writing manuals, such as the Nieuwe handleiding tot de manier van brieven schryven [New guide to the manner to write letters] of 1770: ‘It is a writing that we send to a

╇ J. de Jongh, Post-comptoir van Cupido en Mercurius ([1751] 6th edn; Amsterdam 1787). According to W. van den Berg, ‘Briefreflectie in briefinstructie’, Documentatieblad werkgroep achttiende eeuw (1978) 1–22, here 3–4, series of letters in Dutch letterwriting manuals are rather sporadic. 18 ╇ W.K. Koolenkamp, Send-brieven, dienstig voor de Jeugd (Utrecht 1764) foreword. Extensive research into the differences between the various editions of letter-writing manuals was beyond the scope of the present study. Further research might trace the development of the epistolary theory put forward in letter-writing manuals. 19 ╇R. Nörtemann, ‘Brieftheoretische Konzepte im 18. Jahrhundert und ihre Genese’, in: A. Ebrecht, R. Nörtemann and H. Schwarze eds, Brieftheorie des 18. Jahrhunderts. Texte, Kommentare, Essays (Stuttgart 1990) 211–224, here 212–213. W.G. Müller, ‘Brief ’, in: G. Ueding ed., Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik. Vol. 1 (Tübingen 1992) 60–76, here 61–63. Van den Berg, ‘Briefreflectie’, 6. 17



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person who is absent, to let him know that which we would say to him if we could speak to him’.20 The authors seem to use the description of a letter as simply a written conversation to reassure their readers. However, they often hasten to add that there is an important difference between a letter and a conversation face to face: ‘A letter is not really a conversation […] because a spoken word swiftly passes and is easily forgotten – a written word offends or irritates for ever’.21 That which is written is preserved for ever and can always be used against the writer, so reflection and caution are called for in writing letters.22 Traces of the influence of classical rhetoric can also be seen in the way letters are structured. Well into the eighteenth century, letter-writing manuals still described the parts of the letter in terms drawn from rhetoric: exordium, causa, narratio and conclusio, in that order.23 As the nineteenth century progressed, these terms were simplified and replaced by others such as ‘salutation, introduction, content, conclusion, and signature’.24 In rhetoric, a distinction is drawn between the elevated, the middle, and the humble style. A private letter to a friend, for example, calls for the humble style. These rules concur in part with the rules governing style in eighteenth and nineteenth century letter-writing manuals. Geerling, for instance, in his work De Nederlandsche briefsteller [The Dutch letter-composer], published in 1838, distinguishes between an ordinary style for letters to friends, an elevated style for letters of consolation and condolence, and a humble style for letters to children and servants.25 The letter-writing manuals use different terms to characterize the various styles, but almost all draw a distinction between business letters (short and clear), courtesy letters (elevated style), and letters to friends and family. There are virtually no stylistic rules for the latter sort of letters, in the view of the authors of letter and etiquette books. 20 ╇Anonymous, Nieuwe handleiding tot de manier van brieven schryven (Amsterdam 1770) 15–16. 21 ╇Anonymous, Nieuw brievenboek voor iedereen (Tiel 1862) 3. 22 ╇Anonymous, Handboekje der wellevendheid, voor school en huis (5th edn; ‘s-Hertogenbosch and Zwolle 1887) II, 61–67. 23 ╇See, for example, H. Jacobi, Gemene zend-brieven ([1597]; Venlo 1795) 2. This is a simplification of the traditional division of the oration into salutatio, captatio benevolentiae, narratio, petitio and conclusio. 24 ╇See, for example, G.C. Claudius, Volledig brievenboek (Tiel 1855) table of contents. 25 ╇Geerling, De Nederlandsche briefsteller, II.

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In addition to this distinction on the basis of the type of letter involved, the style was chosen in accordance with the nature of the recipient. This rule too can be traced back to the concept of ‘aptum/ decorum’ (aptness) in classical rhetoric. Thus one must be polite in writing to one’s superiors. Moreover a letter to such a recipient should not be too long, and should not dwell on trivial matters; the recipient has no time to read extensive missives. On the one hand, then, the influence of classical rhetoric can still be seen in letter-writing manuals in the period from 1770 to 1850; on the other hand, the rhetorical terms were increasingly being simplified, and were often infused with a new meaning. In the Netherlands, the importance of rhetoric for both teaching and scholarship diminished sharply from about 1840. Partly due to the influence of Romanticism, the personal and individual aspects of language came to the fore. The idea was that a ‘true’ artist threw convention to the wind, and was ‘spontaneous’, ‘natural’ and ‘direct’.26 Gellert and the notion of naturalness As the nineteenth century progressed, the idea was emphasized more and more frequently that letters to friends and family were not subject to rules, that these letters were ‘composed in the pure and natural language of the heart’.27 The natural style became the ideal. The natural style too was already known in classical rhetoric, but it was given a new lease of life in the mid-eighteenth century by the German author Christian Fürchtegott Gellert (1715–1769). Gellert was renowned, not only in Germany but also in the Netherlands, for his novels, poetry, fables, plays and letters. His work had an enlightened goal: to provide the bourgeoisie with moral guidelines for behaviour and for the expression of feelings. In 1751 Gellert published his treatise Briefe, nebst einer praktischen Abhandlung von dem guten Geschmack in Briefen [Letters, together with a practical essay on good taste in letters].28 In this work, Gellert advocated the abolition of both the jesting gallant style and the chancellery style (Kanzleistil), a stilted, bombastic and ceremonial style 26 ╇N. Laan, Het belang van smaak. Twee eeuwen academische literatuurgeschiedenis (Amsterdam 1997) 25, 107. 27 ╇Plokker, Oeffeningen, v. 28 ╇ Gellert had published a brief treatise on the subject in 1742. His treatises of 1742 and 1751 are published together in the facsimile edition C.F. Gellert, Die epistolographischen Schriften (Stuttgart 1971).



epistolary theory25

favoured in lawyers’ circles in Germany. Gellert believed that these styles should be replaced by an informal and natural style, appropriate for letters between friends. Moreover, Gellert aimed to stimulate the use of the German mother tongue as the language for letter-writing, rather than French. Thus although the ideal of the natural style was not entirely new, Gellert moved it into a new context and gave it a new emphasis. And Gellert found a large following for his ideas.29 The concept of ‘naturalness’ can only be understood in full depth when studied within the context of Gellert’s oeuvre as a whole, which is what Rafael Arto-Haumacher has so convincingly done. In all Gellert’s books, fables, and moral and religious reflections – which were enjoyed by many Dutch readers, including members of the Hubrecht and Hora Siccama families – his aim was to educate enlightened individuals who would attest true moral Bildung. Once people had internalized moral codes of behaviour, and that was Gellert’s endeavour, it would no longer be necessary to formulate explicit rules for correspondence; the letterwriter could simply rely on his general knowledge and would thus ‘spontaneously’ and ‘naturally’ be capable of composing good letters. For Gellert, therefore, ‘natural’ was synonymous with ‘morally right, in keeping with the morality of the bourgeoisie’.30 Well into the eighteenth century, the term ‘natural’ meant ‘fitting’ for the subject and purpose of the discourse, so in this way the connection with the rhetorical stylistic virtue of ‘aptum/decorum’ was retained. As the century progressed, however, the ‘natural style’ was increasingly linked with oral conversation, and detached from the sphere of rhetoric.31 ‘Naturalness’ was now associated not only with ‘fittingness’, but also with the idea of ‘artlessness’. In seventeenth-century rhetoric, ‘naturalness’ did occasionally mean ‘artlessness’,32 but in the eighteenth century this connotation seems to have gained the upper hand. Nevertheless, naturalness did not imply a total absence of rules. It is not to be equated with originality or spontaneity. This is a well-crafted

29 ╇Nörtemann, ‘Brieftheorie’, 212–213. According to R. Arto-Haumacher, Gellerts Briefpraxis und Brieflehre. Der Anfang einer neuen Briefkultur (Wiesbaden 1995) 15–20, 45, 55–56, Gellert did not entirely distance himself from classical rhetoric; his objections were directed more towards humanist ideals. See also R. Vellusig, Schriftliche Gespräche. Briefkultur im 18. Jahrhundert (Wenen 2000) 83. 30 ╇Arto-Haumacher, Gellerts Briefpraxis, 139–141. 31 ╇Vellusig, Schriftliche Gespräche, 118. 32 ╇ J. Jansen, Decorum. Observaties over de literaire gepastheid in de renaissancistische poëtica (Hilversum 2001) 229, 244–248.

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naturalness, and, in a similar vein, a letter must not be the same as a conversation, but must rather present the impression of a conversation, ‘imitating speech’.33 One letter-writing manual comments on its instructions for a natural style as follows: The style is worthy of being called natural if it concurs with the oral delivery befitting the case in question, and if it does not descend into fruitless verbosity. He who wishes to write informally must not offend against the rules of syntax, and must choose his words in such a way that they represent with ease the images he wishes to convey: let him refrain from poetic images and turns of phrase.34

The natural style is here associated with informality and conversation, and contrasted with the poetic style. Yet this does not mean freedom from rules, since the natural style must also be ‘fitting’ and grammatically correct. The natural style in the Netherlands Gellert’s treatise on letter-writing was published in Dutch translation in 1775. It was printed again in 1780.35 As early as 1766, the commentator and critic Van Goens expressed the desire for a Dutch translation of Gellert’s letter-writing manual.36 According to Noordhoek, Gellert was popular in the Netherlands due to both the high moral value of the  contents of his letters, and his innovative epistolary theory. He believed that Gellert’s criticism of German conventions in the area of correspondence was equally applicable to the upper classes in the Netherlands, who also employed a bombastic, grandiloquent style in letter-writing and also often wrote in French.37 What is certain is that from the final quarter of the eighteenth century, and throughout the entire nineteenth century, each and every ╇Arto-Haumacher, Gellerts Briefpraxis, 199–202. See also Vellusig, Schriftliche Gespräche, 26, 95. 34 ╇Claudius, Volledig brievenboek, 7. 35 ╇ 1775 saw the publication of Gellert’s ‘Verhandeling over den goeden smaak in brieven’ in: C.F. Gellert, C.F. Gellert’s mengelschriften (Amsterdam 1775) 243–330. The treatise was first published separately in Dutch translation in 1776, together with model letters: C.F. Gellert, C.F. Gellert’s brieven, benevens eene verhandeling over den goeden smaak in het schrijven van brieven (Utrecht 1776). 36 ╇R.M. van Goens, ‘Bedenkingen van den Philosophe sans fard over den staet der Letteren in Nederland, en ontwerp ener noodzakelyke vermeerdering van zyne Nederduitsche Boeken-kas’, Nieuwe Bijdragen tot opbouw der vaderlandsche letterkunde II (1766) 453–506, here 484. 37 ╇ W.J. Noordhoek, Gellert und Holland (Amsterdam 1928) 78–92. 33



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letter-writing manual propagated the natural style. This must have been in emulation of Gellert’s ideas. Gellert’s letters were also published as a model in Dutch letter-writing manuals.38 And yet the ideal of naturalness cannot be attributed entirely to Gellert. There must have been a broader espousal of ‘naturalness’ in society as a whole. Even at the beginning of the eighteenth century, for example, the lack of ‘naturalness’ among Dutch preachers was lamented. This did not mean a lack of ‘refinement’. In the case of preachers, speaking ‘naturally’ meant precisely adopting a tone that both befitted the subject under discussion and was ‘dignified’. The same held for painters and actors.39 Here we see various meanings of the term ‘naturalness’ coming together.40 Firstly, ‘naturalness’ could stand for ‘civilized’, ‘dignified’, or, in short, an ‘ennobled’ nature. Secondly, ‘naturalness’ referred to classical rhetoric’s concept of ‘aptness’: the style or tone must fit the theme, the speaker and the audience. Both these interpretations are found in epistolary theory from 1750 onwards, for instance in the lecture notes of Matthijs Siegenbeek (1774–1854), who in 1797 was appointed to a chair at the University of Leiden as the first professor of ‘vernacular rhetoric’ (vaderlandsche welsprekendheid). Siegenbeek lectured from 1797 to 1840. He believed it was very important that letters should be ‘entirely the work of nature, and [composed] as though by a light and carefree hand’: The highest merit of letters lies in this, that the intimate tone of refined conversation be imitated in them completely, and that they be governed by natural grace, uncontrived wit, and sparkling vivacity.

Although the phrase ‘a light and carefree hand’ might seem to imply a lack of constraints, it is clear that by ‘natural’ Siegenbeek means ‘refined’. This naturalness does indeed have its limits, as Siegenbeek points out: ‘For anybody must reasonably see that the style of letters will have to differ to some extent according to the differing nature of their content, rising or falling according to whether the content is more or less grave 38 ╇ G.N. Landré, Verzameling van brieven, om, met behulp der Nederduitsche taal, de jeugd, door het vertalen van geschikte en uitgezochte voorbeelden, tot de kennis van den Franschen briefstijl op te leiden ([1812] 3rd edn; Amsterdam 1839) x. 39 ╇H. Roodenburg, ‘Predikanten op de kansel. Een verkenning van hun “eloquentia corporis”â•›’, in: M. Bruggeman et al. ed., Mensen van de Nieuwe Tijd. Een liber amicorum voor A. Th. van Deursen (Amsterdam 1996) 324–338, here 333–334. See also Idem, The eloquence of the body. Perspectives on gesture in the Dutch republic (Zwolle 2004). 40 ╇See also A.O. Lovejoy, ‘â•›“Nature” as aesthetic norm’, in; Idem, Essays in the history of ideas ([1948] vijfde druk; Baltimore/Londen 1970) 69–77.

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and important’.41 Here we see echoes of the rhetorical concept of ‘aptum’ or ‘decorum’. Thus for Siegenbeek ‘naturalness’ means ‘artlessness’, ‘refinement’ and ‘aptness’ (befitting the content of the letter). This ‘aptness’ may encompass a potentially individualist element. For after all, a style which fits the letter-writer or speaker is a style which is not oriented towards particular rules of poetics, but rather emanates from the individual artist. J.M. Schrant, Siegenbeek’s successor as professor of rhetoric in Leiden, wrote in 1845 about speakers’ delivery – in this addressing above all trainee preachers and lawyers – that moderation and naturalness must be paramount. By ‘natural’ Schrant here means ‘refined’ or ‘dignified’, but also ‘as befits the nature of the speaker’. Oscar Westers speaks of a ‘process of transition from an “ennobled” to an “individualist” (modern) concept of naturalness’.42 A similar shift in the meaning of the term ‘natural’ is traced by the sociologist Richard Sennett: in the eighteenth century the term referred to that which all human beings had in common, whereas in the nineteenth century ‘natural’ came to mean precisely ‘fitting for a unique personality’.43 Gellert, but also his fellow German author Lessing, viewed individuality, along with naturalness and clarity, as characteristic of the new style of letter-writing. Letter-writers were to develop their own style.44 The call for naturalness and clarity, together with the plea for the use of the writer’s mother tongue, can be found in Dutch letter and etiquette books of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The authors of advice literature unanimously endorse the view that a letter should above all be clear and composed in a natural style. The stylistic requirement of individuality, however, is virtually ignored by the Dutch authors of letter-writing manuals. The word ‘individuality’ occurs rarely in this period. The few letter-writing manuals that do provide instruction on this matter speak of a ‘singularity of expression’45 or define the letter

41 ╇ UBL, Ltk 136, M. Siegenbeek, Lessen over de Nederduitsche welsprekendheid (Leiden n.d.) 250–251. See also E. Sjoer, Lessen over welsprekendheid. Een typering van de retorica’s van de eerste hoogleraren in de vaderlandsche welsprekendheid in de Noordelijke Nederlanden (1797–1853) (Amsterdam 1996) 114–116, 169–180. 42 ╇ O. Westers, Welsprekende burgers. Rederijkers in de negentiende eeuw (Nijmegen 2003) 218. 43 ╇R. Sennett, The fall of public man (New York 1992) 96. 44 ╇Vellusig, Schriftliche Gespräche, 118. 45 ╇S. van der Aa, Lessen over de wellevendheid ([1836] 2nd edn; Leeuwarden 1855) 169.



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along the lines of the following definition by G.C. Claudius: ‘The nature of the letter thus consists […] of the individual aspect that is singular to it, and by virtue of which it is a faithful image both of the human character and of the normal congress between human beings’.46 However, these quotations are the exception, and date from the middle of the nineteenth century. Before that time, it seems to have been less important whether the sender made his own mark on a letter. Although the plea for a natural letter-writing style is ubiquitous from the end of the eighteenth century, the various meanings of the word ‘natural’ – ‘artless’, ‘apt or fitting’, ‘refined’ and ‘individual’ – are used indiscriminately. This will be demonstrated in more detail in Chapter 3, which focuses on children’s letters. The various layers of meaning make it difficult to discern exactly when the ideal of naturalness changed. There are several indications, however, that suggest that contemporaries perceived a change in style. The reviewer of an edition of the correspondence of the poet Willem Bilderdijk (1756–1831) published in 1836 characterizes Bilderdijk’s letters from 1779–1780 as ‘full of flattering compliments, after the fashion of that time’. The reviewer contrasts these older letters, revealing ‘a certain old-fashioned stiffness and artificiality’, with other letters of Bilderdijk’s which are governed more by ‘a natural tone and loose informality’. He also criticized Bilderdijk’s copious ‘use of loan words’ (from French) ‘when this was still more the fashion, and the pure Low German style was not yet so frequently employed’.47 On this evidence, then, a stiff, flattering style, together with French, was fashionable in about 1780, whereas at the beginning of the nineteenth century a natural style became the norm, and the use of French words declined. Barthold Lulofs, professor of Dutch language and literature, grammar and rhetoric, stylistics and public speaking at the University of Groningen, also discerned a new kind of style in the first half of the nineteenth century. In the foreword to an edition of his letters published in 1828, Lulofs commented that they were written in a ‘swift, free style, which one might do well to employ rather more in this country of ours’.48 A third example of the perception of a new sort of style can be found in a review from the Algemeene vaderlandsche letter-oefeningen ╇Claudius, Volledig brievenboek, 1. ╇Anonymous, VL (1837) I, 254–260, here 255, 259. 48 ╇ B.H. Lulofs, Reistogtje met de stoomboot naar Hamburg, in den zomer van 1826. Vol. 2 (Groningen 1827) vi. 46 47

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[General Dutch Essays in Letters]. In 1811, a reviewer censured a handbook for teachers and the bourgeoisie entitled Brieven, betrekking  hebbende op de meeste en belangrijkste gevallen, die in het dagelÂ�ijksch leven voorkomen kunnen [Letters relating to the most common and important cases that may occur in daily life], published in Utrecht  1810, on the grounds that it was lacking in ‘artlessness and simplicity’.49 In the above quotations, the contemporary natural style is contrasted with a mannered, artificial style, which is felt to be old-fashioned. It seems as though from about 1810 onwards the natural style in the sense of ‘artless’ had found broad-based support as the ideal style, but that, to judge from the criticisms, this style was not actually used in practice by all authors. Certainly the interpretation of the term ‘natural’ as ‘individual’ had not yet become generally accepted and was only propagated in the Netherlands from about the mid-nineteenth century. The discussion about a new natural epistolary style seems to be in line with the development of poetics in the period from 1770–1830. As Gert Jan Johannes sees it, in the Netherlands in about 1780 the ‘traditional, normative poetics’ came to be replaced by a ‘poetics of balance’, which strove to achieve a proper balance between rules and genius, nature and art, and ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ mental faculties.50 As stated above, incidentally, the Netherlands does not seem to have taken up the German call for individuality in epistolary style, or certainly not immediately. The same holds for the German understanding of the term ‘natural’ as ‘bourgeois’: in Germany the plea for a natural style was frequently interpreted as a protest on the part of the bourgeoisie against the dominant, artificial style of the nobility. Employing a natural style was seen as according a central role to the individual, and was read as a protest against the class society.51 To my knowledge, this equation between ‘artificial’ and ‘noble’, on the one hand, and ‘natural’ and ‘bourgeois’, on the other, is encountered only sporadically in the Netherlands. The playwright P.J. Peterson, for instance, has one of the characters in the comedy Het fatsoen [Decency] (1853) equate naturalness with Dutch bourgeois ideals, simplicity and inner refinement. ╇Anonymous, AVL (1811) I, 263–264. ╇ G.J. Johannes, De lof der aalbessen. Over (Noord-)Nederlandse literatuurtheorie, literatuur en de consequenties van kleinschaligheid 1770–1830 (‘s-Gravenhage 1997) 25. 51 ╇Arto-Haumacher, Gellerts Briefpraxis, 143–146. R.M.G. Nickisch, Brief (Stuttgart 1991) 48. Vellusig, Schriftliche Gespräche, 153. Linke, Sprachkultur, 4. 49 50



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This is contrasted with artificiality, ostentatious good manners, and foreign (above all French) influences.52 It is not the natural style in letter-writing that is at issue here, however, but the concept of naturalness in general. The writer Mark Prager Lindo also uses the term ‘natural’ with explicitly class-related connotations, if somewhat different ones. In the mid-nineteenth century, he mocks the child-rearing practices of the elite. Young ladies, who would later have to ‘glitter in high society’, were drilled so strictly by governesses and dancing masters that ‘by their twelfth year they no longer retained any of that so-called “naturalness” that should remain a distinguishing characteristic of the children of the lesser bourgeoisie and such people’.53 The artificiality of high society is here contrasted with the naturalness of the petty bourgeoisie. Whereas in Germany the nobility and the bourgeoisie are contrasted with one another, in the Netherlands (in this quotation, at least) the contrast is between the elite and the petty bourgeoisie. However, the fact that the term ‘naturalness’ is otherwise not often associated with class or rank does seem to point to a general, bourgeois advocacy of naturalness. Kloek and Mijnhardt have highlighted the egalitarian bourgeois culture in the Netherlands in about 1800, which placed a central emphasis on moral and cultural education. In principle, anyone could become a fully valued member of society.54 The ideal of naturalness also seems to be attainable for everyone. In practice, however, matters were more complicated, as will be demonstrated further in Chapter 3. In my view, it is important above all to study what connotations the term ‘naturalness’ took on in what situations. In this way, the question of whether naturalness is ‘genuine’ or ‘affected’ becomes less central. This question has indeed been the subject of discussion among German literary historians. According to Annette Anton, naturalness was merely a new convention, entirely devoid of authenticity. Naturalness was pure fiction. The more authentic a letter seems, the better the writer had mastered the trick of naturalness.55 Robert Vellusig, on the other hand, believes that Anton’s view is based on a false understanding of

╇P.J. Peterson, Het fatsoen. Blijspel in vier bedrijven (The Hague 1853) 147–148. ╇ M. Prager Lindo, Brieven en uitboezemingen van de ouden heer Smits ([1854] 2nd edn; Arnhem 1854) 162. 54 ╇ Kloek en Mijnhardt, 1800, 585. 55 ╇A.C. Anton, Authentizität als Fiktion. Briefkultur im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart 1995) 134. 52 53

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naturalness. According to Vellusig, ‘naturalness’ means ‘self-control, ease’. Naturalness does not refer to an authentic ‘I’, one who does not adopt any kind of pose or deliberately present himself or herself to the external world, but rather to a person behaving in company exactly as he would if he were alone: as a person unobserved, a full-blown social being. It means that the person in question does not show that he or she has to make an effort to behave socially in company; he must give evidence of a character which is civilized at all times.56 As I see it, naturalness is a convention, certainly, but a flexible one: the concept of naturalness can be given various meanings. For me the issue is not whether naturalness in the eighteenth and nineteenth century was authentic or affected, but how this concept was interpreted by whom. Epistolary theory in practice Women as letter-writers par excellence The German author Gellert propagated a natural style for letter-writing, and he believed that it was above all women who were proficient in it. Gellert saw women as letter-writers par excellence: in his view, women were more sensitive and lively than men, and more susceptible to external impressions. He believed that this found expression in their letters: they were more often led by their heart than their head in writing, meaning that they were not bound by rules (regarding genre etc.), and produced freer epistles.57 This view was widespread. Geerling, for instance, writes in his De Nederlandsche briefsteller [The Dutch lettercomposer] (1838) as follows: ‘generally speaking, it is women who write the pleasantest letters, because most of them set down their thoughts naturally, unaffectedly, without preconceived rules’.58 These sorts of views are in line with the general image of the nature and character of women as expressed in gender difference theory. This semi-scientific typification of the sexes, developed in the late eighteenth century by Kant and Rousseau among others, found quite a following in the Netherlands from 1800, and was popularized in the nineteenth century. According to this pattern, women were naturally ╇Vellusig, Schriftliche Gespräche, 92, 156. ╇Arto-Haumacher, Gellerts Briefpraxis, 81. 58 ╇Geerling, De Nederlandsche briefsteller, v. J.H. Martinet, Huisboek voor Vaderlandsche huisgezinnen (Amsterdam 1793) 388–389. 56 57



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passive and sensitive, finding their true calling in domestic life; men were more suited to activity, rationality, and public life.59 The idea that women could write natural letters without a great deal of effort or reflection – letters intended, moreover, for members of their families – fitted nicely with this view. Men, on the other hand, were thought to consider much more carefully before writing something down, and the result was thought to attest to their analytical minds. It was not only the authors of letter-writing manuals who proclaimed the aptitude of women for correspondence; we also find this idea in epistolary novels. One such instance is De historie van den Heer Willem Leevend [The history of Willem Leevend, Esquire] (1784–1785) by two female authors, Betje Wolff and Aagje Deken, in which one of the characters announces that ‘The talent for letter-writing seems to be the monopoly of the ladies’.60 One reviewer of the advice book Brieven eener Moeder aan Dochters uit den Beschaafden Stand, bij hare intrede in de wereld [Letters of a mother to daughters of polite society on their entry into the world] lamented: ‘The tone of the letters is indeed motherly, but the style is not a woman’s style: it lacks that individual, inimitable, lively, piquant element that so clearly characterizes woman. Cold reasoning prevails, calculation, one could almost say, rather than sentiment restrained and guided by reason’.61 And even Willem Brill’s academic Stijlleer [Style Guide], published in 1866, views the letter as the ‘woman’s platform’: Women, it is truly said, excel in the art of letter-writing. Indeed, the letter is, as it were, the ‘woman’s platform’: by means of the letter she not only maintains the bond of love between distant relations, but is also capable of exercising an undisputed influence on significant interests. And yet, should one consider the letters of a woman who is not in any other respects a writer a literary work? Yes indeed, for if the letters are excellent, they have been preceded by a lengthy and serious course of study: not study of literature, but study of the art of living. Only a woman who has learned to move among people with grace and who, to become experienced in everything, has learned to deny herself – in a word, a woman who has known love – is capable of excelling at letter-writing. Love is the Muse of female epistolography, because she shapes the language and the

╇T. Streng, Geschapen om te scheppen? Opvattingen over vrouwen en schrijverschap in Nederland, 1815–1860 (Amsterdam 1997) 10–14. 60 ╇E. Bekker and A. Deken, Historie van den heer Willem Leevend. Vol. 7 (‘s-Gravenhage 1784–1786) 146. 61 ╇Anonymous, DR I (1850) 205–208, here 205. 59

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chapter one style; she creates a harmonious mood and opens up the source itself, from which the right expressions flow; and above all, she teaches the art of framing things decorously, and gives [the writer] the strength to withhold that which she must be able to bear alone.62

In Brill’s opinion, women excel at letter-writing because they maintain family relations through letter-writing. The source of their inspiration is love of others, which allows them to be self-effacing. Although the association of women with letters was predominantly positive, more negative connections were also made. According to an account in the journal De tijd, manuscripts written by women contained ‘inevitable errors in style and spelling’.63 Women are also alleged to write more sloppily: ‘Ladies are inclined in their letters to be excessively high-flown, and generally pay all too little attention to the laws of punctuation’.64 Women were seen as more likely to add postscripts to their letters, which was a further sign of sloppiness. A postscript in a woman’s hand might also attest to her insatiable need to talk.65 The physician C. Pruijs van der Hoeven summarizes the ideas about the sexes and letter-writing neatly in his Levens-Studiën [My Life: A Study]: Women are better than men at writing letters. Our letters often have something stiff and uncomfortable about them, and lack that easy grace that one would gladly exchange for a few errors of spelling or language. That floating back and forth of mental images conflicts with our stately pace of argumentation.66

Egocentrism and the private sphere So the ideal style for letter-writing was the natural style, and women were held to command it to perfection. Brill believed that one of the reasons for women’s aptitude for writing letters lay in their capacity for self-effacement. Not everybody agreed with this view. Two authors of 62 ╇ W.G. Brill, Stijlleer (Rhetorica, Letterk. Encyclopedie en Kritiek) (Leiden 1866) 96. This opinion is shared by J. ten Brink, De roman in brieven 1740–1840 (Amsterdam 1889) 124. 63 ╇ F.G., ‘De zijden koord, of de kindermoordenares’, De tijd 20 (1854) 128. 64 ╇ J. Ch. Dolz, Lessen over de gezellige welvoegelijkheid voor jonge lieden (rev. 3rd edn Zutphen 1820) 21. See also P. Chesterfield, Lord Chesterfield’s advice to his son on men and manners ([1774]; Chiswick 1826) 47: ‘inaccuracies in orthography, or in style, are never pardoned but in ladies; nor is it hardly pardonable in them’. 65 ╇E.C. van der Mandele, Het Wetboek van Mevrouw Etiquette in 24 artikelen (Arnhem 1893) 92. J. van Rijnkerke-Olthuis, De vrouw in haar huis en daarbuiten (Schiedam 1889) 260. 66 ╇ C. Pruijs van der Hoeven, Levens-Studiën (Utrecht/Amsterdam 1857) 3.



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late nineteenth century etiquette books believed that women tended precisely more towards egocentrism. Engelberts, first of all, writes as follows: In letters, the person writing moves into the foreground, the subject written about into the background. A capable writer has difficulty in overcoming this; and that is the reason why women find letter-writing infinitely easier than men.67

In his etiquette book, Engelberts not only emphasizes that women are better at writing about themselves than men, who are more fitted to narrating a story for a broader public; he also, in passing, characterizes women as incapable of writing for the public at large. Louise Stratenus, too, saw egocentrism as a typically female trait, which she censured: ‘young women have a tendency to lament about all the misfortunes of the world […]. I need scarcely point out, however, what self-love and egotism this reveals. […] forgetting ourselves, that is what it always comes down to, in correspondence as otherwise.68 It was not only at the end of the nineteenth century that egocentrism in correspondence was seen as problematic. From the first half of the nineteenth century, the authors of letter-writing manuals instructed that one should not write too much about oneself in letters to others; Plokker, for instance, wrote in 1836: ‘as much as possible, one should avoid speaking of oneself, since this would betray too great a self-love’.69 A letter may thus never begin with the word ‘I’, as ‘this borders on egotism, i.e. self-interest and giving precedence to oneself and one’s own ego’.70 The earliest reference I have encountered to this focus on the self is found in De keizerlijke secretaris, published in 1811, which advises that letter-writers should entirely forget themselves in congratulatory letters.71 This prohibition of egocentrism in advice literature may perhaps have been a response to letter-writing practice. It is possible that people began to write more about themselves in the nineteenth century, as Gay maintains.72 Another possibility is that under the influence

╇Engelberts, De goede toon, 21. ╇L. Stratenus, Brieven (Gouda 1885) 26–27. 69 ╇Plokker, Oeffeningen, v. 70 ╇S.L. Brug, Nieuw brievenboek voor leerlingen van 8 tot 13 jaar (Harlingen 1862) 23. See also Andriessen, Handleiding, 16–18. Van der Aa, Lessen over de wellevendheid, 179. 71 ╇Anonymous, De keizerlijke secretaris (Amsterdam 1811) 133. 72 ╇Gay, The naked heart, 329. 67 68

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of Romanticism the ego became a cultural theme, which then also found its way into letter-writing manuals. One way or another, the degree to which the sender is central to a letter was problematic in the first half of the nineteenth century. Another matter discussed was to what extent a letter was actually private. The principle of the privacy of correspondence was enshrined in  Dutch law in 1804, and included in the constitution in 1848; but this  legislation was directed mainly towards curious postal officials. Most letter and etiquette books worked on the premise of one sender and one recipient: ‘Equally, two persons must not write in one and the  same letter, except in the case of very great intimacy with the one  who will receive the letter’.73 Just as it was inadvisable to hire a third  party to write a letter, it was not proper to afford others, such as servants, the opportunity to familiarize themselves with a letter’s contents: Never leave your letters lying around, and always deprive them of the opportunity to read them, even if they are only of the very slightest consequence. Whenever an opportunity presents itself, you must tell them that even if their letters were lying there openly, you would not wish to inspect them surreptitiously, because letters must always be sacred; but that the best thing would be for them to lock theirs away too. Never leave your torn up letters in the privy.74

In the lavatory, the ‘privy’, apparently even old letters, which had already been read and were left there to be used as lavatory paper, were in danger of being read. Good manners also required that one should suppress one’s curiosity, according to several etiquette books, including the following: One must not appropriate other people’s letters, or, if they do by chance fall into our hands, give them to others to read. One may only read other people’s letters if the owner of the letter permits it, or expressly requires it; and in such letters one may only read that which one is permitted to read.75

Letters were thus defined as private documents, although the boundaries were not always very clear. Anna Barbara van Meerten-Schilperoort,

╇J.V.D.L., De wellevendheid en gebruiken der wereld (The Hague 1841) 143. ╇Martinet, Huisboek, 449–450. 75 ╇B. Galura, Onderrigtingsboek der christelijke wellevendheid ([1821] 3rd edn; Leiden 1840) 237–238. 73 74



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for instance, who was both a writer and the head of a boarding school, advised her readers never to read their husbands’ letters without permission.76 A dialogue in the Historie van Willem Leevend [History of Willem Leevend] the epistolary novel by Wolff and Deken published in 1784–1786, in turn discusses the question of whether a husband may read his wife’s letters. One character, Mr Ryzig, asserts that his wife’s letters are forbidden territory for him. His wife’s feelings on the matter are ambivalent: on the one hand she thinks that a man must surely be completely uninterested in the ‘chattering sessions held among half a dozen female pens’; on the other hand she believes these ‘precious trifles’ to be so dear to women that a man should not be allowed to read them just for curiosity’s sake.77 By contrast, in his novel Schetsen uit de Pastorij te Mastland [Sketches from a parsonage in Mastland], originally published in 1843, Cornelis van Koetsveld has a clergyman say that his wife has his tacit consent to read his letters from Uncle Jan, since he and his uncle do not exchange secrets. These letters ‘are part of the community of property formed by our marriage’.78 The fact that the question of whether the partners in a marriage might read one another’s letters was raised – and that the answer was by no means unanimous – shows that the private nature of letters was an issue for discussion. Furthermore, from about 1810–1830, discussion arose about the degree to which a letter could be about the sender himself or herself. Both discussions point to the increased importance of the private sphere and the position of the individual, and also highlight that these matters were not unproblematic. Teaching writing But just how, in concrete terms, should a correspondent learn to write letters? Letter-writing manuals for children, especially, addressed the matter of how one should learn to write. A few authors of letterwriting manuals who belonged to the Maatschappij tot Nut van ‘t Algemeen were of the opinion that children should first copy texts such as accounts and instructions before they could learn to write 76 ╇A.B. van Meerten-Schilperoort, Encijclopédie of handboek van vrouwelijke bedrijven en raadgever in alle vakken van den vrouwelijken werkkring (Amsterdam 1835) 188–189. 77 ╇ Bekker en Deken, Historie van den heer Willem Leevend, 148. 78 ╇C.E. van Koetsveld, Schetsen uit de Pastorij te Mastland ([1843] 6th edn; Schoonhoven 1863) 256.

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letters independently.79 Other authors distinguished various stages in learning to write letters, with the teacher or the letter-writing manual giving less and less help to the pupils as time went on. Anna Barbara van Meerten-Schilperoort, who was herself in charge of a boarding school for girls, read letters aloud to children of eight or nine, who could already write to a certain extent; as the next step, she read out the answering letter, and the scholars then had to write it themselves. After this, the pupils read out their letters, and Van Meerten-Schilperoort commented on them. With slightly older children, more or less the same pattern was followed, but the model answer was read out less often or not at all. Only once the pupils had composed their own answering letters did the teacher read the model answer to them, after which the children were given another chance to modify their own letters. The best letter in the class had to be copied out in draft by all the pupils; then, when they went home they had to write out a fair copy on proper writing paper, with an address, place, and date; it had to be correctly folded, and sealed using a wafer or wax. The highest class were only given a subject about which to write a letter. They were no longer presented with a model letter to answer.80 Where children were involved, learning to write letters often went hand in hand with learning other skills. Some teachers instructed their pupils to correspond with one another about the content of books they had read.81 In this way they not only learned to write, but also to understand and digest literature thoroughly. The letter-writing manuals also provided adults with advice about the best method for learning to compose letters. The correspondent should consider well in advance what he actually wanted to write, so that he would ultimately compose a structured letter: One should therefore, in an orderly manner, write down the main points that will be addressed in a letter, then think carefully about each point, and again, in the same way, write out each idea in itself. Once one has finished with this, one should read over what one has written with strict precision; changing the place of one idea or another, or perhaps choosing a different word, can sometimes add much in the way of greater clarity. 79 ╇Anonymous, Voorschriften tot het opstellen en schrijven van brieven en andere schriftelijke opstellen, in: Stukken het schoolwezen betreffende. Vol. 8 (Leiden/Deventer/ Groningen 1806) 1. Suringar, Onderzoek, 79. 80 ╇A.B. van Meerten-Schilperoort, Oefeningen voor min- en meergevorderden, in den briefstijl, en in het maken van schriftelijke opstellen (Dordrecht 1830) vi. 81 ╇Suringar, Onderzoek, 93–94.



epistolary theory39 One would have to be already fairly proficient at the art of letter writing to be able to compose a letter just like that, without making a draft (or copy) of it beforehand.82

For the same reason, all the letter-writing manuals advised against the postscript: this would betray the fact that the sender had not thought carefully enough about the structure of the letter before sitting down at his desk. Incidentally, when the sender took his place at his desk, he was also to bear his posture in mind: The position of the body in writing must be natural and unforced. The head should not hang forward too much; the knees should not be crossed over one another; the back must not be too bent, and the stomach and chest should not be pressed against the table. The desk should not be too high, and should not stand at too great a distance from the writer. The eyes must be constantly focused on the paper, and the shadow must always fall on the right, so that no shadow is cast on the paper by the hand or pen.83

Yet again it is evident that ‘natural’ posture does not come naturally. A good writing style could be developed, further, by reading good literature (though one had to be careful not to adopt ‘high-flown expressions’ from novels84), by practising writing a great deal, and by beginning a correspondence with a friend.85 With a few exceptions, the authors of letter-writing manuals aimed to teach people to write independently. The intention was not for them to copy out the model letters unthinkingly: ‘In a country which has a good school system, one should have no need of a book of formulas, like Claudius’s, to copy out, thus to strut with borrowed plumes. Each person should be able to express his own thoughts in writing’.86 Sorts of letters In addition to a discussion of the reason for the publication of the letter-writing manual in question and a section on epistolary theory in general, including a definition of what a letter is, most letter-writing ╇Anonymous, Nieuw brievenboek, 1. ╇Ibidem, 9. 84 ╇Claudius, Volledig brievenboek, 248–249. 85 ╇Martinet, Huisboek, 313. 86 ╇Brug, Nieuw brievenboek. See also Geerling, De Nederlandsche briefsteller, iv and E.W. Geuring, Theorie der liefde (Rotterdam 1869) vii. 82 83

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manuals included advice about writing various sorts of letters. The Handleiding tot de kunst van het brievenschryven [Guide to the art of letter-writing], probably written in about 1750, distinguished six main categories of letters: intimate letters (subdivided into letters of friendship and expressions of affection), letters of ceremony (subdivided into ceremonial letters, letters of congratulation, thanks, apology, condolence, and lament), love letters (gallant letters), courtesy letters, business letters (letters of notice, commercial letters, letters of consultation), and letters of entreaty (letters of petition and requests).87 Although there were many different typologies, they were often based on the same fundamental classification: the division into commercial letters, friendship letters, and courtesy letters. Other classifications used the terms ‘tradesmen’s letters’, ‘familiar letters’ and ‘polite letters’. The latter type was understood to include letters of condolence, congratulations, apology, invitation or notification. The term ‘familiar letters’ generally referred to letters to family members and close friends. There was a certain gradual change in the classification of letters. The ‘boertbrief ’, or jocular letter, a letter containing jokes exchanged among friends, was only mentioned as a genre in the eighteenth century; after that it disappeared from the letter-writing manuals.88 In addition to New Year’s greetings and birthday good wishes, letter-writing manuals in the second half of the eighteenth century alluded to the custom of composing Christmas, Easter, Whitsun and fair-day letters; this was no longer customary in the nineteenth century.89 Visiting cards, on the other hand, only made their way into letter and etiquette books in the course of the nineteenth century, although their use in society had been common practice for a long time.90 Sometimes the names of the different genres or subgenres changed. From 1855 one encounters the term ‘family letters’ in addition to ‘letters of friendship’. However, as the nineteenth century progressed, letter-writing manuals

╇Anonymous, Handleiding tot de kunst van brievenschryven ([1734–1791] 3rd edn; Amsterdam n.d.) 29–30. 88 ╇Anonymous, De volmaakte secretaris, 72. 89 ╇Jacobi, Gemene zend-brieven en B. Hakvoord, Gemeene zend-brieven (Amsterdam 1755). See also M. Oostra, ‘Een swijgende welsprekentheid. Schoonschriften en wensbrieven 1750–1850’ in: J. Bruintjes and R. Lipschits-de Leeuwe eds, ‘Een swijgende welsprekentheid’. Schoonschriften en wensbrieven – 1750–1850 (Heerenveen 2002) 7–17, here 7–8. 90 ╇J.V.D.L., De wellevendheid, 83–84. 87



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seem increasingly to have focused more on children’s letters and business letters.91 Completely new terms were coined in response to social and technological developments: letters of application, the telegraph (1845; the National Telegraph Service was set up in 1852, and the word telegram was used in the Netherlands from 1860), the postcard (1870), and the telephone 1881). Late nineteenth-century etiquette books were negative in their comments about the postcard, which was alleged to encourage laziness and to detract from true correspondence: Telegram style, which is taking an ever stronger hold, even on letter-writing, and which teaches lazy human nature to say everything in a few words, has created the correspondence card and, in the place of writing paper, the short correspondence notelet in an envelope; but that is not the end of it: laziness has gone still further, and has invented postcards with an ‘illustration’, in which the space available has shrunk to a ridiculous minimum. Reason enough to mark these things as much beloved means of correspondence.92

In Carel Vosmaer’s novel Inwijding [Initiation] (1888), a father complains about his children’s postcards: ‘Your postcards – that wretched invention that, together with the telegraph, is bringing long, sociable letters into disuse’.93 The author Louise Stratenus, too, looked back nostalgically in this period to an era in which people still excelled at the art of correspondence.94 The ‘external features of the letter’ Virtually every letter-writing manual drew a distinction between the ‘internal features of the letter’ (content and style) and the ‘external features of the letter’, which included writing materials and handwriting, the folding, sealing, addressing, and stamping of a letter, the use of envelopes, and forms of address.95 ╇ Chartier observes more attention in nineteenth-century letter-writing manuals for business letters, letters to the authorities, and letters to mark specific occasions, Chartier, ‘Des “secrétaires” pour le peuple?’, 200. In my view, in the eighteenth century, too, a great deal of attention is paid to letters for specific occasions. 92 ╇N. Bruck-Auffenberg, De vrouw ‘Comme il faut’ (Leiden 1897) 188. See also J. van Woude, Vormen. Handboek voor dames (Amsterdam 1898) 201. 93 ╇ C. Vosmaer, Inwijding (‘s Gravenhage 1888) 140. 94 ╇Stratenus, Brieven, 1, 25. 95 ╇Claudius, Volledig brievenboek, Table of Contents. 91

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As regards these ‘external features’, the authors admonished their readers, both male and female, to be careful above all to write neatly and legibly and not to make any ink blots on the letter. They should use good quality, black ink, well-cut quills, and fine white paper for writing. At the end of the nineteenth century, Mrs Van Rijnkerke-Olthuis warned in her etiquette book against cross-writing letters (covering a leaf of paper with writing both horizontally and vertically): ‘One should also avoid all that ugly crossing and scrawling all over every scrap of paper that had been left white; both paper and postage are so low in price these days that one does not have to be so economical with the former’.96 In choosing the format of the paper, the social status or position of the recipient was a major consideration: the more important the recipient, the bigger the paper. Very important individuals and authorities could expect letters in folio. Quarto would suffice for more everyday letters, but in the second half of the nineteenth century octavo became increasingly fashionable, as the authors of letter and etiquette books inform us. They were not enthusiastic, incidentally, about the use of coloured paper. Gilt-edged paper was permitted in love letters or letters of congratulation, although Geerling views this as a ladies’ habit: ‘in men it looks rather excessive’.97 Not only the format of the paper, but also the spacing between the salutation and the main text of the letter, and between this text and the signature, might reveal something about the relations between the sender and the recipient. The more generous the spacing, the more important the man or woman to whom the letter was addressed. The recipient’s social status was of course also expressed in the title by which he or she was addressed. Nearly all letter-writing manuals included extensive tables showing the correct forms of address. Although the authors of a few letter-writing manuals believed the use of titles was greatly exaggerated, they nevertheless agreed that this was a mandatory part of letter-writing instruction.98 In addition to advice about spacing and titles, many letter-writing manuals contained a section on how the letter should be dried and sealed. Using sand to dry the letter was a very bad idea, since the recipient would get a cloud of sand in his or her face on opening it; ╇ Van Rijnkerke-Olthuis, De vrouw, 261. ╇Geerling, De Nederlandsche briefsteller, xx. 98 ╇Anonymous, Gids door het leven (Amsterdam 1856) 269. A.C. Akveld, Groot brievenboek (2nd edn; Leiden 1873) 7. 96 97



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furthermore, it damaged the paper. Once the paper and writing materials had been chosen and the letter had been written and dried, it must be sealed and dispatched. A few books advised that if one was writing to a person of rank, one should not seal the letter with a wafer, but rather with red wax. In a few cases the reader was instructed about the instrument to use for sealing the letter: not a head, but a cachet, coat of arms or cipher.99 Before the use of envelopes became more widespread from about 1855, advice books also commented on the reasons to choose a particular type of cover. We see the same pattern when it comes to stamping; after the Post Office Act of 1851, which signalled the advent of the postage stamp, little advice was needed on this subject any more. The reason why the letter-writing manuals paid so much attention to the outward appearance of the letter was the opinion that the exterior of the letter afforded penetrating insight into the interior of the writer. A sloppy letter would reflect badly on the sender’s character. This is also apparent from a passage from the novel Onze Buurt [Our Neighbourhood] by Dorothea Bohn-Beets (1861). A servant has to post two letters: one by his own mistress and one by the mistress of a neighbouring servant girl. The servant placed the two letters side by side. The one by his mistress was white, properly folded, neatly sealed with wax; the address was written in a dainty hand. Mrs Rueel’s maxim was that everything that issued from a lady’s hand must testify to immaculate taste and purity. The letter from the other side of the street was bright purple in colour, and was sloppily stuck down with a wafer. The envelope was far too big, and since the servant had grasped it rather tightly in his hand, it became crumpled; as did its contents, which had initially slipped back and forth within it. The bearer was not aware that it was the character of the two writers he was posting into the steel letter box.100

Famous letter-writers as models The Netherlands If the tips from the letter-writing manuals were not sufficient, the reader could always consult the published works of famous correspondents. The authors of advice literature sporadically held up the

╛╛╛╛99 ╇A cypher is a motif of intertwined letters, especially the initials of a name, a monogram. 100 ╇ D.F. Bohn-Beets, Onze buurt (Haarlem 1861) 33.

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example of Cicero, Cardinal d’Ossat, Comte Bussy Rabutin, Dominique Bouhours, François Fénélon or Madame de Maintenon. But it is above  all the name of the French noblewoman Madame de Sévigné

Fig. 1╇ Madame de Sévigné (pastel; R. Nanteuil; from Émile Faguet, l’Histoire de la littérature française [22nd edition; Paris 1916]).]



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(1626–1694) that stands out. Madame de Sévigné was famous for her letters to her daughter, published posthumously from 1725. Critics and reviewers especially praised her ‘natural’ style. Madame de Sévigné and other literary correspondents were discussed in much more detail in contemporary literary works than in the advice literature. For this reason, the final section of this chapter focuses on reviews, style manuals, and literary histories, to answer the question of what, in the second half of the eighteenth and the nineteenth century, was perceived to constitute a good letter. The commentator and critic Van Goens, mentioned above, lamented in 1766 that so few original letters were published in the Netherlands. Dutch people, if requested, would only be able to name examples of famous letter-writers from abroad. Van Goens himself could think only of P.C. Hooft: ‘Hooft is certainly by no means the worst, and one may well cite him as an example of a good letter-writing style’. Nevertheless, Van Goens was not taken with the style of Hooft’s letters. It was too stiff and terse, and moreover reeked too much of ‘intellect’ and ‘invention’.101 This ambivalence was echoed by later critics. Hooft was indeed characterized as one of the first to have composed stylish letters in Dutch, but his style was considered too artificial.102 In his Stijlleer [Style Manual], Brill accused Hooft of lacking sincerity and simplicity: The writer’s modesty is too exaggerated to be sincere, and to matters which should be imparted with simplicity he devotes such an excess of contrivance that he deserves to be reckoned among those whom he himself somewhere accuses of ‘preferring duskiness in language to Dutchness, so as to appear in a more intellectual light’.103

These criticisms show that the ideal letter would have a natural style, which was what the authors of letter-writing manuals also advocated. Hooft did not live up to this ideal; Brill listed Madame de Sévigné, Juliana van Nassau, and Maria van Reigersbergh as examples of outstanding letter-writers.104

101 ╇ [Van Goens], ‘Bedenkingen van den Philosophe sans fard’, 480–481. See also Van den Berg, ‘Briefreflectie’, 1–2. 102 ╇Siegenbeek, Lessen, 253. P.J.B.C. van der Aa, ‘Redevoering over het belangrijke der briefverzamelingen van gewigtige personen’, AVL (1810) II, 357–366, here 361. 103 ╇Brill, Stijlleer, 95. 104 ╇Ibidem, 96.

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The letters of Maria van Reigersbergh, the wife of Hugo Grotius, were the subject of various comments in the second half of the nineteenth century. An extract from a few of her letters was published in an issue of the journal Vaderlandsche Letteroefeningen in 1824. The editor and owner of the letters considered them ‘helpful in obtaining a closer acquaintance with this shrewd and honest woman; furthermore, they are of some importance in themselves, or for the history of her husband’. According to him, the letters revealed – in addition to many other good qualities – ‘skills and talents which, to the extent that she possessed them, are seldom found in a woman, and which, incidentally, are more sought after in a man’.105 Maria’s letters were first published in a separate volume in 1857. Opinions about this correspondence were divided. Her letters were praised for giving an accurate picture of the times in which she lived, and for being ‘spirited and witty’.106 The authors of the introduction to a later edition professed to being attracted by the content of the letters and their witty comments, as well as by the fact that Maria van Reigersbergh, in their view, did not go in search of dainty words or pay a great deal of attention to her language and style.107 A more critical note about these letters was expressed by Robert Fruin, Professor in Dutch history at the University of Leiden. He did praise Maria van Reigersbergh for writing as she spoke; and certainly when compared with the ‘contrived and artificial writing’ of  Tesselschade Roemer Visscher, Maria’s natural style stood out favourably: The letters of Madame de Groot […] are more intimate talk than considered writing; they are just as natural as the letters of Madame de Sevigné, but infinitely less witty, because the Dutch mayor’s daughter, and the circles in which she moved, were infinitely less witty than the French aristocrat and her relations. And yet Maria is not lacking in ingenuity and acuity; she was known as incisive, and she shows herself thus in her letters, too.108

╇A.S., VL (1824) II 19–27, 176–185, 482–488 and 519–527, here 19, 522. ╇ M. van Reigersbergh, Brieven van Maria van Reigersbergh, H. Vollenhoven and G.D.J. Schotel eds (Middelburg 1857) xlvi. 107 ╇ M. van Reigersbergh, Brieven van en aan Maria van Reigersberch, H.C. Rogge ed. (Leiden 1902) 1–3. 108 ╇R. Fruin, ‘Hugo de Groot en Maria van Reigersbergh [review of Maria van Reigersbergh, H. Vollenhoven and G.D.J. Schotel eds (Middelburg 1857)], De Gids 22 (1848) II, 289–324; 417–473, here 291–296; 464, 467. 105 106



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Yet Fruin also had criticism in store. Although he praised Maria’s letters for their naturalness of style and their feeling, they did not always reveal the requisite female submissiveness. There were letters, for example, in which she contradicted her husband about the future of their son. Fruin was thus not content only to judge the letters’ style; he also scrutinized the character and behaviour of the woman writing them. But this criterion, too, deserves comment. For, Fruin explained, one should not pay too much attention to Maria van Reigersbergh’s character. This might detract from Hugo Grotius, ‘that great man […] into whose glory, as is fitting, her weaker light is subsumed’.109 In his essay, Fruin brings forward two criteria for judging correspondence which found broad acceptance. First, again, that a natural writing style is praiseworthy; second, that letters should reveal the character of the correspondent. These two criteria were stated explicitly by a critic reviewing an edition of the letters by the poet Bilderdijk published in 1837. Several of Bilderdijk’s letters from 1781–1803 were ‘dominated by a preponderance of natural tone and informal sincerity of friendship. Thanks to this unhampered expression of thinking and feeling, they seem thus to be quite suitable for getting to know Bilderdijk in some respects as a person’. Yet certainly not all of Bilderdijk’s letters were exemplary, in the opinion of this reviewer; some were marred by old-fashioned stiffness and artificiality, and this impeded access to Bilderdijk’s personality. A further criticism was that the poet’s own personality, his hypochondria, was too much at the centre of the correspondence.110 Critics often complained about Bilderdijk’s ‘pathological self-obsession’ in his letters.111 This criticism tallies with the letter-writing manuals’ warnings about egocentrism. Not a single Dutch letter-writer received the critics’ unqualified praise. The duo Betje Wolff and Aagje Deken were also included by some in the list of famous examples to emulate;112 others, however, characterized their letters as ‘not as natural as the intimate letter style demands; at times too pedantic and mannered, at other times verbose’.113 ╇Ibidem, 8. ╇Anonymous, VL (1837) I, 254–260, here 258. 111 ╇Brill, Stijlleer, 96. 112 ╇Ten Brink, De roman in brieven 1740–1840, 124. 113 ╇ W.J.A. Jonckbloet, Geschiedenis der Nederlandsche letterkunde. Vol. 5 (4th edn; Groningen 1891) 260. Lulofs characterizes the letters in their epistolary novels as 109 110

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According to the literary critics, then, a letter had to have a natural and simple style, as well as a certain amount of wit and vivacity; it should not, however, be too polished. Reviews of editions of letters by famous figures in literary journals such as the Vaderlandsche Letteroefeningen and De recensent, ook der recensenten reveal that these letters were judged on the criteria of genuineness, good style, interesting content, and the extent to which they provided information about the character (and especially the moral character) of the author and the times in which he or she lived. Correspondences were thought to constitute interesting reading material as ‘an excellent manner to gain insight into human nature and character’.114 Abroad The fact that various authors lamented that the Netherlands had produced too few good letter-writers, or at any rate too few editions of letters in Dutch, is fully in line with the picture that Johannes gave of Dutch literary criticism in the period from 1770–1830. At that time, Dutch art theory was seen as a valuable weapon in the fight against the Netherlands’ perceived cultural decline relative to the rest of the world, a means to give Dutch culture the boost it needed. From 1800, the weaknesses that critics noted in Dutch art and literature were reinterpreted as national virtues. The ‘noble simplicity’ of Dutch culture and literature was emphasized, for instance.115 Simplicity, together with naturalness, was one of the criteria for good letters; however, in discussions of Dutch editions of letters it was not viewed as a pre-eminently Dutch virtue. The letters of Hooft, for example, were considered not simple enough. Where letters were concerned, literary critics seem to have been unable to cast off the image of decline. Their search for true models continued to take them abroad. In addition to the prime example of Madame de Sévigné’s letters, the letters of Roman authors such as Cicero continued to be extolled well into the nineteenth century.116 Another famous name which has not been mentioned thus far is that of the English noblewoman Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. follows: ‘They radiate merriment and good sense, and the character of each of the letter-writers […] is aptly reflected in them.’ B.H. Lulofs ed., Lessen over de redekunst en fraaije letteren. Vol. 3 ([1788] 3rd edn; Groningen 1837) 102. 114 ╇ Van der Aa, ‘Redevoering’, 362. 115 ╇Johannes, Lof der aalbessen, 80. 116 ╇Lulofs, Lessen over de redekunst, 60–61. R.C. Bakhuizen van den Brink, Studiën en schetsen over Vaderlandsche geschiedenis. Vol. 3 (The Hague 1876) 417.



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Strangely enough, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762) was not proffered as a model in letter-writing manuals, but she was very much a presence in literary criticism. When her travel letters were published in the Netherlands in 1777, a reviewer in the Hedendaagsche Vaderlandsche Letter-oefeningen reminded readers that an earlier Dutch-language edition of letters of hers, published in 1763, had been ‘received with universal eagerness’. Her letters were praised for their ‘wit and perceptiveness’.117 A reviewer of the letters published in 1763 wrote: One should not be surprised that the letters written by a woman to intimate friends in the course of her travels are rather superficial. And yet the style is so fluent, the remarks so apt, the descriptions so handsome, that we believe we will give great pleasure to the readers of our literary exercises by sharing with them the greater part of the various letters.118

It was not only reviewers who presented Montagu’s travel letters in a good light. They were also much lauded in epistolary novels and treatises about rhetoric.119 In England, Montagu’s letters were viewed as a model of ladies’ letters: they were thought to embody naturalness, simplicity and elegance, in contrast to men’s letters, which were seen as stiff and artificial. Women were held to have raised conversation to a fine art, with the result that they could leap from one topic to another with great ease. This vivacity was prized in epistolary style. The association of women with conversation, and thus with liveliness and sensibility, had positive connotations. The written word was considered to constitute a barrier to the expression of feelings. At the same time, being associated with naturalness also meant that women must avoid giving an impression of learnedness, as otherwise the letter-writer might be characterized as an intellectual. The term ‘vivacity’ conjured up the old stereotype of superficial women’s chitchat. The reviewer quoted above literally uses the word ‘superficiality’ to characterize Montagu’s letters. For these reasons, the genre of the letter was taken less seriously as a 117 ╇Anonymous, HVL 1 (Amsterdam 1772) I, 490–492, here 490–491. See also C. Lowenthal, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and the eighteenth-century familiar letter (Athens 1994). The information on the reception of Montagu’s letters is drawn from the database ‘Women writers before 1900’: http://www.roquade.nl/wwriters. 118 ╇Anonymous, VL 4 (Amsterdam 1764) I, 124–137, here 124–125. 119 ╇ Bekker and Deken, Historie van Willem Leevend, 146. ‘Mesdames de Maintenon and Sévigné, and also [madame] Ninon, are excellent examples of true genius. Mylady Montagu is no lesser in her own sphere’. Lulofs, Lessen over de redekunst, 63–64.

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literary genre. The letter was associated with conversation and the private sphere, and not with literary works of art.120 The reception of women’s letters in literary criticism is comparable with the judgement of women’s novels. In the nineteenth century, women novelists too were often not viewed as artists, as the study by Toos Streng has shown. In the eyes of contemporary critics, women authors had a great deal of insight into the emotions, a keen eye for describing details, but a lack of analytical powers. The emotions or the household were considered suitable themes for women. Novels by women were thought to reflect more virtue and piety than works by men. Women novelists’ style was said to be weaker than that of their male counterparts.121 Thus although women novelists were not explicitly attributed with a natural style, when their literary works are appraised, the underlying associations with femininity are the same as with women letter-writers. It was, of course, not only critics who read literary letters. Catharina van Schinne read Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s letters in 1775, and Maria Hubrecht-van Lelyveld read them in 1797.122 Moreover, Montagu’s letters were prescribed reading at the Grammar School attended by one of the Hubrecht boys in the 1840s. Cicero’s letters were also on the curriculum.123 Johannes Kneppelhout, who later became a writer, had to read Madame de Sévigné’s correspondence at Noortheij, the boarding school he attended in Voorschoten.124 Finally, we can compare the results of this research into the criteria  for good letters in literature with a study by Keith Stewart, who examined eighteenth-century English letters, reviews of letters, and the  general discussion about rhetoric to arrive at a definition of the letter in this period. Stewart’s conclusion is that letters had to have

╇ C.E. Percy, ‘â•›“Easy women”: defining and confining the “feminine” style in eighteenth-century print culture’, Language sciences 22 (2000) 315–338. 121 ╇Streng, Geschapen om te scheppen?, 29–31. 122 ╇NA, FAVS, inv. no. 28, letter from Catharina van Schinne to Sara van Schinnevan Ruster, 8 Feb. 1775. GAL, FAH, letter from Maria Hubrecht-van Lelyveld to Ida Cecelia van Lelyveld, 15 July 1797. She mentions that she is reading ‘Miladi Montigné’. This could be either Lady Montagu or Madame de Maintenon, but the English title ‘Miladi’ suggests to me that she means Montagu’s letters. 123 ╇ GAL, library no. 50281/1, List of assignments for the course from 1836 to the summer vacation of 1837, from 22 August to 8 July. 124 ╇ UBL, Ltk 1656, letter from J. Kneppelhout to L.R. Beynen, 15 Aug. 1833. See also P. Smith, ‘Kneppelhout en de Franse klassieken’, De Negentiende Eeuw 26 (2002) 218– 235, here 227. 120



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Â� content – they had to be about more than just business or an invitation.  The person of the letter-writer was a very appropriate topic. Furthermore, to be interesting a letter required imagination, moulded by the personality of the sender. It must also be capable of creating in the reader a sense of proximity, as though he himself had been present at the events described. For this it was essential that the writer communicated his feelings honestly, and, moreover, tailored them to the character of the recipient. This was possible within the framework of a relationship of friendship. All these elements were intended to satisfy the reader’s curiosity. According to the eighteenth-century sources Stewart consulted, letters served to instruct and entertain. As far as the style was concerned, there were three requirements: naturalness, variety, and vivacity.125 Comparison with views expressed in similar Dutch sources from the final quarter of the eighteenth century and the nineteenth century reveals many similarities, but also several differences. The stylistic criteria are the same, as is the requirement that the letter should reveal the character of the writer. The importance attached to substance, on the other hand, and the idea of moulding the letter to fit the personality of the recipient are seldom encountered in nineteenth-century Dutch discussions of letter-writing. This might suggest the tentative conclusion that in the epistolary theory of the eighteenth century, the letter was a matter of both sender and recipient, whereas for nineteenth-century critics correspondence mainly revolved around the writer himself or herself. Howard Anderson and Irvin Ehrenpreis do indeed view the correspondents of the nineteenth century as more egocentric that their eighteenth-century predecessors.126 The censure of egocentrism in nineteenth-century letter-writing manuals, as discussed above, points in the same direction. Conclusion This chapter began with a discussion of the problems of using advice literature in general, and letter-writing manuals in particular, as a 125 ╇ K. Stewart, ‘Towards defining an aesthetic for the familiar letter in eighteenthcentury England’, Prose Studies 5 (1982) 179–192, here 186, 189. 126 ╇H. Anderson and I. Ehrenpreis, ‘The familiar letter in the eighteenth century: some generalizations’, in: H. Anderson et al. eds, The familiar letter in the eighteenth century (Lawrence 1966) 269–282, here 278–280.

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source. The relationship between theory and practice in these books is not straightforward. Some recommendations were a head-on attack on common practice, and will never have been adopted in full by readers – such as the advice not to add a postscript, since this would indicate that the sender had not thought the structure of his letter through in advance. The same holds true of the censure of untidy handwriting and blotting the page. These are examples of advice which tries to address a lack of norms in society, but which has little effect. In this respect, the function of such advice is probably more to propagate an ideal situation. Advice books also sometimes anticipated on new social demands in response to changing norms. Such advice was prompted by the increasing diversity in types of paper, for instance, or changes in postal services, and the introduction of new media such as the telegraph, postcards, or the telephone. Nevertheless, in many cases the relationship between norms and practice remains ambivalent. And what about the stereotypical images of women that surface in recommendations about correspondence? On the one hand, prejudices certainly played a role here: the idea that women were more natural than men, for instance, better at conversation, but less good at spelling. On the other hand, there may well have been a grain of truth in it. For after all, since women wrote letters more frequently than men, it is scarcely surprising that they were viewed as letter-writers par excellence. And perhaps they were indeed poorer at spelling than men, simply because they had received a different education that concentrated more on needlework and conversation than on grammar. The precise connection between norm and practice is also difficult to pin down when it comes to one of the preliminary conclusions of this chapter, namely that from the beginning of the nineteenth century letter-writing manuals forbade their readers to write too much about themselves. This seems to reflect the increased importance of the individual in society, perhaps under the influence of Romanticism. Letter-writing manuals from the eighteenth century were still influenced in part by classical rhetoric, but this influence decreased as the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries progressed. Such manuals, but also style manuals and epistolary novels, unanimously propagated the ideals of clarity, reflection, and above all a natural style. The concept of naturalness owed its popularity mainly to the German author Gellert, who also found a large following in the Netherlands. ‘Naturalness’



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could mean both ‘dignified’, ‘artless’, ‘individual’ and ‘apt’. Although there seems to have been a gradual shift from a ‘refined’ concept of naturalness to an individualist concept, the various meanings still continued to intertwine. From about 1810, the ideal of the natural style seems to have found more widespread support, and came to be contrasted especially with an old-fashioned, artificial, wooden style. The ideal of an individual writing style, as prescribed by famous German authors, was not adopted in Dutch letter-writing manuals. In addition to advice about the perfect writing style, letter-writing manuals also gave tips on the practical aspects of composing a letter. The fundamental principle in this was that the external appearance of the letter reflected the inner nature of the sender. Sometimes letter-writing manuals cited famous correspondents as a model. The most popular were Cicero and Madame de Sévigné, the pre-eminent examples of the natural style in letter-writing. Literary criticism provides us with yet more information about the reception of famous letter-writers. Few Dutch correspondents stood the test of criticism: Hooft wrote too artificially, as did Bilderdijk, who added egocentricity to his sins. Foreign authors fared rather better: Madame de Sévigné was well received, as was Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, whose travel letters were popular in the Netherlands both at the end of the eighteenth and in the nineteenth century. These women, above all, were held to epitomize a natural writing style. Literary critics praised letters for their natural style, the extent to which they revealed the character of the author, and their witty content. The latter criterion is virtually never encountered in the letterwriting manuals. For both the authors of letter-writing manuals and contemporary critics, the most important aspect was the self-image that the writer of the letter presented to others. The former put the emphasis on the sender making a ‘proper’ impression, as is clear from detailed tips about the outward appearance of the letter, which was supposed to mirror the inner qualities of the sender. The self-image in question, however, was one that could be manipulated, not the authentic ‘ego’ that the literary critics aimed to distil out of the published editions of letters. Moreover, the authors of letter-writing manuals viewed this ‘ego’ as problematic, since the danger of egocentrism was everpresent. The authors of these manuals and other rhetorical treatises also emphasized that the self-image presented should not only reflect the writer’s personality, but also live up to ideals concerning gender and social class. The authors of letter-writing manuals thus paid more

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attention to social circumstances, and viewed the letter more as a social instrument than did the literary critics, who were mainly concerned to access the character of the letter writer. The following chapter will investigate to what extent the epistolary theory examined in this chapter was actually applied in practice.

Chapter Two

Everyday correspondence Dearest mama, you ask me for an old-fashioned letter – by which I presume you mean a long one.1

Introduction ‘Nobody gives less thought than he to the form and style of a letter’, a certain Mr Falck lamented of an acquaintance in 1802.2 In 1825, Sophia Schimmelpenninck van der Oye van de Poll-van Rhemen sighed: ‘ma lettre ne sera pas selon toutes les regles’ (my letter will not live up to all the rules).3 These quotations suggest that there was a general sense that there were rules a letter should obey. But what were these rules? Were they the same as the ones propagated by the authors of letter-writing manuals, or did everyday epistolary practice have its own set of rules? And how were letters actually exchanged in everyday life? What were the material aspects and the contents of correspondence? The present chapter sets out to answer these questions. First of all, I shall discuss the material prerequisites for letter-writing: writing materials (such as pens, paper and ink), time, and space. After that, we will look at the postal system, especially in terms of how it influenced letter-writing practice. We then turn to the question of the language in which a letter was written: Dutch, French or Latin. What determined the choice of language? And how important were the salutation and concluding formula of the letter? After discussing the opening and concluding formulas, we will move on to look at the style of the letter. Did the correspondents of the Hubrecht, Van Lanschot, Van Schinne, De Constant Rebecque and Hora Siccama families model their own style on famous letter-writers? What did ‘style’ 1 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 44, Otto Hora Siccama to Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck, 21 May 1825. 2 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 41, O.W. Falck to Amelie Falck, 11 September 1802. 3 ╇ NA, FADCR, inv. no. 69V, Sophia Schimmelpenninck van der Oye van de Poll-van Rhemen to Juliana d’Ablaing van Giessenburg, 16 September 1825.

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mean in everyday correspondence? I then discuss the subjects treated in letters, and what subjects, on the contrary, were taboo. Finally, we will look at aspects of what people did with letters they had received: reading letters aloud and keeping them. These questions follow naturally from the previous chapter, which discussed the letter-writing manuals’ proscriptions concerning the internal and external features of the letter. The current chapter traces the similarities and differences between epistolary theory and epistolary practice. A second theme examined in this chapter is the performative function of letters, particularly how letters contribute to the process of identity formation. This emerges most sharply in the discussion of how the emotions and religion are handled in the correspondences studied. Writing materials and a place to write In the days before central heating, electricity, ballpoints and cheap paper, writing a letter was not always an easy matter. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a correspondent needed time, space, light, paper, ink and quills. Writing skills in general, and specifically some understanding of the external features and content of a good letter, were also important prerequisites. Two letters which Maria Oomen wrote to her mother in 1825, when she was at boarding school, show us what writing materials she felt she needed. In addition to ‘blue and grey paper’, ‘white paper’, and ‘a stopper for the inkwell’, she asked her mother to send her the following items: First and foremost, I wish to have a writing desk with a penknife, because this too I have to borrow. Most writing desks here are painted, there are also some made of mahogany, but all of them have in common that they are one sort bigger than the one I have at home, but do send it, s.v.plait, but I hope it will shut. I hope also to find a glass inkpot and a sand pot in it; I wish also that you would send my ruler and a pair of compasses with it.4

Maria’s writing materials thus included a writing desk containing an inkpot and a sand pot (the sand was scattered over the letter to dry the ink), paper in three different colours, a penknife, a ruler, and a pair of 4 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 135, Maria Oomen to Elisabeth Oomen-Ingen-Housz, 10 and 13 August 1825.



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compasses. In this, Maria ran counter to the instructions in the manuals, which advised against coloured paper and sand. The writing implement was a goose quill, which first had to be cut with a penknife in preparation for writing. Goose quills were cheap, but often made bad pens. From 1837, steel pens (dip pens) are mentioned in letters. Although the first pens of this type were already being produced from the start of the nineteenth century, they were then still too expensive for most, certainly compared with goose quills. Steel pens probably only became affordable in about 1840. In a letter written in 1831, Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck mentioned that she had seen advertisements in the papers for ‘Perry pens’, made by the British company Perry & Co.. She felt they were too expensive.5 Steel pens came in several varieties, so that letter-writers could choose one to suit their taste; this had naturally never been possible with goose quills.6 So Baroness De Constant Rebecque mentioned in a letter in 1856 that she had tried out a golden pen with a diamond nib, but found it did not write nicely.7 At the end of the nineteenth century, the goose quill as a pen would disappear completely with the advent of the fountain pen. Steel pens called for wove paper (paper without a watermark). Steel pens did not write well on other paper, as various letter-writers complained around 1840. Jan Hora Siccama, for instance, wrote to his brother Otto: ‘if I tell you I have steel pens, wove paper, and Stephens ink for my equipment, it can’t be a matter of my tools’.8 Paper in general was expensive. It was only from 1870 onwards that paper prices in the Netherlands started to fall.9 Sometimes only half a sheet of paper was used for a letter because otherwise the packet of letters would be too heavy, and thus too expensive, or because there was not enough paper. Mrs Van Schinne expressed fears, however, that writing on half a sheet of paper might be found impolite.10 Pauline van der Kun thought that a ╛╛╛╛5 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 68, Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck to Otto Hora Siccama, 17 December 1831. ╛╛╛╛6 ╇ N. Hall, ‘The materiality of letter writing. A nineteenth century perspective’, in: Barton and Hall, Letter writing as a social practice, 83–108, here 93, 96. ╛╛╛╛7 ╇NA, FADCR, inv. no. 120B, Juliana de Constant Rebecque-d’Ablaing van Giessenburg to Victor de Constant Rebecque, 21 April 1856. ╛╛╛╛8 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 74, Jan Hora Siccama to Otto Hora Siccama, 5 January 1840. ╛╛╛╛9 ╇O. de Wit, ‘Papier’, in: H. Lintsen et al. eds, Geschiedenis van de techniek in Nederland. vol. 2. Waterstaat en infrastructuur. Papier, druk en communicatie (Zutphen 1993) 199–221, here 220–221. 10 ╇ NA, FAVS, inv. no. 157, Sara van Schinne-van Ruster to Catharina van Schinne, 30 December 1773.

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half sheet would pass muster for a letter to her sister-in-law, but if she wanted to write to her mother-in-law she waited until she had a whole sheet at her disposal.11 It was not really appropriate, then, to use half a sheet of paper to write to people who deserved a great deal of respect. It is often assumed that people cross-wrote their letters because paper was so expensive. In my selection of letters, however, crosswriting is relatively rare. Moreover, nearly all the cross-written letters date from after 1845. This tallies with Hammer-Stroeve’s research into the elite of the Dutch town of Enschede: virtually all family letters in the last decades of the nineteenth century were cross-written.12 Yet this cannot be the result of higher paper costs, since the cost of paper actually fell from 1870 onwards. Perhaps the reduction in the price of paper was not marked enough. It is also possible that thrift was seen as particularly important in this period. The fact that it was only at the end of the nineteenth century that etiquette books took a stance against crosswriting suggests that this was a new habit, or that it only came to be viewed as problematic at this time.13 In this case the etiquette books seem to be responding to developments in letter-writing practice. From about 1840, letter-writers not only used white paper or blackedged paper (for mourning), but also sometimes light blue. Women and children, especially, even used paper in other colours, with a gilt edge, or with a floral or other decoration. Separate envelopes only became widespread in about the mid-nineteenth century. Before that time, the sender had to fold his or her letter up in a complicated manner and close it with a seal. In addition to pens, paper, and ink, writing required time and space. Some letter-writers had fixed times for dealing with their correspondence. Boys and girls at boarding schools often wrote letters early in the morning or late at night, or on Sundays. But many letter-writers did not keep to fixed times, or else this is difficult to reconstruct. It is also not easy to trace where exactly the men and women of the eighteenth and nineteenth century went to write letters. One or two of them allude  to writing in a bedroom or study, or at the kitchen table. Art historical studies about interiors show that in the nineteenth century ╇ RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 231, Pauline van Lanschot-van der Kun to Theodora van Lanschot, 9 March 1833. 12 ╇T. Hammer-Stroeve, Familiezoet. Vrouwen in een ondernemerselite, Enschede 1800–1940 (Zutphen 2001) 119. 13 ╇ Van Rijnkerke-Olthuis, De vrouw, 261. 11



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Fig. 2╇ Cross-written letter from Ambrosius Hubrecht to Paul Hubrecht, 16 September 1847 (Leiden Municipal Archives). the secretaire, a writing desk with space to store papers, letters and pens, often with a slanting (fold-out) writing surface and an inkpot, generally stood in the bedroom.14 Sometimes the secretaire was placed in a spare bedroom, study or library (for men), or in a semi-public area such as a drawing room. An inventory of household effects drawn up in 1852 for the house on the Rapenburg in Leiden inhabited by the Hubrecht sisters shows that there was also a secretaire in the main drawing room, the most representative room in the house, where the members of the household received visitors, made music, talked or read.15 14 ╇ J.M. van Voorst tot Voorst, Tussen Biedermeier en Berlage. Meubel en interieur in Nederland 1835–1895 (Amsterdam 1992) 2 vols, 131, 601, 654, 711–712. 15 ╇ Th.H. Lunsingh Scheurleer et al. eds, Het Rapenburg. Geschiedenis van een Leidse gracht (Leiden 1986) vol. V, 149, 169, 210–211. See also G. Mette, ‘Der private Raum als öffentlicher Ort. Geselligkeit im bürgerlichen Haus’, in: D. Hein and A. Schulz eds, Bürgerkultur im 19. Jahrhundert. Bildung, Kunst und Lebenswelt (München 1996) 155– 169, here 163.

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There were special secretaires for ladies. These writing desks were smaller, lighter, and more elegant than men’s. Sometimes ladies’ secretaires included mirrors, so that they could also serve as a dressing table. In this context, Siebel draws attention to the symbolic and representative function of a lady’s secretaire in the drawing room: since it would have been impossible to really work to any great extent at a little desk of this kind, this piece of furniture did not conjure up any associations with labour. Rather, in analogy with the social position of women in the highest circles of society, it had a mainly decorative function.16 In addition, more simple writing tables or writing desks were available, at which one could either sit or stand and write. These pieces of furniture also often had a space, known as a cassette, in which one could keep letters or papers. Letters could also be kept in pocket portfolios or writing cases. The ladies’ magazine Penélopé, for example, printed patterns for making a writing case.17 While the correspondents seldom give any information about where exactly they are writing, they do often allude to lacking the peace and quiet to think properly about the style and contents of their letters. Many women lament that they are constantly disturbed by their children or household duties, forcing them to interrupt their writing. Elisabeth Steenlack-Francken, for instance, sighed: ‘it was my intention to write to you already at the beginning of the week, but I have been hindered until today by preserving beans, rosehips and that sort of thing’.18 And Marie Hubrecht-Pruys van der Hoeven begged: ‘please forgive this letter being written in fits and starts, but there can be little chance of well ordered letters with the little fellow, at least for the time being. Maybe I’ll learn it again one day’.19 A friend of Julie d’Ablaing van Giessenburg’s tried to write with her child on her lap. She had been interrupted six times already, so she begged forgiveness for her letter being short, badly written, and trivial.20 So women often took care of their correspondence in the presence of others.

16 ╇E. Siebel, Der großbürgerliche Salon 1850–1918. Geselligkeit und Wohnkultur (Berlijn 1999) 177. 17 ╇ A.B. van Meerten-Schilperoort ed., Penélopé III (Amsterdam 1825) 124–125. 18 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 409, Elisabeth Steenlack-Francken to Abrahamine HubrechtSteenlack, 11 September 1840. 19 ╇GAL, FAH, inv. no. 433, Maria Hubrecht-Pruys van der Hoeven to Pieter Hubrecht, 29 May 1853. 20 ╇ NA, FADCR, inv. no. 69V, Sophia Schimmelpenninck van der Oye van de Pollvan Rhemen to Julie d’Ablaing van Giessenburg, 18 December 1828.



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In addition to a lack of time, and interruptions from children, common excuses for not writing, or writing tardily or badly, include poor quality pens, cold fingers, frozen or mediocre ink, blots, and inadequate paper. Letter-writers also complain about having too little light. Right up to the second half of the nineteenth century, people wrote by candlelight. Oil and camphine lamps came on the market in about 1820. But these lamps had several disadvantages: the fuel supply was poor and the flame not very bright; the wick charred quickly; and the lamps gave off greasy fumes. It was not until about 1850–1860 that the petroleum lamp provided a better alternative.21 However, even once the writer had dotted the ‘i’s, crossed the ‘t’s, and signed the letter, there were still things that could go wrong. The letter then had to be sealed with a wafer or warm wax. Correspondents warned one another not to write anything on the spot where the wafer would be, as otherwise sentences would be lost when the letter was opened. This led some correspondents to use an envelope. Using a tool known as a cachet, a seal (also referred to as a cachet) was stamped into the warm wax. The seal might show a family crest, for instance, or a monogram. Pietje van Capellen’s seal featured the letter P with a crown. As with ladies’ writing desks, there were special seals for women. Abrahamine Steenlack, for example, asked her fiancé to have a diamond-shaped lady’s seal made for her by a metal smith. The seal should preferably be made of iron or steel, and Abrahamine sent a pattern.22 Thus writing materials could express a gender identity. There were also aesthetic aspects to the seal. Sophia Schimmelpenninck van der Oye van de Poll-van Rhemen expressed the hope that her friend Julie would have noticed on opening the letter that she had sealed it by pressing her pretty gold signet ring into the wax.23 A seal could thus be an expression of an individual’s own taste, class, or gender. In addition to using special paper or pens, an elegant desk, or other writing materials, the letter-writer could use his or her seal to create a particular image for the recipient. This was stimulated by the growing range of writing attributes as the nineteenth century progressed.24 21 ╇ M. Stokroos, Verwarmen en verlichten in de negentiende eeuw (Zutphen 2001) 63, 69. 22 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 408, Abrahamine Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht, 5 August 1828. 23 ╇ NA, FADCR, inv. no. 69V, Sophia Schimmelpenninck van der Oye van de Pollvan Rhemen to Juliana d’Ablaing van Giessenburg, 22 July 1826. 24 ╇ Hall, ‘The materiality’, 87.

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Writing desks and other writing materials belonging to fondly remembered relatives were often passed down within the family. Paul Hubrecht received his grandfather’s seal after the latter’s death.25 When Julie d’Ablaing van Giessenburg was invited by her aunt to come and stay for some time, she was allowed to bring one of her mother’s favourite pieces of furniture with her. She chose her mother’s secretaire.26 When Jan van Heukelom’s mother died, his father gave him her writing box.27 Since correspondence was a daily activity, and the writing materials inherited were thus used every day, this was a way of keeping alive the memory of the deceased. Post Once all the material conditions for composing a letter had been met, and the letter had been written and sealed, of course it also had to be delivered. In the early modern period postal services were not centrally organized, but were in the hands of municipal authorities, corporations or private companies. The first step towards centralization was when the postal services in the provinces of Holland and West Friesland were transferred to the regional authorities in 1747. In 1799, all the postal services in the Batavian Republic were nationalized. Although in 1794 fines were introduced for sending letters outside the official postal service, it did still happen. It was common practice to send letters with stage-coaches, steam boats, ferries, and canal barges. This was often a cheaper alternative. In order to counteract these practices further, in 1807 the government proceeded to introduce a state monopoly on the transport of letters. The same law ensured uniformity in the regulations and charges for postage, and created more post offices. The postage costs for a letter were calculated according to its weight and the distance it was to cover. Nevertheless, the postal system was far from perfect. Despite the state monopoly, there was an increase in the sending of letters via the forbidden alternative channels. The authorities turned a blind eye. 25 ╇GAL, FAH, suppl. II, box 19, Paul Hubrecht jr. to Ambrosius Hubrecht, n.d. [1846]. 26 ╇ NA, FADCR, Agnes Dedel-Corver Hooft to Julie d’Ablaing van Giessenburg, inv. no. 69P, 23 November 1826. 27 ╇GAL, FASVH, inv. no. 148, Jan van Heukelom sr. to Jan van Heukelom jr., 15 February 1856.



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A further problem was the complicated and expensive system of charges. Letters were only delivered free of charge in towns or villages with their own post office. In the other villages, there was a basic delivery charge of 2.5 cents, and this amount increased according to distance. Yet another problem was how to protect letters. This was the reason for the introduction in 1804 of legislation to safeguard the privacy of correspondence. When the constitution was revised in 1848, the new constitution enshrined the concept that this privacy was sacrosanct. A new Act governing postal services was seen as the way to solve the problems of the illegal carriage of letters and the complicated and excessive postal charges. Far-reaching reforms in the postal system in England perhaps served as an example to the Netherlands. In England the Uniform Penny Post was introduced in 1840: the uniformization of postage throughout the country, which put an end to the former charge structure in the postal system. A letter in the lowest weight category now cost the English public just one penny, regardless of distance. Mail traffic increased enormously as a result of this measure. In the long term, the Penny Post was even lucrative for the State. The Netherlands dragged its heels slightly in the wake of these English reforms. For quite some time, postal services continued to be viewed as a fiscal institution  rather than a service to the public. In this way, postage charges benefited the government’s coffers, but at the expense of the general population. This would change, as in the Netherlands too a new Post Office Act was passed in 1850. A certain amount of debate preceded the passing of the Act. The total uniformization of the charges, as had occurred in England, was considered too daring a move due to fears that it would mean a severe reduction in government income. Postage was reduced, but the charge continued to depend on both weight and distance. The Post Office Act also paved the way for the introduction of postage stamps. New Year’s Day 1852 saw the first ever publication of Dutch postage stamps, in three denominations: blue (5 cents), red (10 cents) and orange (15 cents). This went some way to simplify the sending of correspondence, and in this way the stamping of letters gradually became the rule rather than the exception. Although most people were convinced that the post would be delivered much more quickly after the introduction of postage stamps, there was still some hesitancy at the prospect of this innovation. The old system, whereby the recipient of the post paid, attested to a clear sense of social status: the recipient

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was considered capable of paying the amount in question. Applying a postage stamp to a letter might offend the recipient, since it might imply that the sender believed that the recipient did not have the means to pay. For this reason, the government initially decided not to make the use of postage stamps compulsory. It was not until 1870 that the option of sending letters without prepaid postage, at the expense of the recipient, was definitively abolished. In that year, postage stamps became the norm.28 When the Post Office Act of 1850 was introduced, it was decided that the state monopoly would be retained, despite the fact that a great many letters were still sent using other channels than the national mail. The argument was that this was the only way of ensuring the security, speed, order and regularity of postal traffic. In addition, yet more post offices were created. This especially benefited postal traffic in rural areas. ‘Delivery fees’, charges for delivering a letter, were limited to very remote hamlets or houses. The last delivery fees for some rural areas were not abolished until 1865. All these measures together led to a great increase in the number of letters sent by mail.29 Uniform postage would be introduced eventually, but not until 1870. That year also saw the advent of the postcard.30 Another means of communication also made its debut in the second half of the nineteenth century: the telegram. The National Telegraph Service was set up in 1852. The archives of the Hubrecht family, for instance, include eight telegrams, dating from between 1853 and 1868. They were used to confirm the arrival of a house guest, announce births or deaths, or convey business information. Before the introduction of telegrams, the members of the families studied used the mail, a barge, a hired messenger, a servant of their own, or an acquaintance to ensure that their correspondence arrived at its intended destination. The published correspondence between the 28 ╇G. Hogesteeger, Van lopende bode tot telematica. Geschiedenis van de ptt in Nederland (Groningen 1989) 47–48. 29 ╇In 1849, the number of (postage-paid) letters exchanged, both domestic and international, amounted to 6,078,360; in 1874 this number had risen to 44,396,330, and in 1886 it was higher still: 65,605,677. One stimulus for this increase was of course the expansion of the railway network, which was used by the postal services from 1844. In addition, population increases, improved literacy levels, and economic stimuli all contributed to the rise in the number of letters sent. Hogesteeger, Van lopende bode, 51. 30 ╇ W. Ringnalda, Hoofdtrekken van de geschiedenis van het Nederlandsch postwezen, inzonderheid sedert de eerste wettelijke regeling van den Postdienst (‘s-Gravenhage 1895) and H.J. Lettink, De ontwikkelings-geschiedenis der Nederlandsche Posterijen (Breda 1888).



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music teacher and violinist Jean Malherbe and his wife Christina van Steensel, from the end of the eighteenth century, reveals that for members of the lower bourgeoisie such as they, postage costs were almost prohibitive. The recipient of a letter had to pay seven stuivers – when a piece of bread in an eating-house cost one stuiver, and a loaf of black bread cost four stuivers and two duit.31 The families of the upper bourgeoisie and nobility that are the subject of the present study did not have such acute money problems; nevertheless, they too complained about the high costs of sending, and especially of receiving, letters. Senders did not wish to saddle the recipients of their letters with the expense of a high postal charge that would have to be paid on receipt. For this reason people sometimes chose not to write, or to write in brief, giving the excuse that there was nothing particular to report. On the other hand, the fact that the recipient had to pay for the letter might urge the sender to make something of it, as Otto Hora Siccama explained to his mother: My writings to you, dear mama, have often been so poor in the last while that I was almost ashamed that you would have to pay the postage, whilst your letters to me, on the contrary (unless they are written in haste) are always well written, both as regards style and handwriting.32

Otto Hora Siccama begged his brothers: ‘Write to me abundantly; but not often, because every letter costs me the enormous sum of 20 cents, or 1/5 guilder, or 4 stuivers, or 32 duit’.33 Otto received a letter from his brother Jan, saying: ‘Louis wrote a letter to congratulate you, but it was so corny that I have decided not to send it, to avoid pointless expense and pointless yawning’.34 Pre-paying the postage could sometimes be taken as an insult, as is apparent from a letter from a friend of Pieter Hubrecht’s, who apologized for stamping it: ‘Since I am enclosing a letter which relates entirely to me and whose contents are of very little worth, please do not take it amiss just this once that you receive it post-paid’.35 31 ╇ J. Malherbe and C. van Steensel, ‘Het is of ik met mijn lieve sprak.’ De briefwisseling tussen Jean Malherbe en Christina van Steensel, 1782–1800, A. Dik and D. Helmers eds (Hilversum 1994) letters 45, 99 and 102. 32 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 45, Otto Hora Siccama to Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck, 7 October 1839. 33 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 90L, Otto Hora Siccama to Jan and Louis Hora Siccama, 22 October 1821. 34 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 72, Jan Hora Siccama to Otto Hora Siccama, 4 January 1822. 35 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 451, W. Storm to Pieter Hubrecht, 7 August 1843.

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A letter could thus be stamped by the sender, or the bill could be settled at the post office, but generally the person to whom it was addressed had to pay on receipt. These too were epistolary conventions that had to be learnt. Thus Victor de Constant Rebecque asked his mother: ‘What is this papier timbré [stamped paper] you mention?’36 A few years earlier, his father had had to explain something similar to him: ‘Did you have to pay for the last letter from Mama and Duco too? If it says “affranchi” or “franco” on the address, you do not need to pay’.37 The recipient of a letter could refuse to pay the postage, incidentally. Then the sender was left to foot the bill. One correspondent in the archives of the Van Lanschot family tried to mask the provenance of a letter to a woman who had been refusing to receive (and thus to pay for) his letters: he had a friend write the address so that the recipient would not recognize the handwriting and would pay the postage unawares.38 Generally the post was quite quick. Letters were usually delivered the day after sending, partly because there were several posting times per day (known as ‘post hours’) and several deliveries to the house. Especially in periods of sickness or imminent death, the post was anxiously awaited, as in the case of the Steenlack family in Zutphen waiting for post from the Hubrechts of Leiden: The post is awaited impatiently in the morning, and Sanders is sent to fetch the letters. Of course it is the month in which we are the last to receive our letters … and to have to wait until eleven o’clock; that would be just too awful. We then all gather around Mama, and yesterday it was around me … to hear the tidings. – Now Sanders must come any minute, and O how I wish that the report may be favourable. The ordeal you are suffering is a hard one. […] There is the letter now, and thank God the news is somewhat more reassuring after all.39

In tense times the post seems to have flown back and forth. In 1848 two of Pieter and Abrahamine Hubrecht’s daughters had the measles. The rest of the family were constantly waiting for news. As grandmother Steenlack wrote: 36 ╇ NA, FADCR, inv. no. 69D, Victor de Constant Rebecque to Juliana de Constant Rebecque-d’Ablaing van Giessenburg, n.d. [1857]. 37 ╇ NA, FADCR, inv. no. 120A, Charles de Constant Rebecque to Victor de Constant Rebecque, 22 January 1853. 38 ╇ RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 43, Du Plessis de Montfoort to Franciscus van Lanschot sr., 3 May 1824. 39 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 416, Jaqueline Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht and Abrahamine Hubrecht-Steenlack, 6 April 1838.



everyday correspondence67 Yesterday morning, it being Betsij’s birthday, we received the large box early on, and thus also the first news of the so very worrying state of the dear children; a few hours later we were somewhat reassured by the letter that Betsij received […] after the receipt of your last letters just now […] God grant that today’s post may bring us better tidings, do write to me every day even if it is just two words, o how absolutely ghastly the distance is in such circumstances, […] just now I receive your letter, my dear Piet, indeed not reassuring! O how I lament and share in all your worries.40

Languages The preceding sections have looked at the material prerequisites for letter-writing: the availability of time, space, writing materials, light and postal facilities. The following sections will examine the choice of language, the forms of address used, and the style employed in letters. The choice of a given language (Dutch, French or Latin) in correspondence depends on more than merely practical considerations. The use of a particular language may serve as a signal. If, for instance, a letterwriter chooses to correspond in French, this may simply mean that this is the language he is most proficient in, but it could also signify that he is part of the elite. It is possible that correspondents in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries used French because of the underlying implications (belonging to the elite), whereas they perhaps had a better command of Dutch. Burke, especially, has pointed out the symbolic significance of a particular language and the special status of the written word.41 He also emphasizes the importance of studying bilingualism: sociolinguistic research has shown that people employ conscious and unconscious strategies in switching between languages in a conversation. The participants in a conversation and its subject influence the language usage of the speakers. By extension, Burke suggests that it would be fruitful to study bilingualism in the past. In a study of correspondence, this leads to the question of what language letter-writers used in what situations. When were letters written in French, and when in Dutch?

40 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 427, Elisabeth Steenlack-Francken to Pieter Hubrecht and Abrahamine Hubrecht-Steenlack, 31 March 1838. 41 ╇Burke, The art of conversation, 15–20.

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French Studying French as the language of correspondence provides excellent opportunities to put Burke’s ideas to the test. Moreover, Frijhoff has pointed out the difference between the use of French in practice and the symbolic connotations of French culture, of which the language was part. Especially in the second half of the eighteenth century, the influence of French culture was abhorred in the Netherlands. This influence was held responsible for economic decline and moral degeneration. At the same time, however, French continued to be used by many: as an international means of communication – in academic circles, for instance – or as professional jargon, as in the army. From the mid eighteenth century, in Frijhoff ’s view, French came to be used less and less as the language of written communication, and Dutch to some extent took its place. French was no longer a second everyday language for the elite; rather it became a functional language for situations or media in which writing was paramount, such as letters, books, and academic discourse. Social distinctions were no longer the prime consideration for using French, so that use of this language was determined by situations in which it was practical or customary.42 The ‘Gallicization theory’, the idea that the Netherlands was entirely under the influence of the French language and culture, has also been relativized in modern scholarship. The French used by the Dutch elite in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was not actually all that good.43 Incidentally, around 1800 Dutch too often left a lot to be desired, since it had not yet been standardized and was not properly taught, whereas that was indeed the case for French. Kloek and Mijnhard therefore point out that the choice of French as the language for writing could be due to a correspondent’s lack of written language skills in his or her mother tongue.44 The question is, then, whether Dutch letter-writers in the period from 1770–1850 used French from practical considerations, because they were more proficient in it than in Dutch, or whether the symbolic significance of French, as the language of the elite and a means of social 42 ╇ W. Frijhoff, ‘â•›“Bastertspraek en dartele manieren”. De Franse taal in Nederlandse mond’, Jaarboek van de maatschappij der Nederlandse letterkunde te Leiden 1989–1990 (Leiden 1991) 13–25, here 19–21. 43 ╇ W. Frijhoff, ‘Verfransing? Franse taal en Nederlandse cultuur tot in de revolutietijd’, BMGN 104 (1989) 592–609, here 599. 44 ╇ Kloek and Mijnhard, 1800, 432–433.



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distinction, also played a role. First of all, I did not discern any difference in language choice between different types of letters. It is not the case, for instance, that letters to mark specific occasions, such as letters of condolence or expressing congratulations, were more often written in French. Of the total number of letters from family archives consulted for this study (over 2300), 77% were written in Dutch and 17% in French (see Appendix 1, Table 1). Moreover, the use of French declined in favour of Dutch as time went on. Whereas in the period from 1750 to 1780, 32% of the letters were written in French (as opposed to 63% in Dutch), in the period from 1780–1810, the percentage of French dropped to 19% (as opposed to 72% in Dutch). It is possible that this decline was due to the French occupation of the Netherlands in the early years of the nineteenth century. Perhaps this contributed to an aversion to the French language, though I found no explicit references to this. In the letters written after 1810, the use of French remains more or less stable: for the letters from 1810–1840 it stands at 18%, and for 1840–1870 it is 15% of the total (Appendix 1, Tables 2 and 3). This means that the French occupation very probably did cause a slight change in the language of letter-writing: from that time the use of French declined, but it did not disappear until late in the nineteenth century. Of course it is also possible that the use of French differed in each family. One might expect French to play a more significant role for families of the nobility in The Hague than for families of the upper middle classes in other cities: after all, in the court capital French was of great importance as the language of the court, diplomacy, and high society. If we compare the collections of letters in the family archives (Table 4), it is striking that the percentage of letters written in French is much lower in the archive of the Hubrecht family from Leiden than in the other archives (3% as opposed to 26% of the Van Lanschots’ letters, 57% of the Hora Siccamas’, 61% of the De Constant Rebecques’, and 88% of the Van Schinnes’).45 Probably this was because the Hubrechts were not so much part of high society as the De Constant Rebecques, Van Schinnes and Hora Siccamas, the families from The Hague. The Van Lanschots, in ‘s Hertogenbosch, perhaps used French more often than the Hubrechts because of their geographical situation. On the

45 ╇ The majority of letters from the Van Schinne archive consulted for this study date from the eighteenth century.

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other hand, it is notable that though the aristocratic De Constant Rebecque family wrote a relatively high number of letters in French, they did also correspond in Dutch. Even the nobility in The Hague were not entirely francophone. In addition to the question of whether the use of French declined in the nineteenth century and whether certain families wrote more letters in French than the others, it is relevant to investigate whether French, as the language of social intercourse, was a ‘women’s language’ (Table 5). The number of letters by men in my database (59%) is almost twice the number of letters by women (33%). This means either that women wrote fewer letters than men, or that women’s correspondence was less often preserved in the family archives. Looking at the distribution according to language and sex (Table 6), we see that French is the language of a higher percentage (23%) of letters written by women than of those written by men (16%). Women also more often wrote letters containing both French and Dutch (5.5% as opposed to 1.9%). Nevertheless, the differences are not all that large. One cannot conclude on the basis of this data that French was a women’s language. This conclusion does indeed emerge, however, if we break down the relation between language and sex to specify sender and recipient (Table 7). This shows that women writing to one another are much more likely to use French than are men writing to other men (41% and 5% respectively), and that men also often use French when writing to women (51% of the letters from men to women are composed in French). In this respect it is possible to posit that French was sometimes the language of preference for women, especially when writing to other women or when receiving letters from men. Of course in analysing these numbers one must always bear in mind that the corpus of letters studied constitutes a mere fraction of the total actually exchanged in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. MoreÂ� over, ‘preservation policy’ in the family archives may also have played a role. This might mean, for instance, that women’s letters were thrown away more often than men’s letters. There is a danger that the motives of individual correspondents for choosing a given language may get snowed under in all these statistics. It is perhaps far more revealing to approach the question of language choice from a more qualitative perspective. Here we will look at the relationship between the sender and the recipient, the age and sex of each, and their personal situation and state of mind.



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The question of whether the families actually spoke French at home is difficult to answer. When the Hubrechts wished to appoint a (Dutch) governess for their six-year-old daughter Hermine in 1849, the introductory interview was to be in French: ‘I advised her [Bramine, WR] to carry out the interview in French, as then the habit of always speaking French, that Bramine so insists on, will come much more easily than if one starts off in Dutch’.46 It is not clear whether this means that the whole family spoke French on a daily basis or whether they only did so with the governess. In many well-to-do families French was spoken in the presence of the governess, who was often from a French-speaking country.47 The Van Lanschots probably did not speak French at home, to judge from a letter about Henri van Lanschot’s progress sent by the head of his boarding school when Henri was between eight and thirteen years old. ‘Je signale avec plaisir les progrès que notre cher Henri a faits pour le français; il commence à le parler avec aisance’ (I am pleased to note the progress our dear Henri has made in French; he is starting to speak it with ease).48 Apparently Henri had not learnt to speak fluent French at home. But what about French as a language for letter-writing? In a letter to his mother in 1823, the eighteen-year-old Otto Hora Siccama confessed that he would have liked to have written in Italian, but was not proficient enough. For this reason he had decided to write in French, to improve his command of that language, at least. As Otto saw it, he was better at French than German or English. And he wrote in Dutch so often that he was bored of it. Italian and Latin did not come easily to him in correspondence. Incidentally, these and other letters show that Otto’s mother could indeed speak Italian.49 She was also proficient at English and German, as she had been tutored in these languages at home when she was younger. She felt, however, that she had neglected these languages too much to be able to help Otto with them. In her answer to Otto’s letter she encouraged her son to learn Italian. 46 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 407, Jaqueline Guye-Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht, 16 January 1849. 47 ╇ G. Huisman, Tussen salon en souterrain. Gouvernantes in Nederland 1800–1940 (Amsterdam 2000) 86–88. 48 ╇ RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 142, J.B. van Derker, probably to Augustinus van Lanschot, 28 October n.y. [between 1850 and 1855]. 49 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 44, letter from Otto Hora Siccama to Amelie Hora SiccamaFalck, 23 May 1823.

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She also decided to answer his letter in French, since she felt that Otto was now indeed quite good at speaking French, but could do with some more practice when it came to writing. Moreover, Otto already corresponded with his father and brothers in Dutch (and sometimes in Latin), so his mother thought it would be a good idea for her to exchange letters with her son in French.50 Eight years later, in 1831, Otto’s mother again commented on her command of languages in a letter to her son, who had now mastered French much better after staying with French-speaking relatives. This time she wrote in Dutch: For since I prefer not to use it [i.e. French] instead of my own language – although to my shame I must admit that I know it better – I shall just keep to my habits and write to you in good old Dutch, even if not without flaws. The more so since your correspondence with Tante Zezette means you always have opportunity enough to practise French, which moreover you now command well enough in any case.51

Thus, by her own account, Otto’s mother had a better command of French (for writing letters, in any case) than of Dutch. This meant that she was also able to correct the French in her son’s letters. She advised him not to alternate between ‘tu’ and ‘vous’ indiscriminately, for instance.52 It is striking that Amelie Hora Siccama was ashamed of the fact that she was more proficient at French than Dutch. This shows that ‘good old Dutch’ was held in high regard in 1831, probably under the influence of the Belgian revolution, the language conflict in Belgium between Flemish and French, and nationalism in the Netherlands. Restoring the glorious fatherland of old, excluding the Belgian francophones, had become the new ideal. But even from the beginning of the nineteenth century, linguists had stressed the importance of Dutch. On the one hand they viewed the mother tongue as a reflection of the national character; on the other hand they upheld the use of Dutch as a sign of patriotism. Cultivating the mother tongue was seen as a contribution to raising the level of refinement and stimulating 50 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 67, Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck to Otto Hora Siccama, 13 June 1823. 51 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 67, Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck to Otto Hora Siccama, 23 May 1831. 52 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 67, Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck to Otto Hora Siccama, 27 May 1824.



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national consciousness.53 The authors of nineteenth-century letterwriting manuals also advocated the use of the mother tongue, whereas a manual from the mid eighteenth century considered French just as important as Dutch as a language of correspondence, and was not opposed to the insertion of individual words in foreign languages.54 Otto Hora Siccama was a child of his times, then, when in writing to his brother Jan in 1833, in a letter that began with a word in French, he commented: ‘for sincere lovers of the fatherland such as ourselves (for this is beyond doubt, and I immediately beg your forgiveness for the French word at the start, for which I could not find the right meaning quickly enough)…’55 We find the same nationalistic preference for Dutch, disparaging French, in a poem by one of Pieter Hubrecht’s children, probably dating from 1840–1845: […] But father, know that I am no French boy, Because I now recite this verse in French No, father dear, these words I must employ To tell you this, and then away must fly. I love you, best and dearest of all fathers! In Dutch it sounds at least three times as fair; I pray for you and mother, both together, That God reward your love and all your care!56 [italics mine, WR]

Thus although French was sometimes rejected in the 1830s and 1840s, it continued to be used for letter-writing well into the nineteenth century. Even in 1868 we find an eighteen-year-old girl apologizing for writing in Dutch: ‘I’m not at all in the habit of writing in Dutch, but since I find it a good deal more companionable and am counting on your lenience, I have taken our harsh mother tongue as my interpreter’.57 So although the sender felt that Dutch was ‘more companionable’, she equally characterized her mother tongue as ‘harsh’. French was sometimes given preference in letters because it was ‘prettier’. Otto Hora Siccama asked his fiancée Pietje van Capellen to 53 ╇ J. Noordegraaf, ‘Vaderland en moedertaal. Een constante in het taalkundig denken’, in: N.C.F. van Sas ed., Vaderland. Een geschiedenis van de vijftiende eeuw tot 1940 (Amsterdam 1999) 343–363, here 359. 54 ╇Anonymous, Handleiding tot de kunst van brievenschryven, I-II, 1, 6. 55 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 52, Otto Hora Siccama to Jan Hora Siccama, 7 March 1833. 56 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 407: various poems in draft written for Pieter Hubrecht by his children, n.d.. 57 ╇ RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 327, Emilie van der Kun to Jeanette Fuchs, 19 February 1868.

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write to him in English some time. This was no trouble to Pietje, who had grown up in England, so she obliged. Nevertheless, she professed to prefer French for writing letters, since it was so good for making ‘pretty speeches’, and so well suited to dissembling and story-telling. As she wrote (in English): Why do you ask me to write to you in english? is it because I write French so badly and you hope that English will be more easy to me if you fancy this I assure you you are quite mistaken I am so completely out of the habit of writing English that I really don’t know how I shall manage to fill this sheet of paper, however I will try and if I leave but half filled you may consider this as a punishment for having prevented me from writing to you in French which certainly of all others is the language of letter writing it is so faverable [sic] to making pretty speeches and to saying what one does not mean but in English there is no saying anything but the downright truth and as I am rather inclined to story telling I find this very unpleasant.58

For the eleven-year-old Jan Willem de Constant Rebecque, too, French had positive connotations. He asked his brother Victor to write to him in French because he found Dutch less pleasant. In Dutch they were always grousing at one another, whereas they spoke French when playing together.59 A considerable number of the letters in the family archives, incidentally, consist of a mishmash of French and Dutch. It is very striking that the correspondents never apologize for switching from one language to another. Sociolinguists and historical sociolinguists, particularly Burke, have described how people use different languages in different situations. In their descriptions, these situations seem very clear and sharply delineated. Sociolinguists even speak of ‘strategies’. Thus, for instance, Portuguese Jews in seventeenth-century Amsterdam spoke Portuguese and Spanish amongst themselves, Dutch to outsiders, and Hebrew in the synagogue. French farmers in the nineteenth century, who normally spoke patois, used French when discussing national politics or for special occasions such as asking a girl to dance.60 The use of languages by Dutch correspondents in the period from 1770–1850, however, does not show clear patterns of this kind. ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 98, Pietje van Capellen to Otto Hora Siccama, 27 September 1840. 59 ╇NA, FADCR, inv. no. 120C, Jan Willem de Constant Rebecque to Victor de Constant Rebecque, 12 November 1852. 60 ╇Burke, The art of conversation, 16–18. 58



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Switching from French to Dutch and vice versa is prompted above all by emotions, practical descriptions (of illness or fashion), but often by nothing specific at all. Sometimes the correspondents resort to French or Dutch for difficult words, proverbs, or in the postscript, opening, or closing sentence. Some correspondents write to each other in French and Dutch by turns, often without any apparent reason. Perhaps studying the use of several languages in different situations makes more sense if one is examining spoken language, or if a comparison is drawn between speaking and writing. At any rate it seems as though in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries French and Dutch were still interchangeable as letter-writing languages. French was sometimes seen as a pretty language for letters, or Dutch was preferred from nationalist considerations, but in practice the two languages were used indiscriminately. Latin In addition to the many letters in French, the family archives contain forty-three letters in total that were written fully or partially in Latin. All of these letters were written by men. Some of them will be discussed in Chapters 3 and 4. The boys in the Hubrecht and Hora Siccama families wrote to each other in Latin when they were schoolboys or students, mainly to practise Latin, which remained the language of the Dutch universities – for reading, writing and speaking – until the late nineteenth century. It was not until 1876 that the Higher Education Act abolished the use of Latin at universities. Students found the active use of Latin in their academic education – in the exercise of disputation, for instance – a very difficult part of their studies.61 For this reason, boys began to practise their Latin as much as possible early on, and correspondence was one way of doing this. Moreover, Latin had a symbolic value for them: Latin was part of student life, and this gave it a certain cachet, especially for boys who were still at grammar school, also known as ‘Latin school’. And Latin also had elite connotations: only boys of the upper classes learned this language, thus excluding not only girls and women of the elite, but also boys of the middle and lower classes. 61 ╇ J. Roelevink, ‘Het babel van de geleerden. Latijn in het Nederlandse universitaire onderwijs van de achttiende en de negentiende eeuw’, Jaarboek van de Maatschappij der Nederlandsche Letterkunde te Leiden 1989–1990 (1991) 33–43, here 37.

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Nevertheless, it was not only schoolboys and students who used Latin in their correspondence. The twenty-five letters written to Hendrik Oomen by his older brother Antonius and his university friends are an example of adults corresponding in Latin. Hendrik studied Law in Duisburg from 1799–1800, and then continued his studies in Leiden. In 1801 he became a lawyer in Amsterdam. Some of the letters in Latin were indeed written when Hendrik was a student, but he continued occasionally to correspond with his brother and friends in Latin. Antonius wrote to his brother in Latin in 1809 and 1812, when his university days were long behind him. He was probably particularly proficient at Latin because of his position as a priest and the president of the episcopal seminary of Ypelaar. In this case, then, Latin was not only associated with academia and student life, but also had religious connotations. And yet the Oomen brothers did not write about antiquity or religion in their correspondence. Their letters were about everyday things. In his correspondence with Hendrik, Antonius, mainly writing on behalf of their parents, took the stance of the concerned older brother: he asked about Hendrik’s progress when he was still a student, and later enquired how he was settling in in Amsterdam. Antonius also passed on the news from home. His choice of Latin was also not motivated by a desire to discuss matters in secret. On one occasion Antonius commented that he always tried to pass on the content of Hendrik’s letters to their parents as best he could, but it might be handier if Hendrik would just write in Dutch: ‘nunc autem Tibi faventes omni tuo amore et affectu dignissimi sunt. Unde, etsi optime hac latina nostra communicemus, sequenti vice e novo tuo hospitio flandrice scribes, ut epistolam tuam eis praelegere possim’.62 In this case the use of Latin by adult men seems not to have been motivated by academic or prestige-related considerations, and equally not by a desire for secrecy (excluding women or the non-initiated). Perhaps they were simply keen to keep up their Latin, or it had become a habit. It is also possible that by writing in Latin they were keeping alive the memories of their student days. For a long time, historians believed that Latin suddenly faded from view in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century because it was 62 ╇ RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 1312, Antonius Oomen to Hendrik Oomen, 17 March 1800. ‘But our parents fully deserve all your love and affection. So this is why even if we communicate best in this Latin, the next time you should write in Dutch from your new abode, so that I can read your letter aloud to them’.



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no longer in tune with the modern world. Burke, on the other hand, has demonstrated that Latin was still written and spoken in the nineteenth century, precisely because it was well suited to practical use, as an international language for students, for instance, or for diplomats and travellers.63 The results of my research corroborate this view. Right up until the late 1840s (where my research ends), boys and men of the elite still used Latin in their correspondence. Salutation, signature and postscript Salutation, terms of address, concluding formula Once the writer had decided on the language to use, he or she had to know the right way to address the person to whom the letter was directed. The salutation, the form of address used, and the way of concluding the letter could express social hierarchies.64 The same is true of the use of ‘vous’ or ‘tu’ in French, or their Dutch equivalents.65 Letterwriting manuals often provided long lists of the proper forms of address, and also prescribed leaving a large open space at the beginning of the letter as a mark of respect for one’s social superiors. In historical and sociolinguistic research, the use of extensive, deferential forms of address and signatures, as well as addressing the recipient in the ‘vous’ form, have sometimes been interpreted as a sign of formality and a lack of intimacy. Lawrence Stone, for example, views the disappearance of formal terms of address such as ‘Sir’ and ‘Madam’ between married couples, and the increasing use of forenames and pet names, as evidence of a changing attitude towards marriage among the upper classes at the end of the sixteenth century.66 Marie-Claire Grassi notes an increase in intimacy in letters written in France between 1770 and 1820: correspondents more often addressed one another as ‘tu’, and the formulas with which they signed off became shorter and less formal.67 ╇Burke, The art of conversation, 63–64. ╇ See also A. van Leuvensteijn, ‘Van “Wel edel gestrenge heer!” tot “Hooggeachte veelgeliefde vriendinne”. Aanspreekvormen in de briefwisseling, 1765–1804, van Betje Wolff en Aagje Deken’, De Achttiende Eeuw 34 (2002) 65–74 and F. Austin, ‘Epistolary conventions in the Clift family correspondence’, English Studies 54 (1973) 9–22 and 129–140. 65 ╇Burke, The art of conversation, 23. 66 ╇ L. Stone, The family, sex and marriage in England, 1500–1800 (London 1977) 329–330. 67 ╇Grassi, L’art de la lettre, 158–159, 178. 63 64

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In the Dutch bodies of correspondence studied, one can also observe a decrease in the length and deference of the terms of address and the concluding formulas. The use of the term of address ‘uedele’ (Honoured Sir) becomes less frequent as the nineteenth century progresses, more often being replaced by ‘u’ or ‘gij’. ‘Tu’, or its Dutch equivalent ‘gij’, is generally only used between brothers, but I found examples even in letters from the late eighteenth century, including letters from a mother to her daughter. Nevertheless, it remains questionable whether this change has anything to do with intimacy. In the eighteenth century, deferential formulas were simply the norm. Moreover, formal and informal terms were often used hand in hand, as this concluding formula from 1779 shows: I remain (with my heartfelt compliments and those of my daughter to you and your son, and a kiss to my dear little Mietje from her godmama, and to the stately Cietie) with the greatest respect, O honoured Sir and Madam, dearest brother and sister, your servant and loving sister Maria van Lelyveld, widow Wilhelmina Van den Broek.68

In the nineteenth century, too, familiarity was often combined with deference in concluding a letter, as in this example from Jan Hora Siccama to his father in 1822: ‘Adieu dear papa! Know that I remain your loving son and humble servant Jan Hora’.69 What is more important than the degree of intimacy expressed in the salutation and concluding formula is the way in which correspondents approached these aspects of their letters. How did they learn these terms? What did they intend them to express? To start with the first of these questions: I did not find any explicit mention in the letters studied in manuscript of the use of letter-writing manuals in connection with terms of address. In addition to direct mention of manuals, there is another way to ascertain whether correspondents actually consulted such works for this purpose. Jan Hora Siccama wrote to his brother Otto, for instance: ‘Please inform me of Mr van Ewijck’s exact title and what expressions one should use to open and conclude a letter to him’.70 Jan here solicited his brother’s help by letter, which would take several days at least, to find out a title which could be found in many manuals. This means that the Hora Siccamas’ library very probably did not 68 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 1174, Maria van Lelyveld-van den Broek to Pieter van Lelyveld and Cecilia van Lelyveld-Marcus, 8 January 1779. 69 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 38, Jan Hora Siccama to Harco Hora Siccama, 1 August 1822. 70 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 72, Jan Hora Siccama to Otto Hora Siccama, 24 Jan n.y..



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include a letter-writing manual or etiquette book. This is also clear from the following quotation from a letter that Otto in turn addressed to another brother, Louis: ‘I’m at my wits’ end with a letter to Ottiline, too. Should I address her as ‘dear aunt’, or what? And where does she live in Amsterdam? I don’t know her address, and still less her title: is she ‘Dowager’ or just ‘Widow’?71 It seems probable, then that the Hora Siccama brothers did not consult advice literature to find out terms of address. The above quotation shows that finding the right title was sometimes difficult, and could be a delicate matter. This also applied, incidentally, in daily conversation. Otto Hora Siccama wrote to his mother: ‘I was at Buma’s house again, and he said I should not continue to address his wife so stiffly as “Cousin”, but should call her Aagje’.72 His mother answered with a warning: ‘Be wary of becoming too intimate with them, and no matter what Buma tells you, never get onto the footing of calling her Aagje; c’est du plus mauvais ton [it is in the worst possible taste]; always stick to Cousin; si cela a le ton bourgeois [if that is rather bourgeois in tone], it is ten times less offensive than excessive familiarity’.73 Otto’s mother liked Buma’s wife, but thought she was not comme il faut, so that she was not a good example. It is striking that Mrs Hora Siccama censured behaviour as ‘bourgeois’, when she herself in fact belonged to the upper echelons of the bourgeoisie. When all was said and done, distant politeness was apparently more fitting than familiarity. Otto struggled with the same dilemma in a letter to his mother. He had looked in vain for new writing paper, after realizing that he had alternated between ‘tu’ and ‘vous’ indiscriminately at the beginning of his letter. He apologized for this, and decided to use ‘vous’ consistently for the remaining paragraphs of his letter. ‘Tu’ perhaps sounded nicer, but ‘vous’ was more respectful.74 Polite terms of address and the ‘vous’ form could be used to convey respect, but could also serve as a vent for anger or contempt. This was  the case with a letter written in 1829 by Baron D’Alblaing van Giessenburg to his daughter Julie, in which he expressed his anger at ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 90L, Otto Hora Siccama to Louis Hora Siccama, 22 July 1834. ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 44, Otto Hora Siccama to Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck,  Â� 12 February 1823. 73 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 67, Amelie Hora-Siccama-Falck to Otto Hora Siccama, n.d. [1823]. 74 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 44, Otto Hora Siccama to Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck, 13 March 1828. 71 72

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the fact that Julie wished to marry but had not asked her father’s permission. His letter was devoid of any salutation or concluding sentence.75 When, two-and-a-half years later, he sent an official letter to General De Constant Rebecque, the father of Julie’s intended, giving his consent to the marriage between their children and addressing their financial situation, he left copious amounts of space between the salutation and the beginning of the letter proper, and used an extensive concluding formula: (‘agreez je vous prie les assurances d’estime et de considerations distinguées Mon General! De votre tres humble serviteur et ami (signe) d’Ablaing de Giessenburg.’ [Accept, I pray you, dear General, the assurances of esteem and distinguished consideration of your most humble servant and friend (signed) d’Ablaing de Giessenburg].) In the remainder of the letter, he addressed the general as ‘Votre Excellence’.76 Sometimes such deferential forms of address and concluding formulas were a figure of fun. When congratulating Jan Willem de Constant Rebecque on the occasion of his sixteenth birthday, his older brother Victor plays with these conventions: ‘I have the honour to be and to remain, most deeply indebted in honour and respect, most honoured Sir, your obedient servant, … oh how vulgar! Je t’embrasse, adieu’.77 The same mocking tone is found in a humorous response from Salomon Dedel to an invitation from his fourteen-year-old niece Julie d’Ablaing van Giessenburg. The letter left large spaces, and began halfway down the page. In every sentence Julie was addressed with the excessively formal ‘UW: Hoog: Wel: Geb: ’ (which approximately translates as ‘most highly born madam’). The concluding sentence ran: I have the honour of calling myself, your royal highness, your most noble subject and subservient hatstand, S: Dedel. PS: I hope that you, most honoured madam, will not hold against me the errors that you, most honoured madam, will observe in this letter, or the formalities that I have neglected in sending this epistle. I am alas not accustomed to writing to highnesses, princesses, or people of high rank.78

75 ╇ NA, FADCR, inv. no. 69A, Joan d’Ablaing van Giessenburg to Julie d’Ablaing van Giessenburg, 18 December 1829. 76 ╇ NA, FADCR, inv. no. 69A, Joan d’Ablaing van Giessenburg to Victor de Constant Rebecque, 25 August 1832. 77 ╇NA, FADCR, inv. no. 121E, Victor de Constant Rebecque to Jan Willem de Constant Rebecque, 8 April 1857. 78 ╇ NA, FADCR, inv. no. 69Q, Salomon Dedel to Julie d’Ablaing van Giessenburg, 30 June 1821.



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This letter clearly poked fun at the deferential forms of address and concluding formulas that befitted a letter to a person of higher rank. Unlike this mock-humble letter, the one which Julie received two years later from her cousin Margaretha, who was annoyed with Julie for not returning a scarf she had lent her, was devoid of all conventions: Ju! I am hellishly angry with you. – What is the meaning of this? I lend you a pink scarf and you promise to give it back to me the same evening, and I have yet to see it again. I have been to four soirées – I wanted to go in pink – and yes, my scarf was gone. […] Do not be alarmed – but I have been very dangerously ill; so ill even that Mama thought I was already dead. […] Well, Gerrit is waiting; and my hand is shaking terribly from weakness, so I shall end here. Farewell, foolish girl. M.C. Dedel.79

This letter lacks all form of address, compliments and a proper concluding formula. Moreover the writer went into excessive detail in describing her illness (even mentioning bloodletting with leeches), whereas convention forbade writing about such matters. (This will be discussed further later in the present chapter). Margaretha’s anger led her to cast all social niceties to the winds. These adolescents were thus already fully able to play about with epistolary conventions such as forms of address and concluding formulas. These parts of the letter could also be used to express gender identity. Boys of about fourteen to sixteen opened their letters to each other with ‘manly’ forms of address such as ‘Amice’ (My friend). They signed off with ‘Vale’ (Farewell), or ‘TT’ (Totus Tuus, All yours). The regards passed on in a letter were also different for women than for men: Otto Hora Siccama, for instance, bade the recipients of his letters to kiss his sisters for him, whereas his brothers and father received a ‘manly handshake’.80 The postscript, finally, is viewed by a few letter-writing manuals as a typical female feature, because of women’s irrepressible garrulousness. In the corpus of letters studied, 22% of the letters by men include a postscript, as compared to 26% of the letters by women. Women are thus slightly in the majority, but the difference is negligible. Though admittedly Angelique Hora Siccama asserted (according to her brother) 79 ╇ NA, FADCR, inv. no. 69R, Margaretha Dedel to Julie d’Ablaing van Giessenburg, 1 June 1826. 80 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 90L, Otto Hora Siccama to Louis Hora Siccama, 16 February 1825 and inv. no. 39, Otto Hora Siccama to Harco Hora Siccama, 4 April 1822.

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that women saved the most important thing they want to say for the postscript: ‘Angelique prétend que les femmes ne mettent qu’au P.S. ce qu’elles tiennent le plus à dire’ (Angelique claims that women save what they most want to say for the postscript).81 This was apparently a truism, as the Panathenaeum voor studenten (Panathenaeum for students) contains the same jibe about the letters of ‘scholarly’ women: ‘The postscript generally contains all one needs to know of the whole letter’.82 Forms of address in and after the Batavian period The political situation might also be of influence on the opening and concluding formulas used in letters. Thus in the Batavian period the patriot Nicolaas van Staphorst concluded his letters with the sentence ‘Give our sincere greetings to sister and your children. Hail Fraternity, Liberty and Equality’.83 In their correspondence in 1799 to 1800, Pieter van Lelyveld’s friends addressed him as ‘Worthy friend and fellow citizen!’.84 Yet it was not the case that titles such as ‘Wel-Edel Gestrenge Heer’ (Most noble learned sir), or prescribed titles denoting rank were forbidden in this period.85 Fabius speaks of the restoration of extensive use of titles after the Batavian period, which seems to indicate a return to the pre-revolutionary class society. The formal ‘Ued’ is alleged to replace the informal ‘gij’ as a sign of renewed formality and distinction.86 John Bowring, an Englishman who travelled in the Netherlands in about 1829, was struck by the fact that the Dutch continued to use the old, deferential styles of address in addressing their letters, whereas they did not use these titles in conversation.87 My source material does not corroborate such observations. Firstly, by no means everyone seems to have adopted new, more egalitarian, forms of address in the Batavian period. Secondly, one notes a gradual tendency to simplify

╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 101, Otto Hora Siccama to Pietje van Capellen, 4 August 1841. ╇ Anonymous, ‘Geleerde vrouwen’, Panatheneaum voor studenten door studenten 2 (1843) 83–90, here 87. 83 ╇GAL, FAH, inv. no. 1198, Nicolaas van Staphorst to Pieter van Lelyveld, 13 February 1795. 84 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 1180, letters to Pieter van Lelyveld from various friends. 85 ╇ M. Everard and M. Aerts, ‘De burgeres: geschiedenis van een politiek begrip’, in: J. Kloek and K. Tilmans eds, Burger (Amsterdam 2002) 173–190, here 190. 86 ╇ A.N.J. Fabius, ‘T Herstelde Nederland. Zijn opleven en bloei na 1813 (Amsterdam 1913) 41–42. See also Van Zanten, Schielijk, 45–46. 87 ╇ J. Bowring, Brieven enz. van John Bowring, geschreven op eene reize door Holland, Friesland en Groningen (Leeuwarden 1830) 270–271. 81 82



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forms of address from 1800 onwards in any case, and this trend seems to have gathered momentum from about 1850. Letters to one’s betters The above section mentions the fact that the forms of address, salutation, and concluding formula in letters could serve to express social hierarchies, albeit in this case mainly hierarchies within the same class. But did the differences between the elite and the lower classes also find expression in these parts of the letter? The letter-writing manuals prescribed that when writing to one’s social superiors one should leave large spaces and ensure correct style. The family archives consulted contain thirteen letters written to recipients whose rank was higher than that of the sender. These include letters from the gardener, various servants, a protégée, and a shoemaker. Several, but by no means all, of these correspondents did indeed leave a large space between the salutation and the beginning of the letter as a mark of deference. Almost all of these letters, however, are characterized by the use of a deferential style. The gardener, in congratulating Pieter Hubrecht on his birthday, addressed him as ‘most worthy and highly respected lord of the manor’ [hooggeachte landheer]. This was certainly respectful, though according to the manuals it should have been ‘most noble sir’ [WelEdel Geboren Heer]. He did conclude subserviently: And now, o worthy gentleman, the Lord strengthen you and keep you on the path of your further life, to the health and comfort of your wife and  children and relations, and also for the old mistress and all your subjects – that is the wish of your head gardener and his wife, with which I sincerely greet you and am your obedient servant Herm: Roest.88

The father of a servant thanked Abrahamine Hubrecht on behalf of his wife for looking after their daughter when she was ill, opening his letter with the salutation: ‘WelEdele Mevrouw!’. According to the manuals, this was the manner to address ‘distinguished members of the middle classes’. The sender should perhaps have chosen ‘WelEdel Geboren Vrouwe’, a term reserved for members of the nobility or the patrician class. He concluded his letter ‘Having taken the liberty to commend ourselves further humbly to your favour, I have the honour to be,

88

╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 407, Herm. v. Roest to Pieter Hubrecht, 19 January 1857.

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WelEd Mevrouw!, your obedient servant, L. Wilmes’.89 Again, according to the manuals, this would have been more fitting for a letter addressed to a member of the middle classes. In any case, the writer was clearly aware of a social divide, as he apologized for taking the liberty of writing: ‘we also hope that you will not feel humiliated by our writing’. A similar sort of apology is found in a letter of request from the shoemaker Joannes Motké to Augustinus van Lanschot in 1831. Motké concluded his letter: ‘please do not take the extensiveness of my letter amiss’.90 Marion Klenk, who has carried out a sociolinguistic analysis of letters by German members of the working classes in the nineteenth  century (addressed to higher authorities), concludes that the greater  the  social distance between the sender and the recipient, the longer the sentences. Klenk characterizes this style as ‘subservient’.91 Spacing, forms of address, and style are thus all used to express class differences. ‘Le stile c’est l’homme’ – style Models for style Let us return to the elite, and their letter-writing style. After deciding on the language, the salutation, and the form of the address to use, the letter-writer had to determine his or her style. Writing style was a major subject for letter-writing manuals and for reviews in literary journals, with famous letter-writers being held up as examples to follow. Did the correspondents in the five families discussed here also draw inspiration from such models? The most famous letter-writer of them all, Madame de Sévigné, is indeed named a few times in the correspondences. Sophia SchimÂ� melpenninck van der Oye van de Poll-van Rhemen, for instance, wrote self-deprecatingly to her friend Julie that she did not perhaps possess Madame de Sévigné’s command of style, but that her letter came from 89 ╇GAL, FAH, inv. no. 450, L. Wilmes to Abrahamine Hubrecht-Steenlack, 30 October 1831. 90 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 120, Joannes Motké to Augustinus van Lanschot, 3 November 1832. 91 ╇M. Klenk, Sprache im Kontext sozialer Lebenswelt. Eine Untersuchung zur Arbeiterschriftsprache im 19. Jahrhundert (Tübingen 1997) 121, 127. See also R. WilleÂ� myns and W. Vandenbussche, ‘Historische sociolinguïstiek: het “Brugge-project”â•›’, Taal en tongval 52 (2000) 258–276.



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the heart of a dear friend.92 Correspondents in the Van Schinne family archive, too, sometimes held up Madame de Sévigné as an ideal of good style.93 Nevertheless, such mentions seem more or less proverbial, rather than an indication that the French author’s letters were actually used as a model.94 In the previous chapter I mentioned that members of the families studied read the letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Madame de Sévigné. It is difficult to prove, however, that this reading influenced the actual letters preserved in the family archives.95 The influence of Cicero can indeed be demonstrated, as will be argued in Chapters 3 and 4 below. Jan Hora Siccama, for example, wrote to his brother Otto: ‘so in writing to you I also wish to start in Ciceronian terms, and say thus: if you are in the doldrums, that is awful, and we are too’.96 In a letter of recommendation, Jan also copied the letters of Cicero to Brutus (II: 1), in which Cicero summarized the positive character traits of the person he was recommending. In this way, Cicero’s letter of recommendation constituted a direct model for Jan’s letter.97 Style in practice In general, the correspondents of the elite seem seldom to have turned to famous letter-writers as models. The letter-writing manuals agreed that there were no rules for letters among friends and family. And yet there are so many reprimands and compliments about letter-writing style to be found in the archives – including, or perhaps precisely, in letters between family and friends – that it is clear that great importance was attached to the style of the letter, even in familiar circles. Paul Hubrecht and Otto Hora Siccama both, in 1848 and 1839 respectively, quoted Georges Buffon’s statement that ‘le stile c’est l’homme’ (Style maketh man). What, in practice, was the ideal style for a letter?

92 ╇ NA, FADCR, inv. no. 69V, Sophia Schimmelpenninck van der Oye van de Pollvan Rhemen to Julie d’Ablaing van Giessenburg, 16 September 1825. 93 ╇ NA, FAVS, inv. no. 174, Louise to Magdalena van Schinne, 2 September 1802 and inv. no. 157, Anthony Jan van Schinne to Magdalena van Schinne, 20 January 1835. 94 ╇ The Lennox sisters in England did consciously model their letter-writing style on Madame de Sévigné, see S. Tillyard, Aristocrats (London 1995) 94–96. 95 ╇ Dik has pointed to the possible influence of letters by Madame de Maintenon and Madame de Genlis on Magdalena van Schinne’s epistolary diary. Dik, ‘Inleiding’, 20. 96 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 72, Jan Hora Siccama to Otto Hora Siccama, 14 August 1826. 97 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 72, Jan Hora Siccama to Otto Hora Siccama, 25 February 1825.

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In the manuals, the letter was traditionally described as ‘a conversation between absent friends’ or a ‘mirror of the soul’. Both these characterizations of the letter, as a conversation and as a reflection of the inner being, are found in the correspondence of the five families studied. Sophia Schimmelpenninck told her friend Julie that the style of her letters reflected her state of mind: ‘vous savez que quand je vous écris je ne sors point du [sic] ma nature mais j’écris ce que je pense et naturellement mes lettres se ressentent de la disposition gaie ou mélancolique où je suis’ (you know that when I write to you I do not leave my nature behind, but write what I think, and naturally my letters reflect the gay or melancholy disposition I am in).98 In old age, Anthony Jan van Schinne accused his sister Magdalena of cruelty in their correspondence, because she wanted him to write only about pleasant things and contentment. Her brother’s response was that, because of their true friendship, he wished his letters to reflect his state of mind at the time. For him the most important thing was to be sincere, even if his style then sometimes echoed his sombreness. He did not wish his sister to be distressed by his mood, and assured her that he possessed the calmness and strength of mind to display patience and humility.99 Along the same lines as the idea of the letter as the mirror of the soul is the requirement for sincerity, as Jan van Heukelom (senior) put it to his son, who was then at boarding school: Were it not for my great aversion to insincerity, I would open this letter with “great pressures of work have prevented me from writing to you earlier”, or: “several times I have picked up my pen, but was interrupted each time” – but that would all be untrue! The simple reason for my long silence lies in procrastination.100

In everyday correspondence, sincerity was a significant aspiration. The word ‘sincere’ occurs in a large percentage of the letters. Especially in ceremonial correspondence, the desire for sincerity was sometimes at odds with the fixed patterns which governed such letters. For this reason, the ‘cult of sincerity’ will be examined further in Chapter 5.

╛╛╛╛98 ╇ NA, FADCR, inv. no. 69V, Sophia Schimmelpenninck van der Oye van de Pollvan Rhemen to Julie d’Ablaing van Giessenburg, 23 October 1826. ╛╛╛╛99 ╇ NA, FAVS, inv. no. 157, Anthony Jan van Schinne to Magdalena van Schinne, 20 January 1835 and 23 January 1836. 100 ╇ GAL, FASVH, inv. no. 148, Jan van Heukelom sr. to Jan van Heukelom jr., 15 June 1856.



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Like the concept of ‘naturalness’, ‘sincerity’ was contrasted with ‘artificiality’. Otto Hora Siccama accused his brother Jan of cultivating an artificial and grandiloquent style. He found Jan’s style not sufficiently ‘humble’, as is clear from Jan’s rather piqued answer: ‘What do you think of this manner of writing? Am I now sufficiently humble? The art will have to be not to touch on any subject that might cause my imagination to flare up again. Not your gift of La Fontaine, certainly, as it would surely seem artificial to say too much of that’.101 The ‘humble style’ or sermo humilis is a term taken from rhetoric. The manuals prescribed a humble style for friends and family, and an elevated style for mourning letters and letters of condolence. This view was shared by Otto Hora Siccama, as the above quotation attests. Jan, however, believed that his contrived style was a sign of refinement. The authors of manuals advised letter-writers to adapt their style to the personality of the intended recipient. In rhetoric, the notion of aptum or decorum, appropriateness, was formulated as a point of good style. Paul Hubrecht junior’s view of style was in line with this. In an open letter sent to his family in the Netherlands from Paris, where he was on honeymoon, he commented: ‘The general nature of the letter will make it easier for me to describe things, as letters to individual people always have to have more the tone of the conversation that one would have with those people’.102 So the style could be determined by the occasion of writing, the relationship between the correspondents, but also the personality of the recipient. Not only should the style of a letter not be ‘artificial’; the Hora Siccamas also debated about whether truisms were acceptable in correspondence, as is clear from a letter from Otto to his mother: And yet I must admit that between the two I am sometimes so foolish as to forget that I have only myself to think about. – You would be well, dear Mama, constantly to remind me of this; a hint is enough for me, for do believe me that whatever my faults, avarice fortunately cannot as yet be reckoned among them. But I realize that I am committing the fault of saying things which you characterize as mere phrases and which cannot thus be agreeable to you.103

╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 73, Jan Hora Siccama to Otto Hora Siccama, 30 August 1838. ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 433, general open letter from Paul Hubrecht jr., 27 April 1852. 103 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 44, Otto Hora Siccama to Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck, 15 September 1828. 101 102

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By ‘phrases’, Otto apparently meant ‘clichés’, and he was aware that his mother disliked them. A few months later, however, she herself claimed that she was always interested in his letters, even if they contained nothing but commonplaces.104 Otto was impressed that his fiancée Pietje never fell back on ‘phrases and expressions’, even if she had no news to report.105 Apparently a characteristic style with clichés was acceptable for some people. The style of letters was not only commented on critically. Cato van Schinne’s letters, for instance, were praised by her uncle and aunt (even when she was in her late twenties) for their natural turn of phrase, lively tone, and charming naivety.106 In his courting days, Otto Hora Siccama was lyrical in his praise of the sparse, and in my view rather dull letters of his fiancée Pietje: ‘peut-on écrire mieux que vous!Â�peut-on s’exprimer avec plus de justesse et d’esprit?- et avec moins de prétention?’ (can anyone write better than you! – can anyone express themselves with more aptness and spirit? – and with less pretension?)107 Here aptness, spiritedness and unpretentiousness are the stylistic elements that were particularly prized. Otto also praised the narrative style of letters from his sister Angelique: It is truly a pity that you are not French; then you would certainly make your debut as a ‘femme auteur’ and perhaps be a match for Madame Dudevant [George Sand’s real name, WR]. ‘Aber, zufrieden mit stillerem Ruhme’ (‘But content with quieter glory’), in your domestic circles you do your sex more honour than the infamous George Sand: ‘ce n’est pas jurer gros,’ (that’s not saying much), you will perhaps say, but wait a moment! Her outstanding writing talent also has its value!108

This was a familiar theme in the appreciation of women authors: their style was praised, but the publication of their work, and thus their entry into the public sphere, was felt to lead them to neglect their womanly

104 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 67, Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck to Otto Hora Siccama, 21 March 1828. 105 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 91, Otto Hora Siccama to Angelique van Beeck Calkoen-Hora Siccama, 7 August 1841. 106 ╇ NA, FAVS, inv. no. 157, Gabriel Mingard to Catharina van Schinne, 26 March 1778 and E.H. Mingard-van Schinne to Catharina van Schinne, 25 December 1784. 107 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 101, Otto Hora Siccama to Pietje van Capellen, 3 September 1840. 108 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 91, Otto Hora Siccama to Angelique van Beeck Calkoen-Hora Siccama, n.d. [probably between 11 and 18 April 1840].



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duties, and was interpreted as a sign of a lack of feminine modesty.109 Nevertheless, in another letter to Angelique, Otto did hint at her publishing her letters: You do indeed put me to shame, my dear Angelique! You write so nicely; your style is so pleasing; thoughts occur to you so happily, that I would almost wish to publish your letters. Only they are rather few in number. – For I believe that someone who can put pen to paper so well should seldom allow that pen to rest.110

In many examples the term ‘style’ remains rather an abstract one, which was also the subject of confusion at the time the letters were written. Concretely speaking, style may refer to the sequence of subjects discussed, the tone, or the manner of writing. A commonly voiced comment, uttered both by writers and recipients of letters, was that a letter ‘hangs together like loose sand’.111 The letter-writing manuals ordained that the sender should reflect carefully before beginning the letter. Otto commented in the same vein in writing to his brother Jan: ‘Please forgive me this confused missive. I have already penned a great deal today, and I wanted to make the most of an intervening hour, so I sat down to write without ordering my thoughts properly. But with a little trouble you will, I hope, understand me’.112 Writing neatly and calmly would lead to legible handwriting and an orderly letter, Otto preached to his brother Louis: Your letters gave me great pleasure, as always; and yet I found it regrettable that you, who can write such a good hand, imitate me so faithfully in writing with excessive haste. It seems to me, however, that a letter does not take you much time, or you could write neatly; that would preserve you both from grammatical mistakes and ‘Confuser Stil’.113

Many letters also apologized for poor handwriting, or ‘mauvais griffonage’, which seems to have become virtually a clichéd modesty formula. ╇Streng, Geschapen om te scheppen?, 6–7. E.C. Goldsmith and D. Goodman, ‘Introduction’, in: Idem eds, Going public. Women and publishing in early modern France (Ithaca 1995) 1–9. 110 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 91, Otto Hora Siccama to Angelique van Beeck Calkoen-Hora Siccama, 7 August 1841. 111 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 44, Otto Hora Siccama to Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck, 10 July 1823. 112 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 52, Otto Hora Siccama to Jan Hora Siccama, 6 November 1846. 113 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 90L, Otto Hora Siccama to Louis Hora Siccama, 22 November 1825. 109

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Sometimes such apologies do really relate to an illegible hand, but often this is more reminiscent of rhetorical modesty topoi. Furthermore, letter-writers sometimes complained that they had not received an answer to questions in previous letters. And many correspondents grumbled that it was always they who opened the exchange of letters. Jan Hora Siccama, for instance, chided: ‘Therefore I shall not calculate according to strict rules, coolly, whether you should not really write to me first, but shall get down to the matter directly, as a good friend should’.114 Certain sentences were viewed as clichés. In the words of Abrahamine Hubrecht-Steenlack: ‘Time presses me to conclude (although Papa says it is very impolite to write this)’.115 Or: ‘now, as people so vulgairement say, time and paper have run out’.116 One phrase severely censured by the manuals but encountered very frequently in letters is ‘I take up my pen in haste’. Few correspondents, therefore, seem to have felt bound by this norm from the advice literature. The same holds true of the sentence ‘I break off with my pen, but not with my heart’. Letter-writing manuals gave no clear answer to the question of whether letters should be long or short. Some correspondents complained that the letters they received were too short; but others precisely that they were too long. Since the recipient paid the postage, the sender sometimes felt obliged to write a long letter so that it was worth paying for. On the other hand, a reason to restrict the length of the letter might be that the writer did not wish to lay too great a claim on the recipient’s time. On birthdays, especially, the recipient would have a great many letters to read. Moreover, by sending a very long letter one might suggest that the recipient had nothing better to do.117 Correspondents thus seem to have attached considerable value to the style of letters, to judge from both the positive and negative comments on this matter. Like the letter-writing manuals, many saw the letter as the mirror of the soul, which should be sincere and not artificial. A natural, lively and spirited style was appreciated, but the letter should not be overstated. The letter-writer must think carefully before putting pen to paper, to ensure that the final product would be a neat ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 72, Jan Hora Siccama to Otto Hora Siccama, 17 January 1825. ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 408, Abrahamine Hubrecht-Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht, 5 January 1828. 116 ╇GAL, FAH, suppl. II, box 19, Betsy Steenlack to Ambrosius Hubrecht, 5 November 1850. 117 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 433, Paul Hubrecht jr. to Pieter Hubrecht, 31 January 1852. 114 115



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and well-structured letter. In practice, many people of course did not do so, to judge from the reprimands one finds in the letters. Correspondents were also on the alert for clichés, which were not really permitted. Themes and taboos Standard parts of the letter In addition to stylistic clichés, there were also standard subjects for letters. Certain building blocks occur so often that it is possible to sum up what a standard letter generally comprised. After the salutation, the first paragraph tended to deal with the state of the correspondence: the writer expressed thanks for a letter received, apologized for not having written for so long, or remarked on when he or she had last received a letter from the other. This was followed by a brief allusion to that letter, such as that it had been pleasant to receive it, or to gather from it that the sender was in good health. Then letter-writers moved on to news about themselves and their families, friends and acquaintances. Generally this concerned their health, as well as births, marriages and deaths. Next the letter would turn to plans for the near future, such as house parties. Finally, compliments were passed on to the recipient’s family, and the letter ended with a concluding formula, signature, and sometimes a postscript. This pattern seems to have been the same throughout Western Europe.118 The first part of the letter, especially, about the state of the correspondence and the health of the sender and recipient and their families, affirmed the connection between the writer and the person addressed and between their families. The compliments to be passed on also served to show that the sender and recipient were embedded in a certain network: by greeting others in the recipient’s circle, the sender showed that he or she had certain contacts, which formed a sort of social collateral. If he did not yet know them well, such compliments could serve as an introduction.119 Some people felt offended if there 118 ╇Chotard-Lioret, La socialité familiale, 74. R. Baasner, ‘Briefkultur im 19. Jahrhundert. Kommunikation, Konvention, Praxis’, in: Baasner, Briefkultur, 1–36, here 24. 119 ╇Y. Hasselberg, ‘Letters, social networks and the embedded economy in Sweden: some remarks on the Swedish bourgeoisie, 1800–1850’, in: Early, Epistolary selves, 100–105.

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was no response to compliments they had expressed. This was the case with an acquaintance of the Hubrechts’: ‘Sanders was a little piqued that there was no response to his compliments to you and the rest of the family in his New Year letter – write me a word or two for him so that I can read it aloud’.120 The standard elements of the letter, such as the salutation, the compliments and the concluding formula, gave people something to go on, and were expected to elicit standard responses. News and family life Although the structure of the letter was often the same, the themes in the letter showed considerable variation. Historical studies of various kinds which use letters as a source generally also pay some attention to what was not discussed in correspondence. There is a consensus about the main component of all letters: family news and health. Most historians, with the exception of Gay, note one general taboo: sexuality.121 Otherwise the taboo subjects in letter-writing differ from study to study, but they can be roughly grouped into three categories: money, politics, and religion.122 The Dutch correspondents whose voices are heard in this study also saw passing on family news as the most important function of their letters. Generally illnesses, engagements, marriages and deaths are considered news. Family life also constitutes an important theme in ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 406, Jaqueline Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht, 18 January 1831. ╇Gay, The naked heart, 325–326. 122 ╇ In the letters at the basis of Vickery’s research into women of the English bourgeoisie and gentry, both religion and sexuality were forbidden territory: A. Vickery, The gentleman’s daughter. Women’s lives in Georgian England (London 1998) 11. The French family described by Dauphin et al. avoided the theme of religion, probably because the husband was Catholic and the wife Protestant. Money, on the other hand, was discussed: Dauphin, Ces bonnes lettres, 38, 172. For the German family studied by Habermas, finances were taboo in correspondence: Habermas, Männer und Frauen, 298. The Swedish letters investigated in Hasselberg’s study, on the other hand, discussed both finances and gossip: Hasselberg, ‘Letters, social networks’, 96. The latenineteenth-century French correspondence examined by Chotard-Liotard drew a veil over such subjects as family scandals, gossip, causes of death, financial problems (except in letters between spouses), sexuality, love relationships between family members or extramarital affairs, jealousy and mourning. Politics was only touched on if one was sure that the recipient was of the same political persuasion. Only neutral matters such as health, business, and the exchange of services or presents were safe. ChotardLioret believes this is due to the underlying aim of correspondence: to reinforce the family network. Too much mourning, for example, might reduce optimism about further life, which would ultimately not be constructive for the family network. ChotardLioret, La socialité familiale, 37–38, 449. 120 121



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many letters. In recent years, historians have stressed that it was not only women who took an interest in the private domain of the household and children’s upbringing. Men’s correspondence bears witness to the great value they attached to their children.123 My own research fully backs up these conclusions. To give just two examples: Cornelis Oomen reported to his cousin Hendrik on the progress of his daughter: ‘Lientje […] has started to walk holding one’s hand, and has 7 teeth already’.124 And Paul Hubrecht jr. wrote to his father about his wife Marie’s problems with breast-feeding: ‘Marie’s left breast is painful, so now she only allows the child to feed at one breast; the other one has a poultice on it’.125 Fashion, business and illness There is one theme that is virtually only discussed in letters between women: fashion. Women wrote about fashion a lot, and exchanged patterns, as well as recipes for dishes or for medicines. Business, on the other hand, was confined to letters from one man to another, as one woman wrote: ‘Wilhelm has so much to do that he has no time to write – well, to Papa, of course, about business, but as a rule ladies are not terribly interested in that’.126 This may well be a typically nineteenthcentury development. This period saw the separation of the living and the working sphere, whereas in the preceding centuries women were still often involved in the family business, or were at least better informed about it, since it operated from the home. The letters of Emilie Fijnje-Luzac (1748–1788), for instance, written in 1787–1788,

123 ╇Vickery, The gentleman’s daughter, 124. Shoemaker, Gender, 123–124. T. de Bie and W. Fritschy, ‘De “wereld” van Réveilvrouwen, hun liefdadige activiteiten en het ontstaan van het feminisme in Nederland’, Jaarboek voor Vrouwengeschiedenis 6 (1985) 30–58, here 49. Habermas and Trepp suggest that men’s interest in family dates from the early nineteenth century, but in fact it was also present in the early modern period, see: Habermas, Frauen und Männer, 377–378. A.-C. Trepp, ‘The private lives of men in eighteenth-century Central Europe. The emotional side of men in late eighteenthcentury Germany (theory and example)’, Central European History 27 (1994) 127–152. J. Hokke, ‘â•›“Mijn alderliefste Jantie lief.” Vrouwen en gezin in de Republiek: regentenvrouwen en hun relaties’, Jaarboek voor Vrouwengeschiedenis 8 (1987) 45–73. B. Roberts, ‘Fatherhood in eighteenth-century Holland. The Van der Meulen brothers’, Journal of Family History 21 (1996) 218–228. 124 ╇ RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 1318, Cornelis Oomen to Hendrik Oomen, 16 January 1802. 125 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 433, Paul Hubrecht jr. to Pieter Hubrecht, 16 April 1853. 126 ╇ RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 326, Marie Kraemer to Joanna Fuchs, 29 November 1867.

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show her great involvement in her husband’s printing press, and her considerable knowledge of affairs of business and finance.127 The stereotypical image of nineteenth-century correspondents is that they expended reams of paper pouring out all the details of their various illnesses.128 This image is not entirely accurate. Certainly illnesses were a frequent subject for letters, but it was often not the ill health of the letter-writer that was discussed. Correspondents tended to describe the illnesses of members of their family or household rather than their own. The reason for this may have been a very practical one: people who are ill are often unable to write letters. It may also have had to do with the prohibition on egocentrism, which will be discussed further at the end of this section. A correspondent writing to Baroness De Constant Rebecque apologized, for instance, for his detailed description of his illness.129 Dwelling on one’s own illness in a letter perhaps occurred less often that we might expect, but it was not taboo. Sexuality, on the other hand, clearly was forbidden territory for letters. Young men sporadically exchanged the odd frivolous, somewhat risqué remark about ‘conjugal delights’,130 but it seldom became more explicit than that. This reticence is apparent, for instance, from the advice the 22-year-old Maria Oomen asked of her mother when she was on her honeymoon: Just between the two of us, dear Maman, last week I did not have my change [menstruation, WR], though it was the time for it; and yet I am very well. I assume that it must just be a matter of the air; please do say a word or two, because being married, other things are also possible; but if you do write, please make sure to seal your letter.131

127 ╇Emilie Fijnje-Luzac, Myne beslommerde Boedel. Brieven in ballingschap 1787– 1788, ed. J.J.M. Baartmans (Nijmegen 2003). 128 ╇Gay, The naked heart, 326. 129 ╇ NA, FADCR, inv. no. 69X, E.A. de Geen de Casembroot to Julie de Constant Rebecque-d’Ablaing van Giessenburg, 3 April 1856. See also T. Wijsenbeek-Olthuis, ‘Ziekte en tegenslag. Ziektebeleving in de hoogste kringen van de Republiek in de zeventiende eeuw’, in: M. Gijswijt-Hofstra and F. Egmond eds, Of bidden helpt? Tegenslag en cultuur in Europa, circa 1500–2000 (Amsterdam 1997) 71–86, here 74. The way in which illness is written about in egodocuments would be a fruitful area for further research. One book on this subject is: G. Piller, ‘Krankheit schreiben. Körper und Sprache im Selbstzeugnis von Margarethe E. Milow-Hudtwalcker (1748–1794), Historische Anthropologie 7 (1999) 212–235. 130 ╇ RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 48, P.A. van Meeuwen to Franciscus van Lanschot sr., 27 March 1809. 131 ╇ RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 1304, Maria Oomen to Elisabeth Oomen-Ingen-Housz, 11 June 1832.



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The daughter asked her mother to send her answer in a sealed envelope so that her husband could not read it. Pregnancies were also always written about in euphemistic terms. One of the many examples is a letter from Antoinette van Lanschot to her sister in law: Now, dear sister, about a chaplet,132 which I kindly request you to keep to yourself and Papa: for some time now I have thought that things are that way with me, and since we are assured that Papa and you will share in our happiness, and that this will give you pleasure, we will no longer keep silent; I have also written to Mama, but with the request not to tell any of the family, like Cato […], since I do not like it to be spoken of so early.133

According to John Gillis, describing pregnancies in euphemistic terms was a late eighteenth-century development. From that time, pregnant women were increasingly excluded from the public domain, and writing about pregnancy also became less and less explicit. Birth was described in less concrete terms, and the attention focused on the idealization of maternal feelings. The woman was extolled as a delicate creature – too delicate for her pregnancy to be written about clearly.134 Apart from sexuality, few subjects were universally taboo. Money, politics or religion, themes which were unmentionable in correspondence for some families in other countries, were acceptable subjects for the Dutch families studied. Financial matters surfaced in letters when talk turned to the costs of running the household, or to amounts received for effects sold by members of the family. Incomes were also discussed if there was a question of a possible engagement. For after all, the precise state of a couple’s financial affairs could make or break a marriage. Politics The question of whether correspondence alluded to politics depended mainly on the period of writing. Times of political unrest or the tumult of war, such as the Ten Days Campaign in 1831, were understandably reflected in contemporaries’ letters. Correspondents’ own personal

╇ Here the word ‘chaplet’ seems to be used to refer to a secret. ╇ RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 233, letter from Theodorus and Antoinette van Lanschot to Theodora van Lanschot, 16 June 1840. 134 ╇ J.R. Gillis, A world of their own making. Myth, ritual, and the quest for family values (Cambridge 1996) 166–169. 132 133

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interests also affected whether they wrote about politics. Otto Hora Siccama wrote to his brother Louis in 1831: ‘Shall I now write to you about politics? The newspapers are so full of it already’.135 The political reporting of popular newspapers may explain why some families, such as the Hubrechts, corresponded little about political affairs. Moreover, it was not really proper for women to talk or write about politics, as Otto Hora Siccama explained to his sister Angelique: ‘Come, enough babbling! And all about affairs of war, at that! For I do not wish to make an Amazon of you: a woman should be and remain a woman. General Amor is the only one under whom they may serve’.136 Nevertheless, Otto’s mother was the one to bring up the question of the Southern Netherlands in writing to her son in 1831: I continue to flatter myself that our blood will only be risked for the preservation of our territory, and in no way to drag ungrateful step-brothers back to the parental home against their will and without their thanks, to the sorrow and disadvantage of one’s own children. But then this is of the realm of political questions, is it not? And we women are not competent to cast judgement on that.137

Over twenty years later, the mother of the fifteen-year-old Victor de Constant Rebecque corresponded with him about the political relations between Russia and Turkey.138 It would seem then, that although women were expected not to concern themselves with politics, they did sometimes do so in their letters. Religion Where religion is concerned, there can be absolutely no question of a taboo. Indeed, quite the contrary, for many families religion was an important subject for letters. Especially in the correspondence of the Protestant families studied, the Hubrechts and the De Constant Rebecques (and to a lesser extent the Hora Siccamas), religion was a central theme. Tineke de Bie and Wantje Fritschy conclude in their

135 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 90L, Otto Hora Siccama to Louis Hora Siccama, 26 January 1831. 136 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 91, Otto Hora Siccama to Angelique Hora Siccama, 17 November 1830. 137 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 67, Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck to Otto Hora Siccama, n.d. [1831]. 138 ╇ NA, FADCR, inv. no. 69D, Victor de Constant Rebecque to Julie de Constant Rebecque-d’Ablaing van Giessenburg, 1 February 1854.



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investigation of the correspondence between men and women of the Réveil (a religious movement that flourished in the Netherlands in the first half of the nineteenth century) that virtually every letter had a religious component.139 Baroness De Constant Rebecque was in contact with the Da Costas, one of the leading families of the Réveil. She was friendly with Hannah da Costa and attended discussion and poetry evenings led by the author Isaac da Costa.140 The Van Lanschots, a Catholic family, also occasionally mentioned religion in their letters, but in a very different manner from the Protestant families. The letters of the Protestant families show much more evidence of intimate deliberations of conscience. There is one particular function of the letter that we encounter most clearly in the correspondence of the Hubrechts, who had Pietist leanings: this is the letter as a means to stimulate faith, to foster the internalization of belief. In general, letters were an excellent aid to developing one’s ideas, as Louise Berkhout-Steenlack wrote: ‘otherwise we will talk about it on paper some time, and then we will both profit, since there is nothing more suitable for developing and ordering one’s own ideas further’.141 Particularly the members of the Hubrecht family developed their ideas about religion in their letters. In dwelling on religious matters in their correspondence, the correspondents not only drew closer to each other, but also closer to God, which gave rise to a sort of triangular relationship: j’éspère que vous étiez en communion avec nous et surtout avec celui dont le corps a été rompu et le sang verzé en remission de nos péchés, c’est une communion si précieuze et il y a quelque choze de bien donc pour notre coeur dans ses instants solennels dans la pensée que nos plus chers amis sur la terre sont en lui en communiant avec nous. (I hope that you were in communion with us, and especially with Him whose body  was broken and whose blood was poured out for the remission of  our sins. This is such a precious communion, and there is therefore  something good for our souls in these solemn moments in the thought that our very dearest friends on earth are in Him in communicating with us.)142 ╇ De Bie and Fritschy, ‘De “wereld” van Réveilvrouwen’, 56. ╇NA, FADCR, inv. no. 120B, Julie de Constant Rebecque-d’Ablaing van Giessenburg to Victor de Constant Rebecque, 2 July 1854. 141 ╇ GAL, FAH, suppl. II, box 19, Louise Berkhout-Steenlack to Ambrosius Hubrecht, 19 January 1850. 142 ╇GAL, FAH, inv. no. 416, Victor Guye and Jaqueline Guye-Steenlack to Abrahamine Hubrecht-Steenlack, 9 April 1849. 139 140

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It was not merely that religion was reflected on in letters; the bond with God was strengthened by the tightening of the bond between the sender and the recipient. Exchanging religious experiences also created a certain intimacy: often correspondents of the Hubrecht family picked out a special person to write to about religion. This was the case, for instance, with the exchange of letters between Jaqueline Steenlack and her brother-in-law Pieter Hubrecht. Particularly for Protestants with Pietist leanings, correspondence with like-minded believers was an important way to obtain assurance in matters of faith. In this sense, correspondence functioned as an extension of the conventicle, a discussion group for devout believers, which served among other things to exchange experiences of faith and to strengthen one another in belief. Pietist egodocuments, such as autobiographies and diaries, were often read aloud at these conventicles.143 My research demonstrates that letters were also important in the reading and writing culture of Pietists. This would be a fruitful field for further study. Between themes and taboos: engagements, gossip, and conflicts Religion, thus, was by no means taboo in correspondence. Finances and politics were acceptable subjects too, although women were not really supposed to discuss political matters in their letters. There were several other subjects that were not forbidden in correspondence, but were perhaps problematic. Negotiations over engagements, or in the period leading up to them, for instance, often made for embarrassing letters. A preliminary letter was generally enough to describe potential marriage candidates. For after all, there was always the risk that the engagement might not ultimately take place, and in that case it was better for as few people as possible to have got wind of the matter. For this reason, correspondents sometimes preferred to discuss possible fiancés orally rather than in a letter, as Maria van den Broek-van Lelyveld suggested: ‘more on this anon by mouth; do not wish to entrust too much to paper without it being necessary’.144 Besides candidates for engagement, gossip also inhabited the grey area of what was or was not acceptable in correspondence. CorreÂ� spondents certainly did gossip in letters, but many, especially the 143 ╇ F.A. van Lieburg, Levens van vromen. Gereformeerd piëtisme in de achttiende eeuw (Kampen 1991) 128, 141, 157, 165. 144 ╇GAL, FAH, inv. no. 1174, Maria van den Broek-van Lelyveld to Pieter van Lelyveld and Cecilia van Lelyveld-Marcus, 19 January 1780.



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Protestants, felt uncomfortable about it. Often gossip about others was followed by a comment such as ‘between ourselves’, or ‘you can trust me to keep a secret’. In these cases too, some correspondents preferred to talk face to face rather than by letter; others chastised themselves after written calumnies, as did Octavie Steenlack, for instance, after a rather less than proper description of a few members of her family: ‘But basta – no unpleasantnesses’.145 Gossiping was often associated with women,146 but men went for it in their letters too, like Mr Falck in a letter to his grown-up daughter Amelie: ‘They tell me that Mrs Fexier, erstwhile Van Hemert, now lodging with her parents, has been happily delivered of a son. They say that Fexier left her a good 1½ years ago’.147 Conflicts too were on the borderline of what was and was not suitable subject matter for a letter. In her research in to the Blussé family, Arianne Baggerman notes that not a single letter in the family archive refers to a conflict. There was scarcely any trace in the family papers of one of the Blussé sons, who was committed to an institution. This part of the family history was probably deliberately excluded, so as to create the right image of the family for later generations.148 Although doubtlessly papers were deliberately preserved or omitted from the family archives – a policy, incidentally, that is generally difficult to rÂ� econstruct – traces of conflicts can indeed be found in the correspondences of the families I have focused on here. However, some correspondents found such things easier to write about than others. There are allusions, for instance, to the family row that blew up when Otto Hora Siccama wished to marry his aunt,149 and the rift between Julie de Constant Rebecque and her father when she had kept him in the dark about a marriage proposal and he did not agree with her choice of fiancé.150 Julie and her father did correspond openly about a family member who had been committed to an asylum.151 145 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 420, Octavie van Heukelom-Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht, 19 December 1850. 146 ╇ M. Tebbutt, Women’s talk? A social history of ‘gossip’ in working-class neighbourhoods, 1880–1960 (Aldershot 1995) 13. 147 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 41, O.W. Falck to Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck, 11 September 1802. 148 ╇ Baggerman, ‘Autobiography and family memory’, 169. 149 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 67, Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck to Otto Hora Siccama, 5 May 1829, 31 January 1830. 150 ╇ NA, FADCR, inv. no. 69A, Joan d’Ablaing van Giessenburg to Julie d’Ablaing van Giessenburg, 18 December 1829. 151 ╇ NA, FADCR, inv. no. 69A, Joan d’Ablaing van Giessenburg to Julie de Constant Rebecque- d’Ablaing van Giessenburg, 11 February 1847.

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Emotions Although rows were sometimes written about, it seems as though the content of the ideal letter should attest a more positive attitude. In the words of Vincent d’Ablaing van Giessenburg: ‘on dit qu’on ne doit écrire que dans des momens de belle humeur’ (they say that one should only write at moments when one is in a good mood).152 This brings us to the theme of the emotions: which emotions could one display in everyday correspondence, and which not? The above quotation shows that it was good etiquette only to write letters if one was in a good mood. A late nineteenth-century etiquette book for women prescribed this explicitly: ‘If one wishes to share one’s thoughts and feelings, one should as far as possible avoid writing when one is in a subdued mood’.153 Otto Hora Siccama’s mother extolled a letter from Otto’s brother Jan for being ‘very pleasantly and light-heartedly written’.154 If every letter-writer had heeded this advice, we would never find passages about feelings of depression or anger in letters. This is not the case, since correspondents do indeed mention feeling melancholy in letters to intimate friends and relations. Sometimes the author apologized for this, as in a letter written to Pieter van Lelyveld by a friend: ‘perhaps the tone in which I write this letter is too melancholy in pitch’.155 More often we see the recipient of a depressed letter trying to cheer up the sender. Thus Julie d’Ablaing van Giessenburg’s cousin urged her not to succumb too much to depression: ‘Je vous prie, Julie, chère Bonne, ne vous laissez pas trop aller à cette melancholie, elle fait du mal à votre santé, et vous savez que c’est un de nos devoirs de soigner de prolonger notre vie qui ne nous appartient pas’ (I pray you, Julie, my dear, do not give in so much to this melancholy, it is bad for your health, and you know it is one of our duties to take care to prolong this life which does not belong to us.)156 Both men and women mention feeling low in their correspondence. In gender difference theory, women were characterized as emotional and men and rational, but recent research has demonstrated that in 152 ╇ NA, FADCR, inv. no. 69I, Vincent d’Ablaing van Giessenburg to Julie de Constant Rebecque- d’Ablaing van Giessenburg, 11 December 1840. 153 ╇ Van Rijnkerke-Olthuis, De vrouw, 259. 154 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 67, Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck to Otto Hora Siccama, 16 December 1826. 155 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 1180, J. Ph. Ruys to Pieter van Lelyveld, 9 March 1799. 156 ╇ NA, FADCR, inv. no. 69R, Margaretha Dedel to Julie d’Ablaing van Giessenburg, 16 May 1831.



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practice having and displaying feelings was also important for men in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in part due to the influence of sentimentalism and Romanticism.157 Otto Hora Siccama, for instance, read The Man of Feeling, a sentimentalist novel by the Scottish author Henry Mackenzie, first published in 1771. In this novel, extreme compassion, to the point of tears, was advocated in men.158 Generally, however, controlling the emotions was characterized as manly, as Dorothée Sturkenboom has demonstrated in the case of the spectatorial journals of the eighteenth century.159 A letter of condolence addressed to Augustinus van Lanschot reinforces this image: Pleurez, cher ami, l’excellent enfant, qui n’est que trop digne de nos larmes; mais que notre douleur soit cette d’un homme, vous le devez à vous même; vous devez à votre famille une conduit ferme, dans la quelle elle trouve quelqu’appui quelque solagement-armez vous, contre cet arret irrévocable de raisons et de philosophie et même d’un peu de stoïcisme, qu’une réligion éclairée guide votre douleur. (Weep, my dear friend, for this excellent child, who is only too worthy of our tears. But may our sadness be that of a man. You owe it to yourself, you owe your family firm conduct, in which it find some support, some solace. Arm yourself against this irrevocable arrest of reason and philosophy, and even of a little stoicism. May an enlightened religion guide your sorrow).160

Sturkenboom also concludes, incidentally, that controlling the emotions was generally seen as the goal to strive for. This too can be seen in several letters from the five family archives studied. Emotions are laudable, but it is equally laudable to keep them in check. Thus Otto Hora Siccama’s mother grumbled about the over-buoyant tone of one of his letters: ‘Your letter to Antoinette that she received yesterday also displays high spirits, I would almost say to excess, since I found a good deal too much in the letter that was unfitting, to put it mildly.’161 It would seem, then, that a letter should be optimistic and cheerful, but

╇Trepp, ‘The private lives’, 152. ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 44, Otto Hora Siccama to Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck, 11 March 1824. For more about this novel, see: M. Gassenmeier, Der Typus des man of feeling. Studien zum sentimentalen Roman des 18. Jahrhunderts in England (Tübingen 1972) 124–152. 159 ╇ D. Sturkenboom, Spectators van hartstocht. Sekse en emotionele cultuur in de achttiende eeuw (Hilversum 1998) 110. 160 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 119, L. Lightenvelt to Augustinus van Lanschot, 8 September 1827. 161 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 67, Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck to Otto Hora Siccama, 16 January 1831. 157 158

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should not take this to extremes. Otto himself, who, by his own account, was considered by many ‘très froid’ – an impression he was at pains to rectify,162 (perhaps this was behind his reading of the novel The Man of Feeling) – wrote to his sister Angelique: ‘je me flatte que tu voudras bien t’observer un peu, et que tu tâcheras, pas d’être moins triste, mais d’être douce. C’est tout ce que je te demande, en te priant d’excuser ce que ma lettre pourrait avoir de trop franc’ (I flatter myself that you would like to take heed to yourself a bit, and that you may strive, not to be less sad, but to be gentle. That is all I ask of you, begging you to excuse anything about my letter that is perhaps too frank).163 Not only did Otto urge Angelique to be ‘gentle’, but he feared that his letter had gone too far, had been too frank. We encounter the same fears in the intimate correspondence between another brother and sister: Henri and Theodora van Lanschot. Although Henri proudly declared that ‘frankness is my motto’, he was also sometimes afraid that he had been too openhearted, as with regard to a probably rather negative comment on a possible marriage candidate for Theodora: ‘peut-etre me suis-je expliqué un peu trop liberalement’ (perhaps I expressed myself rather too liberally).164 Sophia Schimmelpenninck van der Oye van de Poll-van Rhemen, too, feared that her frankness might not be appropriate for letters: ‘j’espère vous tout dire je préfère ne pas la faire par lettres vous savez que je suis franche peutêtre même trop quelquefois’ (I hope to tell you all. I prefer not to do so by letter – you know that I am frank, perhaps sometimes too much so).165 It was also possible to overstep the mark where religious sensibilities were concerned. Thus Sara Wrangel-Dedel wrote to her cousin Julie, Baroness De Constant Rebecque, that she had received a letter from Dina Singendonck that was excessive in its pietism: Dina brought religion into everything, even the most mundane matters, which was excessive, in Sara’s view.166 It is fine to express religious feelings, then,

╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 39, Otto Hora Siccama to Harco Hora Siccama, 22 November 1823. 163 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 91, Otto Hora Siccama to Angelique Hora Siccama, 1 February 1832. 164 ╇ RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 228, Henricus van Lanschot to Theodora van Lanschot, 7 August 1828. 165 ╇ NA, FADCR, inv. no. 69V, Sophia Schimmelpenninck van der Oye van der Pollvan Rhemen to Julie d’Ablaing van Giessenburg, 1 October 1830. 166 ╇ NA, FADCR, inv. no. 69Q, Sara Wrangel-Dedel to Julie de Constant Rebecqued’Ablaing van Giessenburg, 30 July 1842. 162



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but this too should be kept within certain limits. Pietist families such as the Hubrechts, however, seem not to have felt such boundaries. Striving for moderation and the ‘golden mean’ was also at the forefront in other genres in the Netherlands in the first half of the nineteenth century. This ideal was part of the longing for peace and reconciliation after the turbulent period of French rule, in which dissension and radical ideas had led to unrest. The desire for moderation and calm found expression in the visual arts and poetry, for instance, in striving to reconcile extremes.167 And yet it is questionable whether there was any such direct connection between letter-writing culture and the mentality of the Dutch restoration period (1815–1848). From Aristotle’s day, many had espoused the ideal of the golden mean, both when it came to expressing emotions (the ethical mean) and in matters of style (the stylistic mean).168 So the idea that a letter should not be excessive might also fit into this longer tradition. The way in which correspondents mould their emotions by means of letters is perhaps more interesting than simply establishing whether certain emotions were or were not described in letters, and by whom. It would be artificial to construct an opposition between, on the one hand, prescriptions regarding the expression of emotions and, on the other hand, people’s perception of emotions in practice, to be reconstructed from letters. At the end of her study into spectatorial writers’ views on the emotions, for instance, Sturkenboom suggests that the question of whether these authors influenced the emotional experiential world of their readers might be answered by examining diaries and letters, which would reveal people’s personal perceptions of certain emotions.169 However, it is not so simple to reconstruct people’s personal perceptions of feelings using egodocuments. It is virtually impossible to ascertain whether an emotion expressed in a letter is ‘genuine’ or not. When it comes to the emotions, the distinction between prescription and practice is not a very fruitful line of enquiry. For this reason, research into the emotions has taken a different turn. The historian and anthropologist William Reddy, for instance, has argued against approaching expressions of emotion either as a ‘discourse’, i.e. words that bear no relation to reality, or as an u Â� nproblematic

╇ Streng, ‘Romantiek als spookbeeld’, 35. ╇Jansen, Decorum, 43–46. 169 ╇Sturkenboom, Spectators, 368. 167 168

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‘practice’, in which the words used to express the emotions refer directly to the emotions themselves. Instead, Reddy emphasizes precisely the capacity of expressions of emotion to evince change in that to which they refer, i.e., in the state of the speaker. He coins the term ‘an emotive’ to designate a feeling which, simultaneously with its expression, changes that feeling. In Reddy’s anthropological approach, the dynamic nature of the expression of emotion is central: communities and individuals attempt (whether consciously or not) to direct their emotions. If for instance a person is asked whether he is angry and answers ‘yes’, he may become angrier in answering than he was originally. Expressing the emotion has altered the emotion itself. In this way emotions can be channelled in the desired direction.170 The dynamic character of emotions is also emphasized in the concept of ‘emotion work’, as developed by the sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild. Emotion work refers to the effort of conforming to cultural norms that prescribe which emotions one should or should not feel. To live up to these norms, two sorts of action are possible: ‘surface acting’, conscious body language such as crying, and ‘deep acting’, the construction of feeling itself. Martha Tomhave Blauvelt has demonstrated the significance of emotion work in a case study of an American woman in the nineteenth century, who used her diary to work on her emotions so that she could eventually display the emotions that befitted the socially acceptable role of (a good Calvinist) daughter, wife and mother.171 The concepts of the ‘emotive’ and of ‘emotion work’ seem to me to clarify matters, since they sidestep the rather misleading opposition between prescription and practice where emotions are concerned. The letters written by women from the Hubrecht, Van Lanschot, and De Constant Rebecque families also show evidence of this sort of emotion work. Sophia Schimmelpenninck van der Oye van de Poll-van Rhemen, for example, wrote to her friend Julie: je suis si triste que je pouvrai pleurer toute la journée mais je me dis à moimême allons soyons raissonable quand je pense à mes malheureuses amies prisonnieres je dois me trouver encore bien heureuse n’est il pas vrai ? Enfin parlons d’autre choses car ceci n’est pas propre à vous égayer 170 ╇ W.M. Reddy, ‘Against constructionism. The historical ethnography of emotions’, Current Anthropology 38 (1997) 327–351, here 327–330. 171 ╇ M. Tomhave Blauvelt, ‘The work of the heart: emotion in the 1805–35 diary of Sarah Connell Ayer’, JSH 35 (2002) 577–592, here 577–578.



everyday correspondence105 (I am so sad I could cry all day long, but I say to myself, come on, be reasonable – when I think of my dear friends, those imprisoned women, I should count myself very fortunate, should I not? But still, let us talk of other things, as this is not really fit to make you cheerful).172

Sophia reproached herself for writing that she was feeling melancholy. In writing, she tried to cheer herself up. In another letter from Sophia to Julie, she confessed that she was sometimes a little jealous of the way a man talked about Julie. She adds: ‘je veux tacher de ne pas avoir ce vilaine défaut pour lequel jaurais beaucoup de disposition’ (I will strive not to have this ugly failing, for which I could have rather a predisposition).173 Sophia not only strove to control her depressive feelings in her letters, but also to keep her jealousy in check. Pauline van der Kun, on the other hand, struggled with the virtue of patience, as she reported to her sister-in-law in a letter in which she complained about her servants: ‘il faudra encore me résigner, non sans peine ce qui est très naturel, aussi la patience est une belle vertu comme dit le proverbe et je tacherai de la mettre en pratique’ (I shall have to resign myself yet again, I fear – not without difficulty, as is very natural – and of course patience is a virtue, as the saying goes, and I will strive to put it into practice).174 Elisabeth Steenlack-Francken too urged herself to be patient: ‘but be patient, one cannot have everything as one would wish, but I do tend to be rather impatient, and that is an ugly complaint that can easily make us peevish and discontented’.175 Elisabeth also excused herself for periods of despondency: ‘forgive me, my dear Piet, if I am not always masterful enough to subdue those melancholic thoughts’.176 It is striking that all these quotations are from women. The two passages quoted above about gossiping also showed that the male correspondent, Mr Falck, did not feel the need to follow up his gossip with an apology or self-reproof, whereas Octavie Steenlack did. Women much more frequently used the letter as a means of disciplining themselves than did men. Emotion work seems to have been practised primarily by women,

172 ╇ NA, FADCR, inv. no. 69V, Sophia Schimmelpenninck van der Oye van de Pollvan Rhemen to Julie d’Ablaing van Giessenburg, n.d.. 173 ╇ NA, FADCR, inv. no. 69V, Sophia Schimmelpenninck van der Oye van de Pollvan Rhemen to Julie d’Ablaing van Giessenburg, 4 July 1826. 174 ╇ RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 235, Pauline van Lanschot-van der Kun to Theodora van Lanschot, 15 December 1834. 175 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 408, Abrahamine Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht, 6 June 1828. 176 ╇GAL, FAH, inv. no. 409, Elisabeth Steenlack-Francken to Pieter Hubrecht, 23 August 1850.

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which can be explained by the stricter rules governing women’s behaviour. Women had to appear even more patient and cheerful than men. Emotion work seems then to have had a double function. Not only did women attempt in their correspondence to internalize their emotions, they also projected an image to their correspondents of a woman who was trying to live up to the character traits that were expected of her. Egocentrism The previous chapter noted that several authors of manuals advised correspondents not to write too much about themselves. The family archives of the Protestant Hubrecht, Hora Siccama and De Constant Rebecque contain in total about a dozen letters, all dating from after 1831, in which the writer apologizes for writing too much about himself or herself. One correspondent of the De Constant Rebecque family excused himself, as mentioned above, for entering into so much detail about his own illness. Otto Hora Siccama too was afraid of being taken for an egocentric hypochondriac: Please excuse me, dear Mama, for taking up so much of your time about myself, and moreover I run the risk of being called a hypochondriac: but I do not deserve that name, since I do not display the behaviour by which Vosmaer recognizes such people, who keep looking at their tongues in the mirror, etc. etc.177

In another letter, Otto’s mother decreed that one’s own character did not constitute a suitable subject for conversation.178 In addition to the question of whether the speaker/writer may be at the centre of attention in a letter or conversation, the theme of ‘egocentrism’ was also a social issue in the letters. Otto Hora Siccama, for instance, endorsed a hypothesis of his aunt’s that in general men were more selfish than women.179 Nevertheless, he believed that women who did not wish to marry and have children were indeed selfish.180 Both men and women apologized for being self-centred in their letters. I cannot establish whether people really did start to write more 177 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 44, Otto Hora Siccama to Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck, 6 January 1829. 178 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 44, Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck to Otto Hora Siccama, 22 December 1831. 179 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 72, Jan Hora Siccama to Otto Hora Siccama, 14 August 1826. 180 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 101, Otto Hora Siccama to Pietje van Capellen, 1 November 1840.



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about themselves. This also depends strongly on the individual and his or her stage of life, as well as the relationship between the correspondents. It is striking, however, that it was in about 1810–1830 that the manuals started to preach more vociferously against egocentrism, and that the apologies for this failing are found in letters from precisely this period. The ‘ego’ probably became a more central cultural theme, with negative connotations. Indications are admittedly scarce, but it is noticeable that a mention of egocentrism in a letter dating from 1802 was not accompanied by an apology, and was even rather applauded. A friend of Magdalena van Schinne’s was writing about her experiences since Magdalena’s departure: ‘Cela sera fort interessant mon Egoisme vous en est garant et que plus est mon amour propre m’assure que vous voudrez bien être du même avis’ (This will be extremely interesting – my egoism guarantees it, and, what is more, my self esteem assures me that you would be of the same opinion).181 It must, of course, remain speculation, but the cautious observation that the ‘ego’ became a problematic issue in letters in about 1810–1830, together with the fact – discussed in the first chapter – that it was in this same period that the ideal of naturalness took hold in the Netherlands, seems to point to a cultural turning point in letter-writing. Perhaps the taboo Â�regarding egoÂ� centrism was connected with changes in public morality in the wake of the French occupation: the French Revolution’s ideology of equality came to be viewed as toleration of egotism. Instead, it was precisely the common good, not individual interests, which was valued most highly in the Netherlands after the French period. Simplicity and unity were paramount.182 Is the prohibition of egocentrism in letters an equivalent of this? Or is it rather an indication of the ascendancy of the ‘ego’? Receiving a letter In conclusion of this chapter, which has traced the letter’s path from writing by candle-light, via language and style, to the sender, something must be said about the way in which this same sender handled the letters he or she received. Several correspondents alluded to the practice of reading letters aloud in the family circle. Jaqueline Steenlack, for instance, read out passages from correspondence she had received: 181 182

╇ NA, FAVS, inv. no. 174, Louise to Magdalena van Schinne, 25 August 1802. ╇Westers, Welsprekende burgers, 203–204.

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chapter two I find it sweet of you to write so many good things of him; then I can read it out to the governess, who is quite well pleased by it […] but now I would like to [know, WR] who told you that I was so fond of him as you say; pooh, pooh, Piet, you made me turn a rare old colour when I read Mama various bits and pieces from your letter.183

Jan Hora Siccama too mentioned reading letters aloud, or having them read aloud to him: ‘We had just got back yesterday evening […] when I received the letters, which were listened to with much sympathy’.184 Nevertheless, the Hora Siccamas mainly wrote to each other individually, rather than addressing letters to the whole family. It is not very clear, therefore, how widespread it was to read letters aloud. Although there are few explicit mentions in the letters of reading aloud, correspondents did often request each other to keep the contents of the letter ‘between ourselves’, and not to let others read it. This might allude to the custom of reading letters aloud or allowing others to read them, but might equally be a way of promoting the bond of trust between the sender and the recipient. In any case, I have not observed any chronological development from reading aloud to silent reading, or from a public to a private approach to correspondence. In Chapter 1, it was mentioned that there was a discussion in the advice literature about whether spouses might read each other’s letters. This was also a matter of dispute in practice. When Maria Oomen asked her mother’s advice about the absence of her menstruation on her honeymoon, she requested her mother to seal her reply separately.185 This explicit request pointed to the fact that it was customary to send several unsealed letters in one envelope, so that Maria’s husband could easily have read her letters. Henri van Lanschot was also of the opinion that he might read letters addressed to his wife Pauline, since ‘man and wife are one’.186 Sophia Schimmelpenninck van der Oye van de Poll-van Rhemen, on the other hand, swore to her friend Julie that she never showed the latter’s letters to her husband.187 Letters are 183 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 416, Jaqueline Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht, n.d. [1 January 1834]. 184 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 38, Jan Hora Siccama to Harco Hora Siccama, 5 August 1822. See also De Nijs, In veilige haven, 251. 185 ╇ RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 1304, Maria Oomen to Elisabeth Oomen-Ingen-Housz, 11 June 1832. 186 ╇ RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 228, Henricus van Lanschot to Theodora van Lanschot, 5 December 1833. 187 ╇ NA, FADCR, inv. no. 69V, Sophia Schimmelpenninck van der Oye van de Pollvan Rhemen to Julie d’Ablaing van Giessenburg, 26 October 1825.



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here clearly defined as a private matter. This view was echoed in a British lawsuit, in which a woman applied for divorce on grounds of psychological abuse; one of the arguments adduced was that her husband opened her letters.188 To prevent others from reading a letter, but also sometimes due to shame, the sender sometimes requested the recipient to burn it after reading it. There are about twenty letters that express this wish. The senders were mainly young men and women. This corresponds with the desire for intimacy that is often part of adolescence. One reason not to burn such letters, but rather to keep them, was their sentimental value. Letters from deceased family members, especially those who had died young, were preserved because of the memories they kept alive of the writer. Henriëtte Steenlack, for instance, confided: ‘This week I came across a few letters from dear Hermine from days gone by, and also one she wrote me two years ago now, after Pauline’s death. I am happy I kept them; I find them such pleasant reminders’.189 Jaqueline Guye-Steenlack too cherished the last letter from her nephew Ambrosius, who died young: ‘a sincere, melancholy, but entirely Christian tone and mood prevails, which struck us forcefully, especially on later reading – later on it will also gratify you and be a pleasure for you to read’.190 Keeping letters could also lead to a certain amount of hilarity in the family if they were read aloud later: ‘This very evening Tante Zezette read us out letters and declarations from unfortunate lovers who had asked for her hand; we all dutifully laughed’.191 Conclusion This chapter described everyday correspondence in actual practice. Writing materials and postage cost money, and time and space could not be taken for granted either – all of these factors influenced letterwriting. Letters were full of apologies for bad handwriting as a result of poor quality quills, and women especially expressed the belief that

188 ╇ A. James Hammerton, Cruelty and companionship: conflict in nineteenth-century married life (London 1992) 129. 189 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 417, Henriëtte Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht, 10 April 1840. 190 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 444, Jaqueline Guye-Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht, 11 January 1853. 191 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 39, Otto Hora Siccama to Harco Hora Siccama, 25 January 1822.

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their lack of time and space due to household and nurturing tasks had a negative influence on the content and style of their letters. The fact that until 1850 the recipient of the letter paid the postage also influenced the sending of letters. As far as the choice of language was concerned, it was established that the majority of the letters studied were written in Dutch. French was also used for letter-writing, because it was felt to be a beautiful language which was well suited to a narrative style. A number of correspondents made a nationalistic plea for the use of Dutch in correspondence as a way of countering the influence of France. Further it was striking that many letters mixed French and Dutch, and that women were more likely to use French when writing amongst themselves. Finally, it emerged that French was used less often in letterwriting after 1810, and that Latin was sometimes still actively used for correspondence in the nineteenth century. In addition to the material prerequisites and the choice of language, the use of forms of address and the style of letters in practice were discussed. Forms of address and concluding formulas could be used to express hierarchies or emotions. Further, letters were praised for their naturalness or vivacity, or criticized for being artificial or confused. The main themes that featured in letters were also examined. Sexuality was definitely taboo in correspondence. Arguments, gossip and reports of engagements were perceived as sensitive issues. Women were not really supposed to write about politics or business, but politics did sometimes come up in their letters. Otherwise, correspondents wrote more about the illnesses of others than about their own health. This was perhaps connected with the prohibition on egocentrism: it was ‘not done’ in correspondence to focus too much on oneself. At the same time, a letter should ideally exude optimism and cheerfulness. This requirement was sometimes at odds with the notion of the letter as the ‘mirror of the soul’: on the one hand, letters were to be sincere; on the other hand, the sender should not show any evidence of low spirits or egocentrism. Letters could also serve precisely to shape the emotions, as was posited using Reddy’s concept of the ‘emotive’. This is apparent especially from the way in which women used correspondence as a way to guide their own emotions into socially acceptable channels. They reproved themselves in their letters if they demonstrated jealousy, impatience or selfishness. In this way, in their letters they moulded their emotions in the right direction, thus shaping their own character and at the same



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time sending a signal – namely of ideal feminine behaviour – to the recipient of the letter. Not only emotions, but also religious experiences and beliefs were given form in correspondence. Especially for Pietists, letters functioned as a means of searching their conscience and achieving religious certainty. The letter simultaneously strengthened the bond between the sender and the recipient, and their mutual bond with God. This meant that for Pietists the letter had somewhat the same function as other egodocuments such as diaries and autobiographies. In the final section, I turned to the manner in which people treated letters they received. Letters were sometimes read aloud, but many senders also asked for their letters to be treated as confidential. There were apparently differences, then, in how people treated their letters in practice. In this chapter, I have aimed not only to highlight the performative nature of the letter in forming emotions and identities, but also to address the question of to what extent the norms propagated by letterwriting manuals concurred with correspondence in actual practice. First of all, one should point out that there is little explicit evidence of these books being consulted by the elite. This is in line with Brouwer’s observation that booksellers in Zwolle – whose clients came, incidentally, from both the upper and lower classes – actually sold very few advice books in the period from 1777 to 1849.192 The many reprints of such books do certainly suggest that they were popular, but they were probably read mainly by the petty bourgeoisie and sold by doorto-door salesmen.193 Otherwise, there is a certain amount of more implicit evidence against the practical use of letter-writing manuals by the elite. We saw, for example, that the boys in the Hora Siccama family asked each other’s advice by letter about the correct form of address for a given situation. This suggested that the rules governing correspondence were learned mainly within the family, rather than being looked up in letter and etiquette books. Nevertheless, many similarities can be observed between the norms espoused by the letter-writing manuals and actual practice: the use of ╇Brouwer, Lezen en schrijven, 299. ╇ Austin has established that at the end of the eighteenth century in England the lower classes used letter-writing manuals as models: F. Austin, ‘Letter writing in a Cornish community in the 1790s’, in: Barton and Hall, Letter writing, 43–61, here 52. 192 193

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larger spaces when addressing one’s betters; the rule that the sender must think carefully before sitting down to write; Madame de Sévigné’s role as the great example of style; the prohibition on focusing too much on oneself in a letter; the advocacy of the mother tongue; the discussion about whether spouses might read each other’s letters; the characterization of the letter as a conversation between absent friends or as a mirror of the soul; and rhetorical concepts concerning the elevated and humble style and terms such as aptum or decorum. There are also several points where letter-writing in practice diverges from the content of the manuals. The authors of letter-writing manuals maintained, for instance, that there were no rules for letters between close friends and relatives; in practice, however, it was precisely members of the same family who criticized each other’s letters, which shows that they most definitely did have ideas about what a letter, even a letter to a close relative or good friend, should look like. In addition, certain clichés and set phrases which were disparaged by the authors of letterwriting manuals were frequently encountered in correspondence. In this case, the advice literature seems to have been reacting against common practice. Further, it is important to point out that certain ideas about the correct content and style of letters occurred only in practice, whereas they were entirely absent from the advice literature. Letter-writing manuals said nothing, for instance, about the use of Latin in correspondence, about any question of women being forbidden to write about politics, or about mentioning religion, gossip, or rows in correspondence. This shows that general cultural norms also influence correspondence. The fact that writing about politics was viewed as unsuitable for women was in keeping with gender difference theory, for instance, as propagated in advice literature and in bringing up children. Manuals are thus not the only sources to influence correspondence in practice. The following chapter, then, will examine the influence of the family (and teachers) on the content and form of children’s letters.

Chapter Three

Children’s Letters Where are your letters then? Do not tell me you are too busy with your studies; writing letters is also a way of studying.1

Introduction The art of writing, and especially of composing proper letters, was extremely important if one was to function successfully in the highest circles of society. This meant that children from these circles had to master the necessary skills from an early age. Children were taught how to write by tutors, governesses, and their teachers at boarding schools, but they learned letter-writing above all in practice, from the comments they received from their relatives. Parents and grandparents, aunts, brothers and sisters all contributed to the written socialization of girls and boys. In their own letters, they made clear what tone children’s letters should have, and what a proper letter should be about. What ideas did the elite hold about children’s letters? What does this tell us about their image of children? Did these ideas concur with the epistolary theory conveyed in letter-writing manuals? In the view of historians and contemporaries, childhood in this period was defined as approximately the first twelve years of life. Then came puberty, which continued to about the age of sixteen; then followed adolescence. The current chapter takes childhood and puberty together, dealing with ‘children’ up to the age of sixteen. The following chapter will address adolescents of sixteen and over. Three points are made in this chapter. First, there is the fact that the family had a vested interest in the socialization of children. It was above all from relatives that children learned to write letters. Secondly, I hope to show that the rules and ideas about correspondence are not timeless, but rather culturally determined. This aspect emerges very clearly in 1 ╇Jan Blijdenstein to Benjamin Blijdenstein, 30 September 1793, published in: Elderink, Een Twentsch fabriqueur, 61–64.

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letters to and by children, as new ideas about children and upbringing influenced the theory and practice of correspondence. Thirdly, in this chapter we return to the term ‘appropriation’: people’s ability to impose their own interpretation on given cultural concepts. This is particularly true of the terms ‘confidential’, ‘private’ and ‘natural’. In addition to advice literature about letter-writing, and especially about children’s letter-writing, I consulted both letters preserved in manuscript form in the family archives and a few published letters to or by children. The manuscript letters included a total of over 250 letters sent by children, and about 200 letters addressed to children. Birthday wishes and New Year’s letters constitute a large part of this corpus. The majority of the other letters were sent by and to children at boarding school. The published letters derive from the archives of Jan Bernard Blijdenstein (1756–1826), who ran a factory in Twente, in the east of

Fig. 3╇ Kornelis writing a letter to his friend. De Taalspiegel [Mirror of Language] (Gouda n.d. [1859]), The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek 1090 F26.



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the Netherlands; of these, about twenty were addressed to children, and seven were composed by children. Learning to write letters Tutors and schools There were several schools for children of the upper classes, but they might equally be educated by tutors at home. When they were very young, the boys and girls of the Hubrecht family, who lived in Leiden, were given lessons by their mother. She taught Paul (1829–1902) to read when he was four.2 In the families of the upper-middle classes, it was customary for mothers to teach their children basic reading and writing.3 Thereafter, their education was continued by various tutors and governesses. At the age of five, Hermine Hubrecht (1843–1883) was taught reading, writing and needlework by her governess.4 After several years of home tutoring, children might be sent to school. The three sons of the Hubrecht family attended De Gelder’s Paedagogium as day boys for about two years each; this was a boarding school in Leiden run by Jan Jacob de Gelder. In the first half of the nineteenth century, private tutors often prepared their pupils for their academic studies better and more quickly than the Latin schools, which had not seen educational reform for centuries.5 Paul was sent to De Gelder’s Paedagogium at the age of ten; his brothers, Ambrosius (1831–1853) and Willem (1839–1888) each started when they were twelve.6 Paul, the eldest, was at the school for two years, and it is not clear what school he went to after that. Ambrosius was sent to board in Zutphen after about one-and-a-half years. He attended the Municipal Grammar School in Zutphen, and also received extra piano and drawing lessons. Ambrosius complained about his busy schedule, commenting that he ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 406, Cornélie Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht, 17 January 1834. ╇Habermas, Männer und Frauen, 323. De Nijs, In veilige haven, 116–122. 4 ╇GAL, FAH, inv. no. 450, J.B. van Epen to Abrahamine Hubrecht-Steenlack, 27 November 1848. 5 ╇ W. Frijhoff, ‘Crisis of modernisering? Hypothese over de ontwikkeling van het voortgezet en hoger onderwijs in Holland in de 18e eeuw’, Holland 17 (1985) 37–55, here 50–51. 6 ╇ GAL, bibl. no. 50280/01, Affairs relating to the private college of Mr De Gelder (1832). See also J. Bervoets, ‘De kostschooljaren van Alexander Ver Huell’, Jaarboekje voor geschiedenis en oudheidkunde voor Leiden en omstreken 37 (1985) 107–126. Paul Hubrecht is not listed in the roll of pupils of the Latin school in Leiden. 2 3

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had little time to write letters: ‘You quite rightly grumble at me about letter-writing, as it is certainly rather bad; but I cannot easily get around to it, as to put it frankly I do not have much opportunity. I have to do it, as I am now, at about 6 or 7 in the morning, and then I usually have to learn my lessons’.7 It is impossible to tell whether the boys of the Hubrecht family actually received instruction in writing letters at these boarding schools. They did use schoolbooks about the arts of grammar and rhetoric, which also included theoretical discourses about letters. They had to read letters by classical authors such as Cicero, and the curriculum also  included the letters of Lady Mary Montagu.8 As noted above, Kneppelhout read Madame de Sévigné’s letters when he was at boarding school. The children of rich Catholic families were often sent to seminaries or boarding schools just over the Belgian or German border.9 The children of the Van Lanschot family from ‘s Hertogenbosch were no exception. Louis van Lanschot (1804–1841) is known to have been a pupil at a boarding school in Borg, near the German town of Münster, when he was fifteen. In a letter to his sister Theodora, Louis told her about a surprise visit he had received at school from his mother and younger sister.10 He claimed not to have recognized them. This might be evidence of the fact that children in the nineteenth century sometimes did not see their families for extended periods. Correspondence between parents and children was seen as one way to counteract the alienation that might ensue. Boarding schools at this time had a rigorous teaching schedule. In  their letters home, almost all the children who went to boarding school gave an hour-by-hour account of their daily regime of lessons and activities at school. Louis van Lanschot, for instance, writing in 1819, described a 6am start, with prayers, German and mass before breakfast. Then there was French at 9am, English at 10, Latin at 11, and lunch at 12pm; this was followed by recreation until 3pm, after which ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 675, Ambrosius Hubrecht to Paul Hubrecht, 12 June 1846. ╇ GAL, bibl. no. 50281/1 List of activities in the course of 1836, up to the summer vacation of 1837, from 22 August to 8 July. The book in question is Weiland’s Spraakkunst, H. Blair, Lessen over de Redekunst en Fraaije Letteren, Cicero, Epist. Sel. Nagel ed.. ╛╛╛╛9 ╇ Kloek and Mijnhardt, 1800, 271. 10 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 235, Theodorus van Lanschot to Theodora van Lanschot, 13 May 1820. ╛╛╛╛7 ╛╛╛╛8



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there was writing and arithmetic and then recreation again. At 5pm, the pupils had either geography or catechism, each three times a week, and this was followed at 5.30pm by a religious reading, in German and French alternately. Soup was served at 7pm, and then there was further recreation until evening prayer. The boys went to bed at 9pm.11 From 1817, Louis’s elder sister Theodora (1802–1887) attended the Pensionnat des Dames in Ghent, a girls’ boarding school run by the Dames de l’Instruction Chrétienne in the old abbey of Dooresele. From 1819–1820 she continued her education at the girls’ boarding school in the Berlaymont convent in Brussels, which was run by Augustinian nuns. Only the daughters of the most eminent Catholic families were sent to this school.12 Several of the girls in the Van Lanschot family spent a year at Berlaymont. The main aim of this education was, as Theodora’s father put it, ‘that you will come home sufficiently educated to go out into the world and to be able to get along with all people’.13 The knowledge that was imparted to girls of the upper classes was thus not so much something to be aspired to in itself, or a preparation for a profession, as was the case with education for boys, but more a way of fitting them for life in the highest circles of society.14 Theodora’s cousin, Maria Oomen (1809–1889), also attended this boarding school when she was the same age of sixteen or seventeen. Maria described daily life at Berlaymont in 1825: We generally get up at five o’ clock in the morning, then go to the chapel to hear mass, then have breakfast; after this, classes start and we have geography or parsing. At 8 o’ clock Mademoiselle Koekhem comes and reads aloud, and we practise needlework as she reads to us. At 9 o’ clock there is another mass, which we may attend, but do not have to; after that the music and drawing teachers come. During this time we read French aloud, conjugate verbs aloud, and write things out neatly. At 11 o’ clock we eat, and then we have relaxation until 1pm. At one o’ clock we have to learn French spelling and a little Dutch (for those who are not already

11 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 235, Theodorus van Lanschot to Theodora van Lanschot, 13 November 1819. 12 ╇L. Stratenus, Berlaymont (n.d., circa 1885): ‘even today, her education is renowned as one of the most excellent that can be bestowed on Christian girls of the highest rank’. See also J. Schyrgens, Berlaymont. Le cloistre de la Reyne de tous les saincts (Brussels 1928). 13 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 229, Franciscus van Lanschot to Theodora van Lanschot, 17 September 1819. 14 ╇ See also M. van Essen, Opvoeden met een dubbel doel. Twee eeuwen meisjesonderwijs in Nederland (Amsterdam 1990).

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This account shows that reading and writing were an important part of the curriculum. The girls read aloud in French and recited verbs, and close attention was also paid to practising neat and well-formed handwriting. French spelling, Dutch, and writing letters in French were also part of the curriculum. The nuns dictated fictional letters to the girls in French, letters whose contents were largely made up of moralistic reflections. The copybook in which Maria wrote down these letters has been preserved in the Van Lanschot family archive. Maria Oomen later married Augustinus van Lanschot (1794–1874). Their children were sent to boarding school from an early age: Godefridus (1835–1907) and Augustinus (1834–1919) attended a boarding school in Baarle-Nassau from the age of nine. Later, from the age of twelve, the brothers spent several years at the Jesuit Boarding School in Katwijk, together with their brother Franciscus (1833–1903). This school had one hundred pupils, all boys. Jan Willem de Constant Rebecque (1841–1893), the son of an aristocratic family from The Hague, also attended various boarding schools, such as the Instituut Burnier in The Hague and the Instituut Van Heumen in Delft. He was never at school for very long. Jan Willem was also frequently tutored at home. In various letters, he and his mother lamented the lack of continuity in his education. His older brother Victor (1838–1860), on the other hand, was sent to the Military Academy in Breda when he was only fourteen. He would spend several years there and complete his education at that institution. The children of the Van Schinne family had a tutor and a French governess when they were younger, then attended a school in the town for a while, but also went to boarding schools in Breda or Oosterhout. One of the sons went to the Latin School in The Hague at the end of the eighteenth century. Magdalena van Schinne (1762–1840) had English lessons at home from a special tutor. Later, at boarding school, she learned letter-writing in an unusual manner, as she explained to her

15 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 135, Maria Oomen to Elisabeth Oomen Ingen-Housz, 19 August 1825.



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elder sister Catharina (1757–1840), who was also known as Cato. As she wrote (in English): Master Wagenaar commes in the morning at eight a clock then we take our lesson of dance and to draw there is always one who read in the Magsin of children otherwise named Madam bonne and instead of the journals we make letters who contained a short relation with the reflections we have made on the historys we have read, in short we will traduct from french in dutch. in particular j have read the memoires de Milady B: and the Doyen de Killerine but it are romans and j like much better the History of England.16

The popular children’s book Magasin des Enfants, by Madame Leprince de Beaumont, in which the central figure, Madame Bonne, encourages her readers to keep a diary, was read aloud to the girls at the boarding school. Instead of a diary, however, the pupils were told to write a letter expressing their views of the stories they had read. At the same time, they translated from French to Dutch, so that in this case the letter functioned more as an essay about books and a medium for learning translation. We do not know how Cato van Schinne, the addressee of the above letter, learned to write letters. We do know, however, that when she was eighteen she spent some time with her aunt and uncle in Switzerland, and that during that time she read the letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in English and translated them into French. Perhaps the letters Lady Mary wrote on her long journeys were an influence on the content and style of Cato’s own letters; certainly she gave a detailed account of her own travels.17 Whatever the case may be, Cato used letters as a way to practise translating. Learning reading and writing at home At school, children learned to read before they learned to write. At home, too, children were taught the basics of reading from the age of four. They wrote their first letters when they were five, and by the age of six or seven all children had taken up correspondence. They were often encouraged to write by their relatives. In 1801, Uncle Van Tomputte received a New Year’s poem from his Van Lanschot nephews, 16 ╇NA, FAVS, inv. no. 157, Magdalena van Schinne to Catharina van Schinne, 15 December 1776. 17 ╇NA, FAVS, inv. no. 28, Catharina van Schinne to Sara van Schinne-van Ruster, 8 February 1775.

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aged six and seven, and noted that they ‘are progressing very well in writing’.18 About forty years later, a great uncle of the eight-year-old Franciscus van Lanschot gave him money to reward him for a handsome New Year’s letter.19 Children were taught French from an early age, often with the help of a French governess. They were also encouraged to write letters in that language. Ambrosius, for instance, received a letter of best wishes from his grandmother on his seventh birthday: ‘now I hear, dear Ambo, that you have already started learning French. When you come to stay with grandmama in the summer we’ll speak French, shall we? And then sometime you can write to me in French, too’.20 The children of the Van Lanschot family started writing ceremonial letters in French at the age of ten. People writing to children at boarding school in the first half of the nineteenth century used both French and Dutch. In one case a mother used French to write to her daughter at boarding school, whereas the girl’s father wrote in Dutch.21 Writing letters in foreign languages was viewed as an accomplishment, as in the case of the thirteenyear-old Louis van Lanschot, who wrote New Year’s letters in French, German and English.22 The daughters of the Van Schinne family were encouraged by their mother to learn English: they had English lessons and wrote letters to one another in English to practise the language. Learning foreign languages, learning to write, and writing letters all often went hand in hand. Some parents encouraged their children to correspond with one another. Angelique Hora Siccama, for instance, was told by her mother to exchange letters with her older brother Otto to ‘accustom her to writing letters’. She was ‘very much in need of this practice’.23 It was extremely important to master the art of correspondence, a mother explained in a letter to her son: ‘your writing, dear

╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 51, H.A. van Tomputte to Franciscus van Lanschot, 8 January 1801. 19 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 117, A.J. Ingen-Housz to Augustinus van Lanschot and Maria Oomen, 3 January 1842. 20 ╇GAL, FAH, suppl. II, box 19, Elisabeth Steenlack-Francken to Ambrosius Hubrecht, 22 December 1838. 21 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. nos 229, Franciscus van Lanschot to Theodora van Lanschot and 230, Jacoba van Lanschot-van Rijckevorsel to Theodora van Lanschot. 22 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 230, Jacoba van Lanschot-van Rijckevorsel to Theodora van Lanschot, 1 January 1818. 23 ╇NA, FAHS, inv. no. 39, Otto Hora Siccama to Harco Hora Siccama, 4 February 1825 and inv. no. 67, Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck to Otto Hora Siccama, 27 January 1825. 18



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Adriaan, is much improved, especially in your latest letter. Do continue to apply yourself to learning to write properly: this is a necessary requirement for young people’.24 Relatives correcting children’s style Teaching children to write good letters was pre-eminently the task of relatives. In the view of Petrus de Raadt, who founded and ran the Noortheij boarding school for boys in Voorschoten, school lessons were not enough to teach the art of letter-writing. It was only by exchanging letters with his or her relatives that a child learned how to compose a good letter. In this process, the letters the boys received from their parents were to serve as an example: ‘The parents’ letters should serve as a guideline for those of the children. There is something in letter-writing style that has nothing to do with schooling: namely all that is natural, sincere, innermost and true’.25 De Raadt was quite right in realizing that his institution could not provide proper teaching in letter-writing. It was indeed within the family circle that children learned the art. Sometimes compliments were given to encourage them, as was the case with Benjamin Blijdenstein: ‘I received your most recent letter with great pleasure, both because it is one of the best in terms of composition of any of yours I have seen thus far, and because of your sensitive heart and your love towards me, which is very visible in it.26 Victor de Constant Rebecque’s mother, too, praised one of his letters for the cheerful tone that prevailed in it.27 Otto Hora Siccama’s father responded positively to a letter from his son: ‘Your latest was especially pleasing to us, due both to the beautiful writing, the good style, and the pleasing content’.28 Just as often, however, parents and other relatives criticized children’s letters. Victor de Constant Rebecque, aged fifteen, commented that a letter by his twelveyear-old brother Jan Willem was badly written; he also told him off for 24 ╇RANB, FADJVZ, inv. no. 434, A.G. van Haeften Hetterschy to Adriaan van Haeften, 22 March 1841. 25 ╇P. de Raadt, Noortheij, huis van opvoeding en onderwijs (Amsterdam 1849) 121–122. 26 ╇Jan Blijdenstein to Benjamin Blijdenstein, 20 October 1794, published in: Elderink, Een Twentsch fabriqueur, 67. 27 ╇NA, FADCR, inv. no. 121B, Julie de Constant Rebecque-d’Ablaing van Giessenburg to Jan Willem de Constant Rebecque, 1 October 1856. 28 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 72, Harco Hora Siccama and Jan Hora Siccama to Otto Hora Siccama, 17 May 1823.

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crossing his letter.29 Herman Blijdenstein, at the age of about sixteen, received the following advice from his grandfather: I can tell that you have the makings of a good correspondent, once you have got the knack of it. Your second letter was already noticeably better than the first. Just bear in mind that in composing your letter you should always remember the rule ‘write as you would speak’, and all will be well.30

The comparison between letter-writing and conversation, and the ideal of a cheerful tone in the letter are elements we encountered in the previous chapters about epistolary theory and letter-writing practice in general. Even at the age of nineteen, Benjamin Blijdenstein still called his father’s advice to mind when composing a letter: I also never spare myself the trouble of writing a letter out in full once or twice. I imagine I am just talking, put it all on paper, writing everything down as it comes into my mind. Sometimes it all hangs together like loose sand, but my father has taught me to link even such jottings together by adding or omitting something.31

It was not only parents and grandparents who commented on children’s letters; brothers and sisters also felt called to do so. A unique correspondence between two brothers from Leiden has come down to us from the period 1846–1849. They exchanged on average about three letters per month. At the beginning of their correspondence, the elder, Paul Hubrecht, was sixteen and his younger brother, Ambrosius, fourteen. Ambrosius had been sent to a boarding school in Zutphen because he had behavioural problems: he was prone to temper tantrums. Although Ambrosius’ grandmother and aunt lived near Zutphen, he was a boarder at the school run by Mr Matthes, head of the Zutphen Municipal Grammar School. Paul remained in Leiden, and the brothers wrote to each other about the subjects they were doing at school, their hobbies, and their family. Sixteen-year-old Ambrosius helped his older brother Paul to think of things to write about in their correspondence: ‘The new year has not brought any improvement in your letterwriting – I hope it will get better. You say you have nothing to write 29 ╇NA, FADCR, inv. no. 120C, Jan Willem de Constant Rebecque to Victor de Constant Rebecque, 26 March 1854. 30 ╇ Jan Blijdenstein to Herman Blijdenstein, 5 October 1825 or 1826, published in: Elderink, Een Twentsch fabriqueur, 236. 31 ╇ Benjamin Blijdenstein to his uncle and aunt (among others), 15 January 1800, published in: Elderink, Een Twentsch fabriqueur, 163.



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about, but there can be no lack of material in great big Leiden: about gas, about Stoffels’ advertisement in the newspaper and its consequences. Just choose a subject: I would dearly love to correspond with you about something specific’.32 Paul in turn urged Ambro, as he usually called his younger brother, to write in Latin, since he would need to have a good command of that language when he went to university. After all, the lectures would be in Latin. For this reason, he corrected not only Ambrosius’ Latin grammar, but also his general letter-writing style: Neque te pigere arbitror quum vitiorum, quae ego in istas observavi te certiorem reddo, non ad te reprehendendum, procul hoc a me absit! laudo contra te sed si litteras latinas ad studia nostra utiles erint, necesse credo ut invicem vitia observata dicemus. Primum quaedam de initio. Duum in epistolis nostris latina uti volumus sermone, veterum romanorum exemplum inprimis sequendum esse arbitror. Hoc quoque de initio valet. Si bene memini Cicero in epistolis ad Atticum incipere solet ut ego studivi facere. Nequi orator umquam scripsit ille celeberrimus: ‘Attice amatissime!! Neque “frater vel fili carissime!” sed solum salutem dicit lectori, bonaque valetudine fatii (?) ei optat. Denique scripsisti: “me stultissimum esse discipulorum gymn. Zutph.”. Humilitas pulchra virtus, sed quod franco-Galli dicere solebant: les extrêmes se touchent, etiam de [miser?] valet.33

Paul Hubrecht here praises Cicero’s simple style. In addition to commenting on Ambrosius’ style, Paul also comments about how Ambro writes the address on the envelope, his use of titles, and his concluding formula. Ambro is not familiar with the concluding abbreviation TT (‘totus tuus’, or ‘all yours’); he thought that his brother had written two

32 ╇GAL, FAH, inv. no. 675, Ambrosius Hubrecht to Paul Hubrecht, 7 February 1848. 33 ╇ ‘But I think you will not mind if I point out the errors I noted in your letter – not to reprove you, far be it from me to do that! Quite the contrary, I am full of praise, but since Latin letters are useful for our studies, I think it is necessary for us to tell one another about the errors we have observed. First, the opening lines. If we want to use the Latin language for our letters, I believe we should follow the example above all of the ancient Romans. This also applies to the opening lines. If I remember rightly, in his letters to Atticus, Cicero used to begin as I have tried to do. The famous orator did not write “dearly beloved Atticus!!” or “dearest brother, or son!!”; he merely expressed a greeting to the reader and wished him good health. Finally you wrote “that I am the stupidest pupil of Zutphen grammar school”. Modesty is a great virtue, but as the French say “les extrêmes se touchent” – this holds even for [?]’.GAL, FAH, suppl. II box 19, letter from Paul Hubrecht to Ambrosius Hubrecht, n.d. (This is the fair copy of a composition written out in draft on 7 April 1847, inv. no. 675.)

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sevens, and imitated this. His elder brother teased him about this: ‘what I always write at the end of a letter is “T.T.”, that is: totus tuus and not, as others write, “7.7.”, so that at first I thought you were sending me a bankdraft for f 77’.34 Ambrosius later explains: ‘I didn’t understand what TT was, and because I did not have time to conclude properly, I thought I could just write 77 instead of a couple of ts’.35 This shows that a fifteenyear-old had to learn a common concluding formula for letters from his elder brother, in practice; evidently he had not learned this at school.

Fig. 4╇ Silhouette portraits of Paul Hubrecht (left, c. 1840) and Ambrosius Hubrecht (right, c. 1840), Leiden Municipal Archives.

34 ╇GAL, FAH, suppl. II, box 19, Paul Hubrecht jr. to Ambrosius Hubrecht, 25 February 1847. 35 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 675, Ambrosius Hubrecht to Paul Hubrecht, 27 February 1847.



children’s letters125 Confidentiality, naturalness and individuality

Letter-writing manuals on style Ideas about the correct style and content for children’s letters can be distilled from letters from relatives, texts written by the heads of boarding schools, children’s books, and letter-writing manuals. As the nineteenth century progressed, such manuals devoted an increasing amount of attention to children’s letters.36 At the same time, more letter-writing manuals were published specifically for children. When, in 1865, G.N. Landré published the fifth edition of his Verzameling van brieven, om met behulp der Nederduitsche taal, de jeugd, door het vertalen van geschikte en uitgezochte voorbeelden, tot de kennis van den Franschen briefstijl op te leiden [Collection of letters to educate young people, using the Dutch language and through translating suitable selected examples, in the knowledge of French epistolary style], he added a wider range of children’s letters.37 Like the letter-writing manuals for adults, those for children provided advice about the content, style, and sealing of letters. One of the basic premises of this advice, as of that given to adults, was that a child’s letter should reflect the character of the writer: a letter unmarred by blots or spelling mistakes was a sign of an impeccable character.38 The German educationalist A.H. Niemeyer (1754–1828) also had a considerable influence in the Netherlands on the teaching of composition in general, and on letter-writing manuals for children in particular. In Niemeyer’s view, good style could only be developed if the writer wrote as he thought, always assuming that this thinking would be correct, clear, and well-structured.39 As far as style is concerned, a difference can be observed between the advice given in the eighteenth and that given in the nineteenth century. 36 ╇ C. Dauphin, ‘Les manuels épistolaires au XIXe siècle’, in: Chartier, La correspondance, 209–272, 233–234. 37 ╇ G.N. Landré, Verzameling van brieven om met behulp der Nederduitsche taal, de jeugd, door het vertalen van geschikte en uitgezochte voorbeelden, tot de kennis van den Franschen briefstijl op te leiden ([1839] 5th edn; Leiden 1865). 38 ╇L.M. Schultz, ‘Letter-writing instruction in 19th century schools’, in: Barton and Hall, Letter writing, 109–130, here 119. 39 ╇H.J. de Vos, Moedertaalonderwijs in de Nederlanden. Een historisch-kritisch overzicht van de methoden bij de studie van de moedertaal in het middelbaar onderwijs sedert het begin van de 19e eeuw. Vol. I (Turnhout 1939) 42–44. I. van Hoorn, Historischcritisch overzicht der in de vorige eeuw verschenen methoden voor het stelonderwijs (Groningen 1903) 6–11.

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The author of a letter-writing manual published in the mid-eighteenth century suggested that ‘children, when writing to their parents, should use the most respectful, deferent and humble expressions’.40 In the nineteenth century, on the other hand, the respect of the eighteenth century is joined by a new prerequisite for letters from children to their parents: sincerity. Esteem, respect, candour, and open-heartedness must be the principal characteristics of letters that children write to their parents, or young people to their older relations […] Letters from a child to his or her parents must always be detailed […] Frequently parents of the lower classes are written letters in such grandiloquent terms that they are incomprehensible to them […] for any one with common sense, such letters are proof that it is not the full, open mind speaking here, but that bits and bobs from novels and short stories have simply been tacked together into a rough patchwork. […] The simpler, the more sincere and heartfelt, the expressions in a letter from a child to his parents, the better it will be […] In letters of this kind, parents will immediately find the sincere and honest mind of their child revealed; and what is said to them makes its way directly to the heart, without let or hindrance.41

In 1885, Louise Stratenus, a well-known writer of etiquette books, wrote of ‘the proper tone […] that should prevail in letters from a child to his or her parents; great intimacy, and yet a sense of friendly respect; a spirit of contentment and courage to look life in the eye, even if existence is not always entirely cloudless’.42 Although relatively few recommendations about children’s letters have come down to us from the eighteenth century, and filial respect continued to be important in the advice literature a century later, it seems as though intimacy, candour, simplicity and sincerity received a stronger emphasis in the nineteenth century. One concrete expression of the requisite sincerity and simplicity was the salutation that opened the letter. In the mid nineteenth century, excessive ceremoniousness in such salutations was frowned upon. In about 1850, several authors of letter-writing manuals pointed out that it was no longer fashionable to use ‘UE’, which had been replaced by the less formal ‘gij’, ‘u’ and ‘jij’. A letter-writing manual from 1856,

╇Anonymous, Handleiding tot de kunst van het brievenschryven, 77. ╇Claudius, Volledig brievenboek, 248–249. J. Vana, Onmisbaar brievenboek (‘sHertogenbosch 1881) 113–114. 42 ╇Stratenus, Brieven, 12. 40 41



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for example, discouraged parents from addressing their children with ‘UE’: Quite apart from the fact that this banishes all sincerity from your tone and gives the appearance of stiff artificiality, the form becomes doubly ridiculous if this manner of address is used in expressing reproach, dissatisfaction, or indelicacies, or even invectives, so that parents might say to their children ‘UE has been naughty’. […] In polite society, then, between man and wife and even towards children the words ‘jij’ and ‘je’ are used, and ‘UE’ is entirely banished.43

In practice, the use of ‘UE’, both by parents and children, did indeed disappear in the mid nineteenth century. Around the same time, more familiar terms such as ‘papa’ and ‘mama’ came to be used, terms that an eighteenth-century letter-writing book had censured for children over four years old: The words ‘Papa’ and ‘Mama’ may perhaps be tolerated in children under the age of four; but hearing a grown-up son or daughter speaking as though they were still attached to their mother’s apron strings is too base for a worthy citizen to bear […] In the body of the letter, young children should use terms such as ‘my dear father’, ‘my good’ or ‘my dear mother’; children of adult age, however, should write ‘father’ (Mon Pere) or ‘mother’ (Ma Mere), since this is more manly.44

In addition to the rise of less humble terms of address, one can observe a tendency towards less subservient formulas for concluding letters. From the early nineteenth century, children no longer signed off with ‘your humble servant’, but with ‘your affectionate son’, or ‘your loving niece’ etc. Adults writing to children seem to have addressed them more often by their name rather than simply as ‘son’, ‘daughter’, or ‘niece’.45 In the eighteenth century, the emphasis in discussing children’s letter-writing style lay primarily on respect, whereas in the nineteenth century, though respect continued to be important, open-heartedness, candour, simplicity and sincerity were also prized. Children were encouraged to write like children. 43 ╇Anonymous, Gids door het leven, 96–97. See also H. Baarschers, Kinderbrieven (Amsterdam 1851) 40–41. 44 ╇Anonymous, Handleiding tot de kunst van het briefschryven, 76–77. 45 ╇ See also Gillis, A world, 74–75. According to De Nijs, In veilige haven, 116, letters from the second half of the nineteenth century reflect a more lenient attitude of parents towards children. Although I did not study any letters from that period, the changes in forms of address and opening formulas in the first half of the nineteenth century also seem indicative of a less formal relationship between parents and children.

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A new theory of education This shift was also noted by a reviewer who discussed two books in the journal De recensent, ook der recensenten in 1807: a manual for young letter-writers published by the Maatschappij tot Nut van ‘t Algemeen (Society for Public Welfare) and a book of model New Year’s letters for children. The reviewer found both books too artificial and not sufficiently childlike.46 These strictures applied not only to letter-writing books, but to all books for children. In journals from the first half of the nineteenth century, the criteria for children’s books in general were virtually always simplicity, naturalness and ‘childlikeness’ (i.e., the books should not be wordy or artificial). Such criteria were part of a new, enlightened theory of education, whose central tenet was that a child should be a child, rather than a miniature adult. This theory of ‘natural pedagogy’, particularly associated with Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), valued the natural development of the child and recognized that a child would, of his or her own accord, pass through a number of age-related stages; children no longer had to race to reach adulthood.47 As the eighteenth century drew to a close, more boundaries were imposed between childhood and adulthood. Whereas in the early modern period there were few subjects that were taboo for children, at the dawn of the nineteenth century children were increasingly shielded from severe Christian dogma and subjects such as death or sexuality. Children were to be allowed to play, rather than focusing strongly on intellectual development at a very young age.48 In the Netherlands, it was above all the German Philanthropines who were influential for educational theory at the end of the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth century. These enlightened pedagogues had high regard for the importance Rousseau attached to nature, but believed that children still needed guidance. Children’s emotions, for instance, had to be directed, and they had to learn to keep their tempers under control. It was important, too, to fashion a ╇Anonymous, DR II (Amsterdam 1807) 749–751. ╇ W. Koops, ‘Imaging childhood’, in: W. Koops and M. Zuckerman eds, Beyond the century of the child. Cultural history and developmental psychology (Philadelphia 2003) 1–18, here 5–6. 48 ╇ M.E. Heijboer-Barbas, Een nieuwe visie op de jeugd uit vroeger eeuwen (Nijkerk 1956) passim. See also E. Kloek, ‘Early modern childhood in the Dutch context’, in: Koops and Zuckerman, Beyond the century of the child, 43–61, here 46–47. 46 47



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child’s conscience.49 These Enlightenment theories of education, which were also espoused by Romanticism and the Réveil, emphasized respect for the individual character of each child; this character would best reveal itself to the child’s parents in an atmosphere of trust and intimacy.50 Ideas of this kind also influenced correspondence in practice. The ideal of intimacy In the publicity brochure for his boarding school, headmaster Petrus de Raadt waxed lyrical about the function of correspondence for his pupils. At Noortheij school, the hours after breakfast on Saturday were set aside for the pupils to write letters home. Great quietness prevailed in these periods, as the children contemplated what to say to their parents. De Raadt stressed that the schoolboys’ letters were not read by the teachers. He described the correspondence between parents and son as an ‘ongoing conversation, which nobody may eavesdrop on’.51 According to De Raadt, this exchange of letters served first and foremost to strengthen the love that parents and child felt for one another, by cultivating an intimate relationship. This ideal of intimacy does indeed come to the fore in letters between parents and their children at boarding school. Fear that the letters would be read by teachers and monitors at school was widespread. In 1799, a father asked his daughter whether she composed her letter all by herself: ‘Your letter pleased me inordinately; did you compose it yourself, or did Madlle correct it?’52 Henri van Lanschot urged his sixteen-year-old sister Theodora, then at a girls’ boarding school in Ghent, not to have her letters corrected, as he would not then feel as though he were conversing with her.53 Another sixteen-year-old, Maria Oomen, wrote reassuringly to her mother a few days after her arrival at Berlaymont girls’ school in Brussels, which was run by nuns: ‘parents’ 49 ╇A. Baggerman and R. Dekker, Kind van de toekomst. De wondere wereld van Otto van Eck (1780–1789) (Amsterdam 2005) 61–95. 50 ╇P.Th.F.M. Boekholt and E.P. de Booy, Geschiedenis van de school in Nederland (Assen/Maastricht 1987) 81, 92. See also M. van Essen and J.D. Imelman, Historische pedagogiek. Verlichting, Romantiek en ontwikkelingen in Nederland na 1800 (Baarn 1999). N. Bakker, Kind en karakter. Nederlandse pedagogen over opvoeding in het gezin 1845–1925 (Amsterdam 1995) 19, 228. De Nijs, In veilige haven, 107. 51 ╇De Raadt, Noortheij, 122. See also De Nijs, In veilige haven, 123–126. 52 ╇ Jan Blijdenstein to Maria Blijdenstein, 3 March 1799, published in: Elderink ed., Een Twentsch fabriqueur, 160. 53 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 228, Henricus van Lanschot to Theodora van Lanschot, 7 October 1818.

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letters are not read, and I do not have to have mine read, so you need not be embarrassed’.54 Her mother was relieved to hear it: I am glad that you can write to me without the letters having to be read, and that mine also will not be seen. Write and tell me some time in all honesty how the other young ladies behave towards you – are they polite, or very grand – and do you have a friend? […] You see, Mieke my dear, that my writing is not really much like a letter: if something occurs to me I just start writing, more so as not to forget. But this is nothing if they will not be seen by anyone.55

The frequency with which concern is expressed about letters being read by others does seem to suggest that this was, or had been, common practice.56 And indeed, a letter from Auguste van Lanschot to his parents shows that the composition of letters was not always left to the pupil’s own skills. At the time of writing, Auguste was fourteen, and a pupil at the Jesuit boarding school in Katwijk, together with his two brothers. Before starting in Katwijk when he was twelve, he had been at boarding school in Baarle-Nassau from the age of nine, along with his younger brother Godefridus, whom he writes about in the following quotation. At that school, the boys’ letters were corrected by the teachers: ‘you cannot judge how good he is at French from the letters he wrote from Baarle, since you know as well as I do that they were written entirely under Mr Brand’s direction and were always corrected’.57 If letters were read by third parties, this would damage the desired bond of intimacy between parents and children. This ideal of intimacy had many followers among the Dutch upper middle classes. Again and again, Elisabeth Oomen-Ingen-Housz entreated her daughter to be open-hearted in her letters. She herself insisted: ‘I write you the honest truth’.58 Sophia Hubrecht-de Veer, too, was convinced that children and

╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 1304, Maria Oomen to Elisabeth Oomen Ingen-Housz, 13 August 1825. 55 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 135, Elisabeth Oomen-Ingen-Housz to Maria Oomen, August 1825. 56 ╇Letters were also subject to censorship at Catholic girls’ and boys’ boarding schools in the 20th century. See M. Hilhorst, Bij de zusters op kostschool. Geschiedenis van het dagelijks leven van meisjes op rooms-katholieke pensionaten in Nederland en Vlaanderen ([1989] 4th edn; Utrecht 1994) 30 and J. Perry, Jongens op kostschool. Het dagelijks leven op katholieke jongensinternaten (Utrecht 1991) 98–99. 57 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 140, Auguste van Lanschot to Augustinus van Lanschot and Maria van Lanschot-Oomen, 29 October 1848. 58 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 135, Elisabeth Oomen-Ingen-Housz to Maria Oomen, 25 August 1825. 54



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parents must be each other’s best friends, as she wrote to her son Pieter: ‘continue, my dearest child, to write to us, as you do, exactly what you think. If you wish to ask something, do so boldly? You know that your parents are your best friends’.59 Sometimes, however, this ideal of intimacy turned out to have its limits. Jan van Heukelom wrote to his fourteen-year-old son: ‘It is important that there be a great deal of contact, especially personal contact, between us, and since circumstances keep us apart, our exchange of letters must fill the gap’.60 When, however, the boy wrote in his letters that he did not trust the teachers at his boarding school, he was soundly rebuked by his stepmother: You fear that your letters are read. This is a very bad assumption, which you must not have, and in which there is not a shred of truth, I can assure  you. I ask you never again to think or speak of it. Never suspect anyone of doing wrong when you have no certainty of it, as you are doing goodness a mischief. Always think and assume the best of someone. The result will be that your thoughts and letters are fit for the eyes of all.61

The boy’s father strove for intimacy, but his stepmother threw a spanner in the works: she immediately gave the child a telling off when he confided his misgivings about his teachers. In this case, there was a clash between the child’s and the stepmother’s view of openness. The ideal of children confiding in their parents was not only propagated when children were at boarding school. When in 1773, at the age of sixteen, Cato van Schinne was sent to stay with her uncle and aunt in Switzerland for her health, her mother wrote her a letter outlining her instructions for the tone and content of their correspondence: And you must write to me naturally, just as the thoughts occur to you, as though to your best friend. For you may be sure that I am that, more so than any other, and that all my designs contend towards seeing you happy and contented. This is why, my dearest, you must always be open and of good faith, without deceit, and should not keep anything hidden, so that at times, perhaps, I might be in a position to help you with advice, which you will assuredly welcome on various occasions if you have need of it;

╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 404, Sophia Hubrecht-de Veer to Pieter Hubrecht, 18 May 1816. 60 ╇ GAL, FASH, inv. no. 148, Jan van Heukelom to Jan van Heukelom, 7 April 1854. 61 ╇ GAL, FASH, inv. no. 146, Octavie van Heukelom-Steenlack to Jan van Heukelom, 23 March 1853. 59

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chapter three for it is impossible to give this if one is hiding oneself, or dissimulating, and later one regrets it when it is too late.62

Like so many parents, Cato van Schinne’s mother wished to adopt the role of best friend and confidante in her correspondence with her daughter. Cato answered that she would not keep anything hidden from her mother and would write to her about everything that happened to her, and even about her thoughts.63 Nevertheless, it remains questionable how open Cato could really be in her letters to her mother, since Cato was urged to let her aunt read her letters: ‘My dear, show yours very naturally, without shame or timidity. Adopt a confiding tone with your aunt. Read them your letters sometimes, and mine. Then they will see that you are happy, and I am sure that their affection for you will intensify as they see how sincere and natural you are’.64 Cato’s mother assumed that the letters would show that the girl was contented, and this meant that she could safely read them out to her aunt and uncle, who would then appreciate her sincerity and ‘naturalness’. Moreover, Mrs Van Schinne read Cato’s letters aloud to the household, because she found them so charming. Cato’s thinking was excellent, and she expressed herself so well, her mother thought. Everyone who heard Cato’s letters read aloud by her mother admired them and thought Cato wrote like an angel. Mrs Van Schinne confessed her ‘indiscretion’: she just could not resist reading Cato’s letters out to everyone who was longing for news of Cato. Cato should not be embarrassed, her mother said, as she would not read the confidential passages aloud. So Cato could continue to write as freely as she liked.65 Cato’s mother also read the letters to the family doctor, and she urged Cato to send her compliments to him in her letters, so Mrs Van Schinne could pass them on to him.66

62 ╇NA, FAVS, inv. no. 157, Sara van Schinne-van Ruster to Catharina van Schinne, 1 June 1773. For more about this correspondence, see S. Slee, ‘Ma chère mère’. Een reis door de belevingswereld van Catharina van Schinne 1773–1775 (unpublished undergraduate dissertation, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam 2004). 63 ╇NA, FAVS, inv. no. 28, Catharina van Schinne to Sara van Schinne-van Ruster, 20 June 1773. 64 ╇NA, FAVS, inv. no. 157, Sara van Schinne-van Ruster to Catharina van Schinne, 5 July 1773. 65 ╇NA, FAVS, inv. no. 157, Sara van Schinne-van Ruster to Catharina van Schinne, 21 December 1774. 66 ╇NA, FAVS, inv. no. 157, Sara van Schinne-van Ruster to Catharina van Schinne, 1 June 1773.



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‘Intimacy’, in Mrs Van Schinne’s view, seems thus not to have implied an exclusive relationship between mother and daughter, but related to the close circle of family and friends. Cato does not seem to have felt inhibited by the fact that her letters were read aloud. When, for example, she was critical of something her father intended to do, she apologized in a letter to her mother for expressing her criticism so candidly, but believed she could open her heart in this way because her mother had urged her to view her as her best friend.67 In another letter, Cato wrote that people who believed human beings’ hearts to be naturally bad were themselves bad people. She apologized to her mother for expressing this thought, which had found its way from her head to her pen without her noticing. And yet Cato felt she need not be ashamed of this view: if it was a bad thought, she was sure she could count on her mother’s understanding and knowledge to enlighten her. In the same letter, however, she asked her mother not to tell her father she had cried because of a ball: he would ridicule her for it.68 Six months earlier, Cato had asked her mother not to read out a certain part of her letter to Robert, their family doctor, as he would be sure to think she was disturbed.69 On the one hand, then, Cato seems to have kept few things and thoughts from her mother, so that in this way she lived up to the ideal of openness her mother desired for their correspondence. On the other hand, she did feel it necessary to apologize whenever she wrote anything that was perhaps overly candid, and used her mother’s instigation to view her as her best friend as a shield against a possible reprimand. Moreover, Cato asked her mother not to read certain parts of her letters to her father or the family doctor. This, too, suggests that it was not entirely clear what this intimacy boiled down to. The mother and daughter seem to have worked towards a more precise definition in practice, though the mother seems to have espoused a rather broader remit than her daughter. One of Cato’s younger sisters, Magdalena, was also not entirely at ease about the confidentiality of her letters. She wrote to Cato that she  was afraid their grandmother would pick up mistakes in her 67 ╇NA, FAVS, inv. no. 28, Catharina van Schinne to Sara van Schinne-van Ruster, 30 October 1774. 68 ╇NA, FAVS, inv. no. 28, Catharina van Schinne to Sara van Schinne-van Ruster, 26 November 1774. 69 ╇NA, FAVS, inv. no. 28, Catharina van Schinne to Sara van Schinne-van Ruster, 9 April 1774.

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spelling or style. For this reason, she did not wish to write letters at the table with her grandmother. Magdalena was also afraid that Cato might show her letter to their aunt. Magdalena did not want Cato to read her letter aloud.70 Perhaps these children had a different view of confidentiality from their mother, believing that letters should only be read by the recipient. Mrs Van Schinne, by contrast, believed – like other parents – that if a letter displayed happiness it was so ‘natural’ and ‘sincere’ that it could also be seen by others. This view concurs with the German author Gellert’s ideas of naturalness. After all, he believed that if people had assimilated the correct moral codes of behaviour, they would autoÂ� matically write ‘natural’ letters, which would reflect their proper refinement. Perhaps Mrs Van Schinne was influenced by the German educationalist Niemeyer, who, as outlined above, was of the opinion that children would develop a good writing style if they wrote as they thought. The condition was, of course, that they thought in a proper, lucid, and structured manner. Some children understood their parents’ invitation to take them into their confidence as a command. When the fourteen-year-old Victor de Constant Rebecque was a cadet at the Military Academy, he received a letter from his mother asking him to write more intimately: But my dearest child, I would so much like it – as I write time and time again – if you would open your heart to me a little, and talk to me about what is going on within you and not only around you. You will end up becoming a machine of the present century if the true life is not nourished, the life of the soul and the heart, Vikkie. Vikkie, do not lock yourself in so. I see before me the advantage of saying frankly, without false reserve (for there is a spirit of reserve which is certainly not to be resisted), what happens within us.71

In the months and years to come, baroness De Constant Rebecque would continue to lament that Victor did not confide enough about his  intimate feelings: ‘You will, I hope, give me details about yourself instead of declaring “I am very well”, as this phrase has often contained the opposite of the truth, and that is not permitted under any circumstances’.72 Victor’s father, too, professed the adage: ‘just tell us ╇NA, FAVS, inv. no. 157, Magdalena van Schinne to Catharina van Schinne, n.d. ╇NA, FADCR, inv. no. 120B, Julie de Constant Rebecque-d’Ablaing van Giessenburg to Victor de Constant Rebecque, 4 March 1855. 72 ╇NA, FADCR, inv. no. 120B, Julie de Constant Rebecque-d’Ablaing van Giessenburg to Victor de Constant Rebecque, 9 September 1855. 70 71



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everything that is in your heart’.73 But in this family, too, it proved difficult to attain the desired intimacy, mainly because, as Victor himself wrote to his mother, he found it difficult to speak about intimate matters: And then you think I do not feel because I do not speak. I have an antipathy (or, at least, I cannot do it) and this is a result of my school life with older boys, or that’s what I think. Enough – that’s the way it is: I can never speak about sensitive issues without immediately imagining that others will think I am acting a comedy, even if there is nobody there, and I cannot subject my feelings to that. Enfin, that’s just the way it is, and I shall never learn to do otherwise. I will probably never be able to come out with my feelings openly, and so, dearest Mother, please do not plague me with it any more.74

Victor’s father, too, got involved in the discussion: My dear boy, Mama is far from thinking that you have no feelings – some express things more than others […]. Above all, one must be true. And then one can always express what one thinks without having to be afraid that others would believe the opposite. The basis of that thought, like formidity, generally lies in self-love, pride, together with fear of what others might say or of being exposed to comment. Of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, they sometimes say – but I fully understand that it is not always given to everyone, and unaccustomedness to being able to express one’s feelings on a daily basis with the conviction of meeting sympathy may be a cause of this. But one should not make a den of thieves of one’s heart, and I believe that if you had never been away from mint and pint [his parents, WR] speaking would come more easily to you and this certain timidity would not be your habit.75

Not only did Victor find it difficult to express his feelings in his letters to his parents; in another way, too, the relationship of trust between them was somewhat compromised. In 1855, Victor’s father accidentally opened a letter from the boy to his uncle and decided not to send it because of the informal manner of writing and a comment in the letter that was expressed in an unpleasant tone. Baron De Constant Rebecque

73 ╇NA, FADCR, inv. no. 120A, Charles de Constant Rebecque to Victor de Constant Rebecque, 12 November 1853. 74 ╇NA, FADCR, inv. no. 69D, Victor de Constant Rebecque to Julie de Constant Rebecque-d’Ablaing van Giessenburg, 24 January 1857. 75 ╇NA, FADCR, inv. no. 120A, Charles de Constant Rebecque to Victor de Constant Rebecque, 26 June 1857.

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apologized to his son for opening this letter: ‘In general it is not permissible and even completely forbidden to open letters, but a father and guardian has that right because he is obliged to ensure that all that could do ill – either in word or in deed – is prevented’. His father hoped ‘that we will always be honest with one another and will keep that trust, the only one that can and must notably and honestly exist, that is between father and son […] There is nobody in the world you can trust more and in whom you can confide all your secrets’.76 The ideal of intimacy reigned among all parents of the elite. However, it was mainly the parents who defined, and sometimes delimited this intimacy, and their views sometimes diverged from the views of their children. In practice, then, the concept of intimacy was shaped according to the wishes of parents, though children did have a certain amount of room to resist. Naturalness It was not only in letters to and from children at boarding schools that the limits to the ideal of intimacy emerged. Everyday correspondence also often failed to evince the freedom this ideal seems to propagate. Elisabeth Steenlack-Francken, for instance, complained about the letters of her eleven-year-old grandson Paul Hubrecht when writing to her daughter Abrahamine, the boy’s mother: If I have time, I shall write a few words to Paul – not so much to thank him for his letter, as to make him realize that he is really getting too old  to dare to write such a sloppy letter to grandmama. You understand, my dear Bramine, that I do not set much store by a Ceremonious Missive   – I find it much more pleasant for children to write in their own manner. But this was really too awful, and I believe it is necessary to point it out to him, in order to make him feel the respect due to his parents and grandparents, something he has a tendency to lose sight of too much.77

In principle, then, grandmother Steenlack wished to receive ‘childlike’ letters, written in a personal style, rather than excessively formal ones. Yet these letters did have to be neatly written and show respect for the

76 ╇NA, FADCR, inv. no. 120A, Charles de Constant Rebecque to Victor de Constant Rebecque, 11 October 1855. 77 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 409, Elisabeth Steenlack-Francken to Abrahamine HubrechtSteenlack, 10 April 1840.



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child’s parents and grandparents. The same ideal of an individual style comes to the fore in a letter by Jacoba van Lanschot-van Rijckevorsel, who, in 1818, confessed to her fifteen-year-old daughter: ‘I would have replied to you sooner, but I thought I might receive another New Year’s letter, a less formal affair, as you know well that I do not like those very composed letters.’78 Here the mother makes a distinction between a formal letter and a letter with a more personal touch. Another mother also encouraged her seven-year-old daughter to compose her letters in free style: ‘the children will also write to you. They are hard at work. I prefer to leave them to their own devices – even if it is less good. I find one idea of one’s own better than twenty imitations. Marie has suddenly taken to writing, and now absolutely loves sending letters’.79 Evidently there were two sorts of letters: on the one hand ‘ceremonious’, ‘formal’, ‘grandiloquent’, ‘poetic’ and ‘composed’ letters; on the other hand ‘simple’ letters, written ‘in one’s own manner’, in a ‘natural style’, using ‘one’s own ideas’. So letters to parents were expected to evidence intimacy. An individual style was appreciated, as long as it was appropriate for the child’s age and showed the necessary respect. Further, the ideal style was a natural one. Thus Otto Hora Siccama commented to his brother Jan that their sister Angelique had sent him a ‘truly delightful letter, very natural and cheerful’.80 In Chapter 1 above we saw that in epistolary theory the term ‘natural’ could mean refined, individual, or ‘appropriate’ (for the theme, writer or recipient). These ideas were expressed in practice too: as, for instance, when Abrahamine Hubrecht-Steenlack urged her thirteen-year-old son Paul to adopt a natural style for himself: Your letter to grandmama was quite good and neat, only there was not a single comma or full stop – I suppose you think punctuation superfluous and unnecessary in the Dutch language! And then the letter was a bit wordy, not a natural style for your years – it becomes slightly pedantic. And on the birthday of a dear grandmother, would she not rather have a

78 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 230, Jacoba van Lanschot-van Rijckevorsel to Theodora van Lanschot, 1 January 1818. 79 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 1369, Abrahamine Hubrecht-Steenlack to Elisabeth SteenlackFrancken, 30 December 1841. 80 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 52, Otto Hora Siccama to Jan Hora Siccama, 26 December 1826.

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chapter three few simple but heartfelt words from her grandson than a poetic depiction of happy old age? I am telling you this not to rebuke you but to set you straight and to let you see that at your age childlike simplicity is still so fitting, and is generally pleasing to people.81

The natural style is fitting for a child, who must not try to appear older than he or she is. In this case, then, ‘natural’ means ‘appropriate’ for the writer (and the writer’s age), the theme, and the recipient. A letterwriting manual for Catholic girls also reveals the requirement that they should write letters appropriate for their age: I advise you most especially, dear girls, to write as you think and speak. […] Do not be afraid to be simple and artless. On the contrary, this is precisely what is required of your youth. By using a high-handed tone, you will, in the eyes of the person who reads your letters, lose that innocent appearance that is so preferable in a child to intellect and scholarship. But beware of confusing that simplicity I would so gladly see in your letters with carelessness, which is unforgivable in letter-writing style and completely at odds with its demands.82

A simple style was thus most emphatically not the same thing as a free or casual style, which might lead to sloppiness. The form and style that children’s letters should ideally possess were propagated not only in letter-writing manuals, but also in children’s literature. In an epistolary novel for children published in 1798, for instance, a mother wrote to her twelve-year-old son: ‘tell me of your amusements and diversions; but above all, write as though you are speaking to me. A letter must be simple and natural, and without carefully chosen words; but do pay attention to your spelling; it becomes one so ill not to know one’s mother tongue properly’.83 ‘Writing naturally’ could thus mean either ‘writing like a child’ or ‘writing in a simple, unartificial manner’. A third connotation of the word ‘natural’ was ‘appropriateness’. Sara van Schinne-van Ruster, who encouraged her daughter Cato to write letters in a natural manner, used the word ‘natural’ very often, also in contexts which had nothing to do with correspondence. She gave the following instructions to her

81 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 674, Abrahamine Hubrecht-Steenlack to Paul Hubrecht jr., 10 August 1843. 82 ╇P. L’Olivier, Handboekje der wellevendheid en levensregelen voor jeugdige meisjes (‘s-Hertogenbosch 1864) 135–137. 83 ╇ M.G. de Cambon-van der Werken, De kleine Grandisson, of de gehoorzaame zoon. Vol. 1 ([1782] 2nd edn; The Hague 1789) 3–5.



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daughter, for instance: ‘it is so natural at your age to like dancing […] I would be more inclined to mock those who, at over fifty years of age, have pretensions in keeping neither with their age nor with their estate’.84 ‘Natural’ can here mean ‘by nature’, but can also be read as ‘as is fitting for a young lady’. So when she urged her daughter to use a natural style in her letters, she probably also meant a proper style, as was fitting for a young lady of her station. The ideal letter by a child should demonstrate a confiding, natural and individual style. This might perhaps seem to suggest freedom in composing a letter, but in practice the concepts of confidentiality, naturalness and individuality were given a more specific definition by parents or other adult relations. Confidentiality might mean that children’s letters were read aloud by their parents to relations or family friends. Moreover, the letter should ideally evidence contentment. The child should not complain too much. And if a child had difficulty expressing intimate feelings, parents sometimes pressed very hard to be taken into his or her confidence. Naturalness could mean ‘appropriate for a child’, or could refer to artlessness, but parents also often defined it as ‘proper, or comme il faut’. An individual style, finally, was greatly appreciated in New Year’s letters, for instance. But the large numbers of identical New Year’s letters preserved in archives, which, moreover, strongly resemble those in books of model letters, testify to the fact that children were also encouraged to copy letters, or, at the very least, that they did not have a great deal of leeway in composing letters for specific occasions. The German historian Gunilla-Friederike Budde has characterized this phenomenon as a ‘dual pedagogical ideal’: on the one hand, parents in the highest circles wished to conform to the newest pedagogical insights and allow children to be children and develop their natural abilities; on the other hand, however, boys and girls of the upper classes did have to be moulded into proper, well-mannered adults.85 Parents’ instructions concerning their children’s correspondence demonstrate the dilemma of this twofold ideal: a child was free to write as he or she wished (confidingly, naturally, individually), as long as this remained within the bounds of what was deemed proper. 84 ╇NA, FAVS, inv. no. 157, Sara van Schinne-van Ruster to Catharina van Schinne, 21 December 1774. 85 ╇ G.-F. Budde, Auf dem Weg ins Bürgerleben. Kindheit und Erziehung in deutschen und englischen Bürgerfamilien 1840–1914 (Göttingen 1994) 78.

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In the above sections, the dual pedagogical ideal was discussed primarily in relation to the tone and style of children’s letters. However, the ideal also emerges when we examine the themes felt suitable for letters by and to children. Grandparents, parents, brothers and sisters all encouraged children to write about anything and everything. Herman Blijdenstein’s grandfather, for instance, wrote to him: ‘I can imagine that you are sometimes at a loss for subjects to write about. […] Everything you write, even the most insignificant trifles about yourself, is of interest to us.86 Baron De Constant Rebecque, too, assured his son Victor: ‘and yet you know that even the tiniest details of your life interest me’.87 Nevertheless, in practice it emerges that in children’s letters specific subjects were prized by parents and other relations. Just as the tone and style of children’s correspondence seemed in theory to be free, but was in practice bound by rules of propriety, parents’ and children’s choice of subject matter also turns out to reveal certain views about how the children of the upper classes should be brought up. First of all, learning to write often went hand in hand with learning certain values. One of the ways children learned to write was by using writing books, some of which have been preserved in the family archives. In 1842–1843, Maria Hubrecht (1834–1844), for instance, copied out sayings in her writing book to improve her handwriting. At  the same time, the aim was for her to take the content of these moral sayings to heart, such as ‘L’oisiveté est la mère de tous les vices. L’ambition est la mere de tous les crimes’ (Idleness is the mother of all vices; ambition is the mother of all crimes).88 In this way, learning to write went together with acquiring norms and values.89 In writing, the child internalized what he or she wrote, so that in this way the letter could serve as a means of socialization or self-discipline. Secondly, many parents and other relatives explicitly commented on the content and subject-matter of a child’s letter. A letter written by Jan Bernard Blijdenstein to his son at boarding school in 1793, for instance, 86 ╇ Jan Blijdenstein to Herman Blijdenstein, 5 October 1825 or 1826, published in: Elderink, Een Twentsch fabriqueur, 236. 87 ╇NA, FADCR, inv. no. 120A, Charles de Constant Rebecque to Victor de Constant Rebecque, 3 December 1852. 88 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 637, the writing books of Maria Hubrecht, 1842–1843. 89 ╇Linke, Sprachkultur und Bürgertum, 291–316. De Nijs, In veilige haven, 151. Schultz, ‘Letter-writing instruction’, 110.



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reads like a page from an advice book. The long letter was an instrument to inculcate values such as orderliness, thrift, and diligence. The father also stressed the importance of choosing one’s reading matter carefully.90 This ‘advice book tone’ is also evident in a letter by the same father to his daughter: ‘From your most recent letter we are pleased to realize that it was not carelessness or laxity that had led you to forget to inform us that you had received the ring. I like to see that my children are precise and careful even in small things’.91 Politely acknowledging the receipt of presents and answering the questions parents had put in their letters was all part of the skills of correspondence. Parents would naturally have to set a good example. Who wrote to the children – mother or father? According to the boarding school headmaster De Raadt, for the first few years of a child’s time at boarding school maintaining a correspondence was the task of the mother. It was her duty to write about everything that might interest her son. The most important factor was the style of her letters: ‘She must ensure that her letters have the same tone as her conversations used to have, the tone of affectionate love and concern for her son’s temporal and eternal happiness’. In this way she could implicitly (rather than with repeated admonitions) guide her son along the right moral and religious path. The son should write honestly, openly, and candidly. Excessive or grandiloquent language was to be shunned at all costs.92 After a while, the father should also initiate an exchange of letters with his son. In De Raadt’s opinion it was the father’s task to enquire about the progress his son was making at school. Moreover, the father should carry on a discussion with his son on paper about the subjects that had been addressed in lessons, so that the child would become acquainted with the world of scholarship that he would enter in a few years’ time. The boy’s choice of a profession should also be discussed in this correspondence. Like the mother, the father should strive to instil moral values and religious feelings in his son, and to encourage him to develop a cheerful but at the same time serious disposition.93 90 ╇ Jan Blijdenstein to Benjamin Blijdenstein, 30 September 1793, in: Elderink, Een Twentsch fabriqueur, 61–64. 91 ╇ Jan Blijdenstein to Maria Blijdenstein, 11 June 1798, published in: Elderink, Een Twentsch fabriqueur, 155. 92 ╇De Raadt, Noortheij, 119–120. 93 ╇Ibid., 120–121.

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In practice, most children at boarding schools exchanged letters with both their father and their mother. There were only two families in which it was clearly the mother’s task to correspond on a regular basis. Theodora van Lanschot, as a boarder at girls’ schools in Ghent and Brussels from 1817–1820, received letters from her mother conveying the everyday news of the family. Her father only wrote on his daughter’s birthday, and in one such letter he alluded to his reasons for writing so seldom: I have not written to you for a long time because I could not think of anything particular to tell you, and because Mama is in correspondence with you and tells you all the news anyway, and that we are all in good health. I read the letters that you write to Mama with great pleasure, seeing the diligence you always apply to your studies and how you take note of the lessons you receive, and the proper attention you pay to everything in order to live up to our wishes.94

When Catharina van Schinne was in Switzerland, she also exchanged the most letters with her mother. Hammer-Stroeve, in her study of the upper classes in Enschede, observes that it was indeed often the mothers who maintained contact with their children at boarding school by exchanging letters; in this way the contents of the children’s letters reached their fathers indirectly.95 Nevertheless, just as many children seem to have corresponded with both parents. Baron and Baroness De Constant Rebecque, for instance, both wrote regularly to their two sons. Their letters were very similar in content. Otto Hora Siccama, on the other hand, working as a young clerk in The Hague, wrote to his mother more about feelings, and to his father more about financial matters. There was evidently no set pattern about whether children who were away from home corresponded with their father or their mother. Sometimes the correspondence between mother and daughter did have a special quality. Jacoba van Lanschot-van Rijckevorsel, for instance, shared her concerns about the household and servants with her daughter. In this way the girl could already learn about some of the tasks that would confront her in later life. What is more, Jacoba addressed her daughter as ‘chère amie’, and mentioned confidential

94 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 229, Franciscus van Lanschot to Theodora van Lanschot 4 March 1820. 95 ╇Hammer-Stroeve, Familiezoet, 105.



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matters to her. The correspondence between Elisabeth Oomen-IngenHousz and her daughter Maria also dealt with intimate matters (or what we would view as such). Elisabeth urged her daughter to write to her not just as her mother, but as ‘a faithful and affectionate friend’. And Maria did not fight shy, when at boarding school, of writing about her menstruation, which she referred to as ‘the change’.96 Homesickness Another intimate subject often broached in correspondence was homesickness. Anna Barbara van Meerten-Schilperoort, an acknowledged expert of her day on girls’ education, suggested that children did not dare to write about homesickness in their letters because, at boarding schools, they were read: Homesickness, that yearning longing for the parental home, that feeling which – to my mind – is so appropriate, is laughed at and ridiculed until good children learn to be ashamed to show their attachment to their parents. The letters to parents are generally read, and so the children do not even dare to speak freely to their nearest relations: they must write contrary to their feelings, and become accustomed to lying and hypocrisy.97

In practice, however, children often wrote about homesickness.98 Jan Willem de Constant Rebecque, for instance, wrote (in English): ‘I dond know why I cannot feel me here as well at home as before some weeks I always have an unmeasured desire to go home. Oh how I should like to come and stay with you my moesie [mama]’.99 Jan Willem found it terribly hard to part with his parents after a visit home. He was also worried about the fact that he missed his parents so much, even when he was only away from them for a few days or weeks. How would he manage later when he was in the navy and might not see his parents for years at a time? So the thought of perhaps not being able to be sad to leave you made me shed many tears. Oh how sad I was that I could not remain attached to

96 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 135, Elisabeth Oomen-Ingen-Housz to Maria Oomen, 16 August 1825 and Maria Oomen to Elisabeth Oomen-Ingen-Housz, 19 August 1825. 97 ╇ Van Meerten-Schilperoort, Encijclopédie, vi. 98 ╇ See also De Nijs, In veilige haven, 123. 99 ╇NA, FADCR, inv. no. 69E, Jan Willem de Constant Rebecque to Julie de Constant Rebecque-d’Ablaing van Giessenburg, n.d.

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chapter three your skirts and to papa’s trousers all my life long unto death, but that would be an impossibility.100

Four months later, in a letter to his mother written on pink paper, Jan Willem again lamented about homesickness. He was happy his father could not see how sad his spirits were.101 Although Jan Willem’s father also urged him to confide in him, and often corresponded with his son about the same subjects as did his wife, the boy was apparently still afraid he would disapprove of his homesickness. At the age of sixteen, Maria Oomen wrote to her mother about feeling homesick, but like Jan Willem de Constant Rebecque she seems to have been imbued with a sense that she should not give in to these feelings too much. This led her to add a few sentences to her passage on homesickness in her letter, in which she showed her awareness of the necessity and benefits of her time at boarding school: Was very sad, but the necessity of completing my education here, bearing in mind and imagining the happy prospect that, having spent a certain amount of time here, I shall be united with you even more strongly, revived my hope and led me to commend you to God in a heartfelt prayer.102

The contents of this letter bear a strong resemblance, incidentally, to fictive letters in Maria’s letter-writing book, which has survived from her school days. The girls at Berlaymont were taught the art of writing letters in part by writing fictive letters, probably at the nuns’ dictation. One of the letters is from a mother who admits that she does  indeed miss her daughter, but that it is better for her to be at boarding school.103 In another fictive letter, from a daughter to her parents, she says that she misses them, but takes heart from the conviction that they know she still loves them dearly.104 These phrases from the fictive model letters correspond closely to the actual letters. It seems 100 ╇NA, FADCR, inv. no. 69E, Jan Willem de Constant Rebecque to Julie de Constant Rebecque-d’Ablaing van Giessenburg, 13 March 1855. 101 ╇NA, FADCR, inv. no. 69E, Jan Willem de Constant Rebecque to Julie de Constant Rebecque-d’Ablaing van Giessenburg, 23 July 1855. 102 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 135, Maria Oomen to Elisabeth Oomen Ingen-Housz, 19 August 1825. 103 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 137, list of letters received by Maria Oomen, 1825–1827, letter 22, from a mother Victorine to her daughter. This letter-writing book is wrongly described in the index; it does not contain genuine letters. 104 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 137, list of letters received by Maria Oomen, 1825–1827, letter 59, 30 December 1826.



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probable, then, that the model letters influenced the letters the girls wrote home. Both of the model letters just mentioned contain the phrase ‘to alleviate the absence through your letters’.105 For Maria Oomen and other children, correspondence was a way to allay homesickness. At the age of eighteen, Otto Hora Siccama still mentioned the sadness that overcame him when he thought of home. However, he tried to suppress these feelings with the help of the first letter his mother had written him when, at a young age, he went to The Hague to work as a clerk and lodged with his uncle and aunt. In that letter, his mother had stressed that her son might find it difficult to be so far away from home: But I always call to mind Mama’s first letter she sent me in The Hague, about the roses and thorns of life […] that letter of Mama’s that I just mentioned helps me to overcome it, so as not to become homesick when  I  think about everything I am missing for the honour of uncle giving me good prospects for my further existence. For despite all the friendliness and affection of Uncle and Aunt, which I really do appreciate  very much, I often feel what the companionship of parents, brothers and sisters is, which I can enjoy so seldom compared with Jan, Louis etc. And I must confess that suppressing this feeling, as in part I believe to be necessary, and as I simply attempt to achieve by always looking on the bright side, has already instilled in me a certain indifference to many things, which is not pleasant to me, especially since I fear that in the future this indifference, if it spreads to greater matters, will sometimes drive me to insincerity. But I would rather elaborate on this face to face. – I can already hear you laughing about the serious tone I  have slipped into, and that is so little my style; so I’ll drop it at that, laughing about it myself by now.106

So children did write about homesickness, but often followed up such passages in their letters with their awareness that their stay away from their childhood home was in their best interests. They knew that they should try to suppress these sorts of melancholy feelings, and they tried to do so in their letters too. As with adult women who tried in their letters to live up to the ideal image of womanhood, here too we can talk

╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 132, Pauline and Aloïza Gibson to Maria Oomen, 1 May 1827.RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 137, list of letters received by Maria Oomen, 1825–1827, letter 17: a daughter Célina to her mother. 106 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 39, Otto Hora Siccama to Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck, 24 December 1823. 105

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of ‘emotion work’. In this way, correspondence between parents and children guided children’s emotions into the right channels. This did not even require explicit corrective comments from parents. Children used their correspondence as a means to discipline themselves. Correspondence as a gauge of a child’s development Children’s letters were not only used for self-discipline, however. Headmaster De Raadt viewed correspondence as a means to monitor children’s moral and intellectual development. For this reason, children were expected to give account of their progress in the various subjects at school. The handwriting, style, and content of the letter also all bore witness to the progress the child was making.107 In this vein, Cato van Schinne’s mother asked her to report in her letters how she was getting on with her English, drawing and harp lessons.108 Most children were aware that correspondence functioned as a gauge of their progress. They stressed that they were not neglecting their studies and that they were doing their best to ensure that they came first in their various subjects.109 If there were several sons in one family, they were often compared with one another. This helped to instil in them the middleclass ideal of achievement.110 This applied, incidentally, to girls as well as boys. Parents, brothers, and sisters also expressed an interest in the subjects taught at school, which meant that a great deal of the correspondence from children at boarding school was taken up with descriptions of how they spent their day. This helped to imbue girls and boys with values, equally middle-class perhaps, such as efficient time management and diligence, as well as a strong work ethos.111 Nevertheless, parents’ letters to their children did not consist solely of reprimands and exhortations. Many parents displayed a genuine interest in their children’s ideas and concerns. Many of the letters kept the children informed about the welfare of pet birds or other animals who had to be left behind at home.

╇De Raadt, Noortheij, 123. ╇NA, FAVS, inv. no. 157, Sara van Schinne-van Ruster to Catharina van Schinne, 10 December 1773. 109 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 140, Auguste van Lanschot to Augustinus van Lanschot and Maria Oomen 19 November 1848. 110 ╇Budde, Auf dem Weg, 162. 111 ╇Ibidem, 405. 107 108



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Ceremonial letters from children In the above sub-sections, I have highlighted various functions of correspondence to and from children: as a means of self-discipline and as a manner of monitoring a child’s moral and intellectual development. Both of these aspects are part of the general function of correspondence examined in this book, namely socialization. This socialization process reached its peak on religious feasts and annual celebrations such as birthdays. On such occasions, adults felt bound to explicitly call children to account regarding their moral progress, and children demonstrated that they had internalized the norms of etiquette and decorum. Children, above all, were expected to send salutations on such occasions.112 The family archives contain a large number of letters from children to their parents expressing birthday and New Year’s greetings. A few of these letters are informal in tone, but stiff, stylized occasional letters predominate. We have already seen that an individual style was contrasted to the ceremonial nature of birthday and New Year greetings and letters of condolence (see also Chapter 5). Although schools did pay some attention to the composition of occasional letters,113 writing at New Year and on birthdays was mainly a matter for family supervision. Some children composed their own letters; others were helped by their mother or a governess, who might correct the spelling or decorate the initial letters with calligraphy, for example. Many verses, taken from books written especially for this purpose, were copied out neatly on coloured or decorated paper.114 Children presented their parents or grandparents with the New Year’s and birthday letters, which were often in rhyme, but also frequently recited the poems to them, surrounded by the rest of the family.115 ╇ ‘Voorschriften tot het opstellen’, 32. ╇ J. le Francq de Berkhey, Natuurlyke historie. Vol. 3 (Amsterdam 1773) II, 1296– 1297: ‘in most of our schools it is customary at New Year, Easter, Whitsun, Christmas, and other feasts, and also on the birthdays of parents, uncles, aunts, godparents etc., for the children to salute various relatives with splendid odes, or at least written in their best writing, and to present them with such writings, adorned with sketches by the master; this is usually, depending on the level of progress, followed by exhortative appreciation. One even finds special printed and enclosed prints of wreaths or frames, the middle of which is left open for the children to write such odes’. 114 ╇ One such example is C. Brinkman, Kleine verzameling van gedichtjes bij gelegenheid van het nieuwe jaar, ten gebruike der jeugd (Amsterdam 1821). 115 ╇According to De Nijs, In veilige haven, 110–112, letters or poems were read aloud on birthdays and at weddings. Linke, Sprachkultur und Bürgertum, 294, 299 mentions that New Year’s letters were presented to parents and Christmas letters were declaimed. 112 113

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Fig. 5╇Pen and ink drawing by Alexander Ver Huell, from: Alexander Ver huell, Afspiegelingen. Ze zijn er! [Reflections. They are there!] (Leiden, s.d.) [183?] [‘Dear Grandfather ! With great pleasure I take up my pen to converse with you for a few moments…’. (One hour later) ‘Dear Grandfather ! With great pleasure I take up my pen to converse with you for a few moments, dear grandfather…’] New Year’s greetings from children included a number of standard elements: blessings for the year to come; wishes for a prosperous year, free of afflictions; and gratitude to parents for all the good things the children had received over the past year. As the author of one letter-writing manual put it: ‘towards one’s parents one recalls all the proofs we have received of their love; one thanks them for these, and wishes them health, happiness, good spirits, and all true joy; one promises, as far as it is in one’s power, to increase this joy; and one begs for the continuance of their parental love’.116 As Linke has pointed out, for children ╇Geerling, De Nederlandsche briefsteller, 184–185.

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New Year’s letters were simultaneously an exercise in written composition and an exercise in acquiring proper norms and values such as filial gratitude and obedience.117 The same is true of birthday greetings. The family archives contain many birthday greetings from children to their parents, often in rhyme. To some extent, these letters resemble the birthday greetings exchanged by adults. What is typical of children’s letters, however, is the gratitude the children express to their parents and their promises to do their best to ensure that their parents can be proud of them, as the author of the letter-writing manual says: ‘On such occasions, children rightfully stir up their love for their parents, to whom, besides God, they owe the gift of life’.118 Letters from adults to children to mark special occasions Adults also wrote letters to children to mark special occasions, albeit to a lesser extent than children to adults. In part, such letters contained the same greetings as those exchanged by adults among themselves or those written from children to older relatives. There was, however, one distinctive feature: adults very definitely strove to socialize children on these occasions. When Theodora van Lanschot turned sixteen, for instance, her mother’s birthday greeting urged her to strive for contentment, obedience to her parents, and daily prayer. Her parents were pleased with her.119 Theodora’s mother seized the girl’s birthday as an opportunity to instil obedience to parents and teachers and piety. At the same time, a birthday was a benchmark for the child’s character and behaviour. Not all parents were so delighted with their offspring. Ambrosius Hubrecht, who was sent to boarding school in Zutphen because of his tantrums, repeatedly received reprimands by letter from his grandmothers, aunts, and parents. Birthdays and the New Year were the perfect opportunity for character-building correspondence. Take, for instance, the sharp words that grandmother Steenlack-Francken

╇Linke, Sprachkultur und Bürgertum, 297. ╇Geerling, De Nederlandsche briefsteller, 184–185. 119 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 230, Jacoba van Lanschot-van Rijckevorsel to Theodora van Lanschot, 7 September 1818. 117 118

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addressed to her grandson in congratulating him on his fourteenth birthday: If you have ever thought about how many good things you have enjoyed in the past year, and asked yourself whether, in your behaviour, you have lived up to all the care and trouble your dear, good parents have taken for your sake, you will certainly have to reproach yourself with many shortcomings. But I trust, my dear, darling Ambro, that you have now certainly formed the resolution to do your best to amend in this year all that you have not done so well. In so doing, you will be happier yourself and a greater joy to your parents. I know and am convinced, dear Ambro, that you feel this yourself, and that it is often temper and impetuousness that makes you behave and speak otherwise than you would wish, and that repentance follows swiftly. But for this reason, you must be all the more on your guard to make sure you are not carried away by your temper. And always bear in mind to whom you are speaking: have honour, respect and obedience for your parents; besides to God, it is to them you owe these things the most […] May mutual love bind you and your brothers and sisters closely together. Give them space, and they will love you dearly and will do a lot for you. And it is because I too love you very dearly, my dearest Ambro, that I am writing you all this, since it may be helpful for your happiness to receive good advice. After all, I know, dear boy, that you will accept it from me, will you not?120

Ambrosius’s grandmother accompanied these incitements to selfcontrol, gratitude and brotherly love with a fitting present: a pencil for Ambrosius to keep a diary. He was to record his behaviour every day and evaluate it on a weekly basis. Children’s diaries, like letters, functioned as a pedagogical tool, as Baggerman and Dekker have shown using the example of the diaries of the young Otto van Eck.121 Ambrosius’s other grandmother, in the letter of condolence she wrote to him after the death of his grandfather, her husband, also reminded him of his duty to be devout and to reciprocate the love and care bestowed on him by his parents.122 It is striking, incidentally, that the family archives contain very few letters of condolence written by children. One or two letter-writing manuals mention that children virtually never had any dealings with such letters.123 This is probably

120 ╇GAL, FAH, suppl. II, box 19, Elisabeth Steenlack-Francken to Ambrosius Hubrecht, 24 December 1845. 121 ╇ Baggerman and Dekker, Kind van de toekomst, 97–139. 122 ╇ GAL, FAH, suppl. II, box 19, Sophia Hubrecht-de Veer to Ambrosius Hubrecht, 9 April 1846. 123 ╇Anonymous, ‘Voorschriften tot het opstellen’, 21.



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because of the change in attitude to death from the eighteenth century on. Death gradually ceased to be viewed as a natural part of daily life; rather it was increasingly banished to the margins.124 In this way, children too became less familiar with death. Everything that might upset a child had to be kept at bay. At the end of the nineteenth century, death had all but disappeared from children’s books, and had become a pedagogical taboo.125 Birthdays, deaths, and the New Year were thus all occasions on which one might pause to reflect on a child’s achievements, but above all shortcomings. Children’s behaviour and character were held up for inspection in occasional correspondence. Some children even tried to preempt their parents in this exercise. Victor de Constant Rebecque, for instance, wrote: Only another six or so days to go and I will be sixteen years old !!!! […] What have I learned in these eight years… to be twice as wicked towards you as I was then, do you think, Minkie? No, Mama, at least now I can begin to form the tiniest inkling of an idea of all that you have suffered and prayed for me. And then how infinitely much more He suffered for my sake, and yet still forgives me all. Oh yes, Mama, what a blessed thought it is that we will never be parted from one another. Oh Mama, a thousand times I thank you for battling against my hypocrisy and selfishness, and above all pride, which is so very hard to combat.126

Children’s letters and religion Everyday correspondence by Protestant children such as Victor de Constant Rebecque also shows signs of conscience-searching and analysis of behaviour. Although the letters to and from Protestant and Catholic children have many points in common – they were all spurred on to more orderly and pious behaviour in birthday greetings, for instance – there are some notable differences. The boys of the Protestant (Pietist) Hubrecht family had conscience-searching instilled in them

124 ╇H. Franke, De dood in het leven van alledag. Twee eeuwen rouwadvertenties en openbare strafvoltrekkingen in Nederland (The Hague 1985) 10. 125 ╇R. Spruit, De dood onder ogen. Een cultuurgeschiedenis van sterven, begraven, cremeren en rouw (Houten 1986) 64, 71, 90. Pietist groups were the exception to this rule. They emphasized the transience of human existence, so that death was merely a new beginning. From this perspective, children should not learn to fear death, but should be reassured by confronting it with proper guidance. 126 ╇NA, FADCR, inv. no. 69D, Victor de Constant Rebecque to Julie de Constant Rebecque-d’Ablaing van Giessenburg, 10 May 1854.

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from an early age. They admonished themselves sternly if they did not live up to the ideal of how a good child should behave. Paul, for instance, wrote a letter while he was at home, promising to mend his ways. He thus deliberately chose the letter form rather than a face-to-face encounter to impart the following to his father: Dear papa, I firmly promise you that I will improve myself as much as is at all possible. And oh, if you see me faltering, then say ‘Think of the letter’. Dear papa, forgive all my faults that I have committed until now, for which truly the greatest repentance prevails in my heart. I pray you to forgive me. I shall also pray to God this evening that he will forgive me my faults – then I can step out with a quiet conscience. I shall also ask him to prompt my conscience to say ‘think of that letter’. In that way I will become better and one day enter into heaven with you, mama, and all people. Dear papa, do not grant me an answer to this letter, as I am not yet worthy of it. Farewell, dear father, I must go to bed now; otherwise I  would perhaps write more. Your loving, repenting, and hopingto-improve son Paul.127

The letters that Paul’s brother Ambrosius sent his parents from boarding school are also full of repentance about his behaviour. On returning to Zutphen after a six-week stay with his parents in Leiden, he evaluated his behaviour during that period: Oh, I did not at all live up to all your loving care. I unpacked half my trunk this evening, but that brought it home to me all the more. Dear parents, I do not deserve so much kindness. Every book I brought with me prompts that thought in me, and oh, I would so dearly wish to do something about it. Truly, I promise you that I will improve and I will pray God that he help me in this. Oh, my dear parents, please do forgive me all the evil I have done against you. Oh, it is so much to ask; oh, I feel so disgusted that I am so bad. You have convinced me of my badness through your great kindnesses. Oh, write to me sometime how I could live up to this kindness to some extent and then I will do my best to do so. You have sometimes told me that one only values one’s privileges when one has to do without them; that is what I feel now. Oh, those parental lessons – I wish I could still receive them, for they are worth more than the best gold. This evening I feel as though I had lost you. May the good Lord grant that this does not happen to me in a very long time.128

╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 433, Paul Hubrecht jr. to Pieter Hubrecht, n.d. ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 441, Ambrosius Hubrecht to Pieter Hubrecht, 13 September 1847. 127 128



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Although in ceremonial letters Catholic children, too, promised good behaviour, this was virtually never accompanied by self-reproach or soul-searching. Letter-writers with a Catholic background tended to make frequent use of terms such as tendresse and loving one’s neighbour. Protestants laid more emphasis on developing an internal conscience; Catholics were more preoccupied with the child’s attitude vis-à-vis the external world. The circles of the Réveil and Pietist groups especially stressed individual examination of one’s faith.129 We see traces of this particularly in the letters, both by adults and children, of the Pietist Hubrecht family and of the De Constant Rebecques, who were in contact with leading figures of the Réveil movement. Gender Religion thus influenced the way children wrote. Was gender also a factor? This question is significant not least because Chapter 1 above demonstrated that gender did play an important role in epistolary theory. Women were supposed to write natural letters, but to be more prone to spelling mistakes and stylistic faults than men. What is striking when one studies letters to and from girls and boys of the elite, however, is that the natural style was taught to both sexes. The subjects addressed in such letters, such as homesickness and progress at school, were also largely the same for girls and boys. And even the values the children were supposed to learn through correspondence differed very little: respect for their elders, punctuality, neatness etc. Where the socialization of children through letter-writing is concerned, then, gender differences are relatively minor.130 Moreover, as the following chapter will

129 ╇ This concurs to some extent with Bakker’s findings on the subject of the pedagogy of the family. She concludes that until 1920 individuality did not play a role in the developmental teachings of Catholics. She also posits that from 1900 the ideal of character-building was internalized, but that this was much less prevalent in Catholic parental education; in their case, character building was more focused on appearances  and loving one’s neighbour. Bakker, Kind en karakter, 233, 238. My archival material suggests that for Protestants this internalization was already present in the mid-nineteenth century. 130 ╇I agree with D. Vincent, The rise of mass literacy. Reading and writing in Modern Europe (Cambridge 2000) 60–61 that the gendered aspects of education are often overemphasized, at the expense of the similarities between boys’ and girls’ schooling: ‘Where the difference occurred was not in the lessons themselves, but in the way in which they were embedded in the rest of the learning experience. In the schools of western Europe, girls were even more intensively exposed than boys to the moral indoctrination which suffused so much of the early systematic curriculum. They were

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show, the differences between the sexes in correspondence only really became significant in adolescence. Nevertheless, there are a few aspects of correspondence where gender differences are indeed notable. Thus, according to a letterwriting manual for girls of between ten and fifteen published in 1829, girls’ letters should be modest in tone. In this work, letters were described as ‘nothing other than conversations conducted with those who are absent’, and should therefore be written ‘without artificiality, but with that modesty that is at all times, whether in speaking or in writing, the hallmark of a good upbringing’.131 A letter-writing manual for Catholic girls also emphasized modesty: ‘First and foremost, dear girls, modesty and simplicity are essential requirements of epistolary style’.132 In practice, too, modesty seems to have been more important for girls. Girls complained less than boys about their busy school schedules. They virtually never voiced negative comments about their teachers, whereas boys did. Modesty was actively propagated at Berlaymont convent school. Maria Oomen’s letter-writing book, in which, as mentioned above, she wrote out fair copies of letters dictated to her in French, seems to be typical for Catholic girls. Writing out dictated letters was not only intended to teach the girls the art of letter-writing: the girls at Berlaymont simultaneously absorbed from the nuns the qualities that a Catholic woman would need to maintain a household and bring up children. The letters expounded at length on the virtues of gratitude, patience, resignation, generosity to the poor, honesty, moderation, piety, humility, obedience, cheerfulness, gentleness and useful pastimes. Vanity, fashion, complacency, slander, meddlesomeness, fickleness and worldliness were firmly censured. In one of the letters in this book, for instance, a mother thanked her daughter for

more likely to attend schools controlled by the church, and were seen as bearing a special responsibility for transmitting moral values to their own homes, and to those they would form as adults’. Niemeyer, in positing that correspondences served ‘für die Bildung geschlechtsspezifisch weiblichen Verhaltens’, is putting it too strongly, certainly where children’s socialization is concerned. B. Niemeyer, ‘Der Brief als weibliches Bildungsmedium im 18. Jahrhundert’, in: E. Kleinau and C. Opitz eds, Geschichte der Mädchen- und Frauenbildung, Vol. 1 Vom Mittelalter bis zur Aufklärung (Frankfurt am Main 1996) 440–452, here 452. 131 ╇Anonymous, Brieven over allerlei onderwerpen, voor jonge jufvrouwen, van tien tot vijftien jaren (tweede druk; Rotterdam 1829) 6. 132 ╇L’Olivier, Handboekje der wellevendheid, 135–137.



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complimenting her on her letters, but added that she herself found her letters so unimportant that she never dared to re-read them.133 Re-reading one’s own letters admiringly would ill befit a modest woman. The Catholic girls at Berlaymont could repeat these phrases in letters to their parents. In this way, both writing lessons and actual correspondence reinforced one another in instilling Catholic female values. Not only should girls’ letters exude modesty; girls were also expected to show in their letters that they were sweet and kind. Sophia Schimmelpenninck van der Oye van de Poll-van Rhemen reproached her friend Julie d’Ablaing van Giesenburg because Julie’s daughter had written an unpleasant postscript: Your daughter’s PS displeases me greatly. I find her very impertinent towards you and towards me. How have you brought her up, my dear? My advice to you would be to strive to convey to her something of your sweetness, which is so essential for a young person.134

In addition to sweetness and modesty, good handwriting was probably more important for girls than for boys. As Johannes Martinet puts it in his Huisboek voor Vaderlandsche Huisgezinnen (House book for Households of the Fatherland): ‘it looks dainty, if a daughter writes prettily’.135 Writing books were in circulation that were intended to teach a distinctly feminine hand.136 On the one hand, then, gender aspects were important when it came to socialization by means of letters: good handwriting was more important for girls, and letter-writing manuals for girls emphasized modesty in style. On the other hand, the similarities in boys’ and girls’ letters far outweighed the differences, and the most important differences only emerged in adolescence. For young children gender differences were perhaps instilled using other means of socialization, such as clothes, toys, or oral instructions.

133 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 137, list of letters received by Maria Oomen, 1825–1827, letter 21, from a mother ‘Ninie’ to her daughter. 134 ╇NA, FADCR, inv. no. 69V, Sophia Schimmelpenninck van der Oye van de Poll-van Rhemen to Julie d’Ablaing de Giesenburg, n.d. 135 ╇Martinet, Huisboek, 229. 136 ╇ Volumes 22–24 of Darnell’s sure guide to a good handwriting are entitled Ladies’ Angular Writing. GAL, FAH, suppl. II, box 3, school copy book of Ambrosius Hubrecht, 1864–1865.

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Letters are often viewed as a source which might reveal the reality of how children were brought up.137 In this, historians tend to overlook the social conventions to which letters, and children’s letters no less so, were subject. However, by concentrating precisely on how writing itself was learned, rather than merely on the contents of letters, it is possible to distil out parents’ pedagogical views. Children of the upper classes learned the fundamentals of reading and writing from their mothers. Tutors and schools (both boarding and day schools) built further on these foundations, but ultimately children honed their writing skills in the family circle. Not only parents, but also grandparents, aunts and older brothers involved themselves in this aspect of children’s upbringing. Schools primarily provided pure knowledge; manners and the elite lifestyle were the province of the home.138 Learning to write was connected with teaching moral values: the norms of propriety were instilled into children as they tried to master the composition of letters. The aim was that in the end they would internalize these values and that they would ultimately be able to conduct correspondences independently. In the upbringing of children, then, correspondence was a means of learning discipline and an exercise in manners.139 Children received compliments for their writing, but more often reprimands. Composing letters was thus apparently not a talent that came naturally to children. Paradoxically, the authors of letter-writing manuals, teachers, and parents professed the ideal of a natural, individual and child-like style, and of intimacy in correspondence between parents and children. This ideal seems to have gained ground in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Children’s books were also required to have a natural style and to be genuinely intended for children, rather than for miniature adults.

╇Roberts, Through the keyhole, 11. ╇ Frijhoff, ‘Crisis of modernisering?’, 55 points out that as the eighteenth century progressed, education came to be seen more and more as a means of acquiring knowledge rather than a means of socialization. Vincent, Literacy, 89, states that in England children did not learn letter-writing at school until 1862. This does not seem to apply to the Netherlands: school books and letter-writing manuals, as well as the accounts by Le Francq de Berkhey, all mention lessons in letter-writing a great deal earlier. It is very possible, however, that teaching in this area differed for the upper and lower classes. 139 ╇Niemeyer, ‘Der Brief als weibliches Bildungsmedium’, 452. 137 138



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Parents reiterated the desire for intimacy and individuality time and time again, as though it could be fulfilled by the mere repetition. On closer inspection, it emerges that these ideals could mean different things to different parents. ‘Natural’ could mean ‘unaffected’, ‘childlike’, or ‘appropriate’. In advocating an intimate relationship, parents appeared to mean that their child could be entirely open with them in his or her letters; in practice, however, children’s letters were expected to demonstrate contentment and self-reflection. Parents thus created their own definitions of terms such as ‘confidential’, or ‘private’. They appropriated these concepts as a way to bridge the ‘dual pedagogical ideal’. On the one hand, parents of the elite wanted to bring up their children in accordance with the ideals of enlightened educational theory: i.e. each child’s individual character should be respected, and parents would get to know their child best by creating the conditions for intimacy. Moreover, children should be viewed as children, and not as miniature adults. On the other hand, parents found it important for their children to conform to the social conventions of the elite. By redefining concepts such as naturalness and intimacy, they could combine the two pedagogical aims. Like stylistic freedom, adults also professed the ideal that children were free to choose the subjects they wrote about in letters. In practice, however, there was a marked preference for themes that testified to the child’s moral and educational development. At New Year and on birthdays especially, there was a strong focus on assessing the child’s development. Moreover, though children were indeed free to write about emotions such as homesickness, they were aware that they had to try and overcome their melancholy feelings. In this way, letters also served as a way of disciplining oneself. Protestant children were more likely than their Catholic counterparts to use letters as a means of selfreflection and self-castigation. It is striking, finally, that when it came to socialization through correspondence, the differences between girls and boys were not very great. Both sexes were taught the natural style, and girls and boys often wrote about the same subjects. Girls, more than boys, were encouraged to cultivate a modest style and to develop neater handwriting. However, the real gender differences in correspondence did not take shape until adolescence.

Chapter Four

Adolescents’ letters Der Holländer ist von einer ordentlichen und ämsigen Gemuthsart, und, indem er lediglich auf das Nützliche sieht, so hat er wenig Gefühl für dasjenige, was im feineren Verstande schön oder erhaben ist. Ein großer Mann bedeutet bey ihm eben so viel als ein reicher Mann, unter dem Freunde versteht er seinen Correspondenten, und ein Besuch ist ihm sehr langweilig, der ihm nichts einbringt. (The Dutchman is of an orderly and industrious disposition, and, since he is concerned exclusively with what is expedient, he has little feeling for that which the more refined mind classifies as beautiful or exalted. For him a great man means the same as a rich man, ‘friend’ is synonymous with ‘correspondent’, and a call is extremely tedious unless it yields him some advantage.)1

Introduction In 1824, the nineteen-year-old Otto Hora Siccama informed his brother Louis, two years his junior, that the style of the latter’s letters was too childish: Moreover, having just read your last letter aloud again, I venture to offer you the brotherly advice that you should write, whenever the opportunity presents itself, either to me or to others, in Dutch or in French, in order to practise writing in a flowing epistolary style. It is about time: you really do write rather childishly for your age. And yet I can excuse this in you, since I am aware how seldom you compose a letter.2

Whereas, as we saw in the previous chapter, a thirteen-year-old boy was urged by his mother to write letters of ‘childlike simplicity’, Louis Hora Siccama, at seventeen, was exhorted no longer to write like a child. If one examines letters written by boys aged between about sixteen and twenty-three, it emerges that the style and content of their

╇ I. Kant, Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen (Riga 1771)

1

93.

╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 90L, Otto Hora Siccama to Louis Hora Siccama, 2 July 1824.

2



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correspondence was different both from children’s letters, on the one hand, and from the letters written by adult men. This is apparent even from the forms of address used. When Otto was sixteen, for example, he instructed Louis to ‘Tell Jan [their older brother, WR], that I am not Mijnheer [Sir] but Jongeheer [Young sir]’.3 ‘Jongeheer’ was the correct form of address for adolescents, boys of about sixteen and over. Historians and contemporaries distinguish three phases in the development of a child into a man or woman in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: childhood (up to about twelve), puberty (from about twelve to sixteen), and adolescence (from sixteen to marriageable age). The current chapter focuses on adolescence. Contemporaries used the  word ‘childhood’ for the first phase, and ‘youth’ for adolescence. A ‘jongeling’ was a boy of about fifteen or sixteen, a ‘jongedochter’ was a girl of about the same age. This period of adolescence could last until the age of about twenty-five or even thirty-five.4 The historical debate has focused on the question of whether adolescence, like childhood, was viewed as a separate stage. It is often argued that adolescence started to receive more emphasis in about 1800. There has also been discussion about whether becoming an adult involved a long transitional period, or whether, at a relatively young age, children were simply designated adult.5 In his research into the prosperous Rotterdam bourgeoisie in the nineteenth century, Thimo de Nijs concludes that the sons of such middle-class families enjoyed a lengthy adolescence and were permitted a great deal of freedom as students and during periods abroad. The same cannot be said for girls, who continued to live at home during this period in their lives. In this way, boys had considerable scope to develop an individual identity; at the same time, however, they remained subject to their parents’ authority and continued to be financially dependent on them.6 The present chapter will discuss a few of the rites de passage that constituted the symbolic transition from childhood to adolescence and from adolescence to adulthood. Some of these are distinct events, such 3 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 90L, Otto Hora Siccama to Louis Hora Siccama, 22 October 1821. 4 ╇ I. Krausman Ben-Amos, Adolescence and youth in early modern England (New Haven/ London 1994) 9. P. Stokvis, ‘From child to adult: transition rites in the Netherlands ca. 1800–1914’, Paedagogica Historica 29 (1993) 77–91, here 80–81. 5 ╇ For an overview of the critical literature, see Krausman Ben-Amos, Adolescence and youth, 1–9. 6 ╇De Nijs, In veilige haven, 130, 150–152.

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as confirmation or engagement; others are more gradual processes. I  argue that correspondence played a significant role in all this. Adolescents’ letters have a character of their own that distinguishes them both from children’s letters and adults’ letters. Writing letters was one of the ways in which adolescents developed their identity, so the performative aspect of correspondence also comes to the fore clearly in their letters. Young men, especially, crafted their identity in letters before enacting it outside the realms of correspondence. This performative function was also important in letters exchanged by fiancés: the relationship between the future marriage partners was negotiated and shaped in the correspondence. In this way, the letters are a precursor of the relationship between the married partners. The present chapter, like the others, is based mainly on correspondences preserved in manuscript in various family archives. An edition of the letters of the student and artist Alexander Ver Huell (1822–1897) furnished supplementary source material. From 1838 to 1840, he attended Jan Jacob de Gelders’ Paedagogium for Instruction in the Ancient Languages, where Paul Hubrecht and subsequently his brother Ambrosius were also pupils.7 Alexander Ver Huell was friendly with the student author Jan Kneppelhout (1814–1885). Ver Huell’s letters bear many similarities to the letters written by the boys of the Hubrecht, Hora Siccama, Van Lanschot and De Constant Rebecque families during their adolescence. From schoolboy to student Confirmation as a rite of passage On 26 November 1847, the fifteen-year-old Ambrosius Hubrecht sent a birthday greeting to his elder brother Paul, who turned eighteen that day: ‘10 years ago I also wished you happiness on this day, but then as a child; now I greet a youth’.8 Ambrosius thus clearly distinguished between children and adolescents. Four years later, Ambrosius congratulated Paul on his twenty-second birthday. On this occasion, he emphasized that this was Paul’s last birthday as a youth. For at twentythree he would become an adult in the eyes of the law. For Paul, this ╇Bervoets, De briefwisseling. ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 675, Ambrosius Hubrecht to Paul Hubrecht, 26 November 1847. 7 8



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was also the last year that he would really be part of the family household, as he was about to get married and move from Leiden to Rotterdam. For this reason, too, Ambrosius commented that it was a special birthday.9 Legally coming of age (on reaching twenty-three) constituted the official end of adolescence, although many young men, especially the unmarried ones, continued to behave as adolescents, or to be treated as such by their parents or brothers. The transition from child to adolescent and from adolescent to adult often took many years, but was also marked by a series of rites of passage. One obvious occasion of this kind was First Holy Communion for Catholics; for the children of the lower classes this meant the transition from school to working life. Until 1910, when Pope Pius X introduced child communion, Catholic children made their First Holy Communion when they were about twelve years old.10 I did not encounter any references to First Holy Communion in my selection of manuscript letters. The rites of passage encountered in the elite families that feature in this study relate rather to the transition from adolescent to adult: Confirmation, for Protestant children, and leaving boarding school for Catholic children; both these events occurred when children were about eighteen. The archives of the Hubrechts, a Protestant family, include letters of congratulation on the Confirmation of Pieter Hubrecht (1823), Paul Hubrecht (1847) and Ambrosius Hubrecht (1850). Paul was seventeen years old at the time of this solemn occasion; Pieter and Ambrosius were eighteen. The content of the letters is the same. The sender congratulates the young man on making his Confirmation and draws his attention to the obligations this entails. Above all, the writer warns of all the worldly temptations that will be lurking: it is precisely at the moments when temptation rears its ugly head that the boy must remember his Confirmation. As Paul’s parents admonished him in 1847: When you read these lines, you will have taken an important step in your life […] Who would congratulate you more sincerely on this occasion than your parents […] who now gratefully rejoice that the eldest of their children has pledged himself, of his own free will, to the service of our Only Lord and Saviour, in this way becoming one with them in faith and ╛╛╛╛9 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 675, Ambrosius Hubrecht to Paul Hubrecht, 26 November 1851. 10 ╇ Stokvis, ‘From child to adult’, 82.

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chapter four hope; and may we also be one in love; […] The path that you will now tread more on your own is so dangerous, perhaps more so than you yourself suspect. How easy it is to be led by frivolity, by the craving for diversion and pleasure; and how easily these lead to wickedness. How easily pride and the desire to know all may lead to unbelief, and how many thousands of snares are laid by our own mistaken heart and foolish senses? […] May God grant you and us that precious gift in abundance through his Spirit, and thus unify our hearts to his service, through Jesus Christ our Lord.11

Although Paul was living at home with his parents at this time, they deliberately chose to communicate these best wishes and admonitions in writing: ‘Just a word or two, my dearest Paul, I did feel bound to write for you today; there are some things one cannot say just like that, and then there is the fact that the written word is more enduring, and we like to think that you will glance at this missive now and then in later years’.12 The idea was thus that Paul would re-read this letter in the future and would take the exhortations to heart yet again. At the same time, it would strengthen his memories of his parents. Three years later, Paul copied out this letter word for word for his younger brother Ambrosius, when the latter came to make his Confirmation. Since their mother had died in the interim, this copy also served to keep alive her memory. Paul added his own letter of congratulation, in which he warned against sin, but also urged that they should be patient with each other’s weaknesses. He stated that the bond between the brothers had become closer through Ambrosius’ confirmation. In the original letter, the boys’ father had also described Confirmation as strengthening the love between father and son. Paul concluded his letter to his brother with the word ‘Amen’, which reflects the solemn nature of his writing.13 This shows that a letter of congratulation on the event of a young adult’s Confirmation served several purposes. It was to be preserved and re-read to recall the essence of Confirmation, and at the same time to remind the addressee of his family. The letter also reaffirmed the

11 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 674, Pieter Hubrecht and Abrahamine Hubrecht-Steenlack to Paul Hubrecht jr. 28 March 1847. (See also inv. no. 454, H. Polman to Pieter Hubrecht, 25 March 1823.) 12 ╇ Ibid. Margaretha and Hermine Hubrecht also received written congratulations on their confirmation from people who lived very nearby. See inv. no. 458, diary of Pieter Hubrecht 1829–1831, entry for 12 April 1829. 13 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 623, Paul Hubrecht to Ambrosius Hubrecht, 24 March 1850.



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existing bonds of kinship, since the boys had now become members of the same church. The letters that the Protestant Hubrecht boys received after making their Confirmation resemble the letters sent to Catholic girls on leaving the convent and boarding school of Berlaymont. When Maria Oomen left Berlaymont at the age of eighteen, she received a letter from J. de Clotr, who seems to have been one of her former teachers. In this letter, De Clotr expressed her pleasure at Maria’s devoutness. To safeguard this piety, she advised Maria to read religious works every day. This would help Maria to withstand the dangers of the outside world. This letter, like those discussed in Chapter 3, strongly resembles the fictive letters in Maria Oomen’s book of model letters, which suggests that it was a commonplace to warn young people against worldly temptations.14 The fact that these types of letters were preserved in the family archives shows that great value was attached to them and that they were probably re-read frequently. The correspondence between Paul and Ambrosius Hubrecht Confirmation or leaving school were clear milestones on the path to adulthood. Generally, however, this transition was less clearly marked. The correspondence between Paul and Ambrosius Hubrecht testifies to this. The boys were sixteen and fourteen years old, respectively, when they embarked on their correspondence. We already saw in the previous chapter how the elder brother taught the younger to write letters by commenting on his style, his use of titles, his concluding formula, and the way he wrote the address on the envelope. The correspondence between Paul and Ambrosius began in 1846, when Ambrosius left for the boarding school in Zutphen that he would attend until 1849. At the time, Paul was still living with his parents in Leiden. The brothers promised to write to each other daily and to keep the letters so they could re-read them later. And in 1852, when Paul had established himself as a lawyer in Rotterdam, and Ambrosius was studying Law in Leiden, Ambrosius did indeed look back over their correspondence:

14 ╇ RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 131, J. de Clotr to Maria Oomen, 13 June 1827. RANB, FAVL, index of letters received by Maria Oomen, 1825–1827, letter 25 from Emelie to a friend, and letter 26 from Julie to a friend.

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chapter four Just now I looked through the letters you sent to me in Zutphen in 1846– 1849 (this must have been clear from the heading). At the bottom of the first (19 Feb. 1846), it says: ‘P.S. You must keep all my letters, and I shall do the same with yours. It may be nice to have them afterwards. Vale PH’. Did you do so? I did, and now I am gathering the sweet fruits of that advice. Then it was your first letter to me, who had left home; now it is you who has left, and this is my first letter. So similar and yet so different! Who were we then? Who are we now? How did I leave home then, and where was I bound? How did you leave now, and where are you bound? One thing struck me about those first letters: the repetition of the word ‘Jaap’, and in those days you did not yet sign off with ‘TT’.15 It was not until later that you wrote and told me what the ‘FF’ I had written at the bottom of my letter meant, that I had written in imitation of you. I would appreciate seeing my letters again sometime. Yours are frightfully typical: about doing lines, about Zeeman being nicknamed the crow because of his κερας, κερατος, κεραααααα16 and other such talk.17

‘Jaap’ meant Jan Jacob de Gelder, the headmaster of the boarding school that Paul and Ambrosius had attended (as dayboys) in Leiden. The boys’ letters contained gossip about their former fellow pupils at this school, but the main themes were their schoolwork and schoolbooks. Both Paul and Ambrosius had to work extremely hard. Ambrosius went to the Municipal Grammar School in Zutphen, and lodged with the headmaster of the school, Mr Matthes. Ambrosius also received private tutoring from him, and in addition took drawing, music, and catechism lessons. A large proportion of the correspondence between the brothers was taken up by complaining about how much schoolwork they had, and, as a consequence, how little time they had to correspond, which in turn led to grumbling from the other brother. The boys’ favourite hobby was also a topic: smoking. A recurrent question was: ‘How is the smoking going?’; the word ‘smoking’ was not spelled out, but represented by a little drawing of a figure with a pipe or a cigar in his mouth. The boys exchanged smoking experiences and gave a critical assessment of various makes of cigars and pipes. They also drew out games of chess. Another recurrent theme in the exchange of letters was Ambrosius asking Paul if he could perhaps put in a good word for him with their

╇ See Section 3.2 for explanation of TT. ╇ Keras means ‘horn’. Zeeman seems to have been a fellow pupil who, when declining the Greek noun κερας, pronounced it ‘kras’, which sounded like a crow’s caw. 17 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 675, Ambrosius Hubrecht to Paul Hubrecht, 24 April 1852. 15 16



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parents, so that he could come home in the holidays. Ambro was certainly not allowed to return to Leiden every school vacation. Perhaps financial considerations played a role here, but it is also possible that his parents could not handle his temper tantrums. In his letters to his parents, Ambro sometimes pleaded to be allowed to spend Christmas or Easter with his family. Finally, Ambro frequently impressed on his brother in Leiden that he must always be sure to let him know if anyone in the family was ill. The letters exchanged by the Hubrecht brothers were quite intimate. Often one brother asked the other to burn the letter, or in any case not to let anyone else read it. Usually the letter in question contained silly or mildly scurrilous jokes, or sometimes frank questions. The exchange of letters between Paul and Ambrosius Hubrecht has all the features of a typical adolescents’ correspondence. Adolescence is often described as the period in which a child detaches itself from its parents, developing an independent personality and intense bonds of friendship. Adolescents are said to feel a need for self-reflection and to go in search of norms from others or in literature.18 Several aspects that assumed increasing importance in the exchange of letters between the Hubrecht brothers are clearly in line with this image of adolescence. From the moment the elder brother embarked on his study of Law at the University of Leiden, his style changed, and he tried to prepare his brother for his future life as a student by modelling his vocabulary and mentality on those of students. While still at school, Ambrosius already eagerly anticipated his college days: ‘I’m almost a student already, for that matter; that is, I’ve gone out this winter as never before.19 Using Latin and colloquial expressions, and adopting student vocabulary and demeanour – all these marked the transition from schoolboy to student. The concern for sincerity expressed in the correspondence and the theme of friendship are characteristic of adolescents’ quest for identity and of the loneliness this may entail. Latin One of the striking features of the correspondence between young men of the Dutch upper middle classes was their use of Latin. Paul encouraged Ambrosius to write in Latin (and Greek), because a year later he 18 ╇ J. Limonard, ‘Inleiding’, in: Idem ed., De vertrouwde van mijn hart. Het dagboek van Alexander van Goltstein (1801–1809) (Hilversum 1994) 7–48, here 42–44. 19 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 675, Ambrosius Hubrecht to Paul Hubrecht, 5 February 1847.

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too would be at university, like Paul. After all, all university lectures were in Latin. In 1846, sixteen-year-old Paul wrote to fourteen-yearold Ambrosius: ‘I shall soon write you a letter in Latin, to which you must reply in Greek. I’m sure you must already have on a lot by now’.20 Ambrosius replied: ‘frater carissime! Tibi scribo has litteras latinas, quia tibi volo praebere, me stultissimum esse discipulorum gymnasii Zutphaniae; omnia verba, quae quaesivi, collocabam-.’21 He found it no easy task to write a letter in Latin, and he could not even attempt to write Greek: Non possum tibi scribere epistolam graecam nisi latinam non sum tam doctus faciendi istius, hoc bene potes videre […] I just wrote this, but I  can’t think of anything else, and looking it up is not a pleasure, it is schoolwork.22

The brothers Jan (1802–1853) and Otto (1805–1879) Hora Siccama from Utrecht, like the Hubrecht brothers, used their correspondence to improve their Latin. In other respects too, which I shall discuss in more detail below, these two correspondences between adolescents resemble one another. Jan studied Law at the University of Utrecht. Otto was sent to The Hague in 1821 to work as a clerk at the Ministry of Education, Industry and Colonies, as a charge of his uncle Anton Reinhard Falck (1777–1843), who was a Minister of State there. Otto continued to practise Latin with his uncle and through private study. His older brother Jan tried to keep Otto’s Latin up to scratch by exchanging letters with him in Latin and sending him lists of the errors he had made in his letters. Jan realized that writing Latin was not easy, but urged his brother to persevere ‘with the help especially of the letters of Cicero’.23 Otto did try his best to do so from 1822 to 1824, but it never really worked and he eventually threw in the towel. Boys’ initiation into the learned world of Latin has sometimes been described as a male rite of puberty: the boy distancing himself from his ╇ GAL, FAH, suppl. II, box 19, Paul Hubrecht to Ambrosius Hubrecht, 4 April 1846. ╇ ‘Dearest brother! I am writing you this letter in Latin, because I want to prove to you that I am the stupidest pupil at Zutphen grammar school; I am underlining all the words I had to look up.’ The words printed in bold are all underlined, probably by Paul as corrections; the word underscored above was underlined in pen by Ambro himself to show that he had to look it up. GAL, FAH, inv. no. 675, Ambrosius Hubrecht to Paul Hubrecht, 7 April 1847. 22 ╇ ‘I cannot write you a letter in Greek, but in Latin, as I am not learned enough to do this, as you can well see’. GAL, FAH, inv. no. 675, Ambrosius Hubrecht to Paul Hubrecht, 10 May 1846. 23 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 72, Jan Hora Siccama to Otto Hora Siccama, 7 or 8 July 1824. 20 21



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family, where the vernacular was spoken, and learning a sort of secret language. At the same time, this also distinguished him from women and girls, who did not learn Latin at school.24 The Hubrecht boys were well aware of the secretive aspects of Latin, as is clear from one instance of them using Latin to ensure that their letters were not read by others. Ambrosius revealed to his brother in a letter that he was planning to take the school leaving examinations secretly in Haarlem, as his parents had forbidden him to take them that year at his own boarding school in Zutphen. They did not believe he was ready. As Ambrosius wrote: ‘I have heard that it is in Haarlem “quod optimum esset, nam hunc fortesse examen facere possem, meis parentibus insciis. Hoc tibi latine scribo quod fortasse, quod tamen non spero, aliquis has litteras videre possit, et melius sit hoc non fieri”â•›’.25 Since Paul and Ambro’s father was a lawyer, and thus well versed in the classics, Latin was no impediment to him reading the letter. The boys’ use of Latin must have been intended as a smoke screen for somebody else. In this way, learning Latin was all part of adopting a manly identity. This also holds for a comment Paul made about one of his brother’s letters. As we saw above, Ambro wrote that he was the most stupid pupil at Zutphen grammar school. While Paul acknowledged that modesty was a virtue, he urged Ambro not to exaggerate (see Section 3.2). Since letter-writing manuals for girls advocated a modest writing style, as was discussed in the previous chapter, curbing modesty in boys can be interpreted indirectly as part of teaching a manly identity. Writing about smoking and chess was also in keeping with male patterns of behaviour. A boy’s time at university was seen as the apotheosis of his development into a man. Colloquial and college language Paul was not content merely to urge his brother to write in Latin. He also commented on his younger brother’s conduct and the content of his letters. And in his own use of language and style, and his choice of

24 ╇ W.J. Ong, ‘Latin language study as a renaissance puberty rite’, in: Idem, Rhetoric, romance and technology. Studies in the interaction of expression and culture (Ithaca/ London 1971) 113–141, here 119. 25 ╇ ‘which would be the best thing, because there I could perhaps take the examination without my parents knowing. I’m writing you this in Latin, because someone – I hope not – might see this letter, and it would be better if that did not happen’. GAL, FAH, inv. no. 675, Ambrosius Hubrecht to Paul Hubrecht, 12 April 1849.

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subject matter, he set an example to Ambrosius. From the moment Paul took up his studies at the University of Leiden, his use of language underwent a transformation into ‘studentese’. One of the general characteristics of this correspondence is the use of colloquial expressions. Ambrosius, at fourteen, wrote, for instance: ‘O boy, o boy! That was a jolly little jape yesterday, by gum!’26 He also uses the colloquial word ‘bakkes’, meaning ‘mug’ (‘don’t just sit there with that smug look on your mug, as though you don’t know what I’m on about’).27 That word was also used by younger correspondents, as a letter from the sixteen-year-old Otto Hora Siccama to his brother shows: ‘Recently papa and I met the prince at a political gathering; I only had eyes for his foppish dress, and looked more at his silly mug than at his adjutant’.28 Invectives are also characteristic of spoken language. In the letters, they were often indicated by the first letter or letters followed by dots, as in ‘by th.[under WR]’ or ‘d.[amn]…’. One of the Hubrecht brothers’ favourite expressions is ‘soup’, as in: ‘this is all soup, of course, but how else are you supposed to fill a whole letter?’29 Ambro teased Paul about his bad handwriting: ‘and that writing! My first thought was to burn it [his most recent letter], but in the end I took the trouble to decipher it the following day’.30 Paul was quick to retort: ‘You’re quite right to burn my letters if it’s all too much soup for your learned brain’.31 Adolescence is a time when boys hurl abuse at one another to their hearts’ content. At the age of seventeen, Otto Hora Siccama, for instance, called his brother a ‘stupid cur’.32

╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 675, Ambrosius Hubrecht to Paul Hubrecht, 15 April 1846. ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 675, Ambrosius Hubrecht to Paul Hubrecht, 22 September 1847. 28 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 52, Otto and Harco Hora Siccama to Jan Hora Siccama, 16 October 1821. The author Kneppelhout also used this word. Alexander Ver Huell reacted as follows to the use of this word in one of Kneppelhout’s letters: ‘I did have to laugh, despite myself, at the expression bakkes’. Alexander Ver Huell to Jan Kneppelhout, n.d. (13 December 1848 or later), in: Bervoets, De briefwisseling, 236. 29 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 675, Ambrosius Hubrecht to Paul Hubrecht, 12 April 1849. 30 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 675, Ambrosius Hubrecht to Paul Hubrecht, 18 February 1847. 31 ╇ GAL, FAH, suppl. II, box 19, Paul Hubrecht to Ambrosius Hubrecht, 25 February 1847. 32 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 90L, Otto Hora Siccama to Louis Hora Siccama, 15 December 1822. 26 27



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Not only invectives are part of adolescence; scurrilous jokes, too, are a regular feature of correspondence between young men. Otto gave Louis the following advice about how to stop his pet hummingbird from flying off: ‘but if you are attached to him and want to take him with you to Groningen, to make him really loyal to you, you should piss on his food every now and then; not too much, but enough for him to taste it; it’s very effective; all ladies do this with lapdogs they are very fond of ’.33 Victor and Jan Willem de Constant Rebecque, too, wrote about lapdogs ‘pissing’ on their owners’ laps and about ‘cacking’ in general.34 When Paul Hubrecht matriculated to study Law at the University of Leiden in 1846, he much enjoyed student life, and introduced student jargon into his correspondence with his brother. He took to making disapproving comments about ‘sjouwen’ (being drunk in public, lying in bed all day and not studying)35 and about ‘diplomats’: ‘Dedel Fagel […] play the fool and are ‘diplomats’; nobody wants anything to do with them and they’ve been thrown out of the public house twice already’.36 The term ‘diplomat’ was widely used among students. The ‘diplomat’ is also one of the types featured in ‘Studententypen’, a series of satirical sketches about student life by Johannes Kneppelhout, published under the pseudonym Klikspaan between 1839 and 1841. Klikspaan describes the ‘diplomat’ as an affected youth, usually of noble birth, whose family is well regarded in court circles and whose father is a military man or occupies a high position at court. Diplomats ‘are brought up in ignorance of poverty, in contempt of the bourgeoisie, and with all the arrogance of money or of courtly connections’.37 The fact that Paul Hubrecht speaks of these ‘diplomats’ in derogatory terms is perhaps an indication of the chasm he perceived between these wellborn young men of the nobility and himself: though he came from a respectable patrician family, he was still a member of the bourgeoisie. 33 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 90L, Otto Hora Siccama to Louis Hora Siccama, 2 July 1824. 34 ╇NA, FADCR, inv. no. 120C, Jan Willem de Constant Rebecque to Victor de Constant Rebecque, 26 September n.y. and 23 September 1852. 35 ╇ W. Otterspeer, De wiekslag van hun geest: de Leidse universiteit in de negentiende eeuw (The Hague 1992) 521. 36 ╇GAL, FAH, suppl. II, box 19, Paul Hubrecht to Ambrosius Hubrecht, n.d. [1847]. 37 ╇Klikspaan, Studenten-typen. December 1839-Mey 1841, M. Stapert-Eggen ed., (Utrecht/Antwerp 1982) 99–100.

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Students described themselves as ‘young fellows’.38 Non-students, town as opposed to gown, were described as ‘cads’, to judge from the following quotation from one of Ambrosius’ friends, writing to him about their school friends who have just started university. ‘Visch has become a infernal layabout and is said to be very much the student. […] How about Herwerden – is he a true student, or more a cad?39 Student slang was not always comprehensible to outsiders. Victor de Constant Rebecque, a cadet at the Military Academy in Breda at the age of fifteen, provided his father with an explanation of the terms he used  in his letter: ‘Cutting out (an Academy word for leaving the Academy without permissio) is currently practised famously’.40 Whereas Alexander Ver Huell’s father used student jargon himself to show his son he was still familiar with student ways, his mother was confused when Alexander mentioned ‘cads’ in a letter: ‘I thought at first that these cads were students, who were called this name because of their common behaviour, but now I remember that this is what you like to call ordinary citizens’.41 Not everybody appreciated such student language. Otto Hora Siccama warned his eighteen-year-old brother not to use ‘coarse language’ in his letters. His words had been seen by his mother, who had flown into a rage about it. Otto tried to calm his mother: To reassure you, I just want to say that the expressions Louis wrote to me were indeed inappropriate, but not of the nature as to suggest moral degeneracy. They were just of the sort that, unfortunately enough, young fellows often employ in daily speech. However, they are indeed not suitable for a letter, so I too would have taken that amiss.42

Otto’s comments show that there was a separate adolescent language, which both Otto and his mother judged inappropriate for letters.

38 ╇ Jan Kneppelhout to Alexander Ver Huell, 14 December 1840, in: Bervoets, De briefwisseling, 56–57. 39 ╇ GAL, FAH, suppl. II, box 19, E.S.B. Vergilius Claerbergen to Ambrosius Hubrecht, 16 February 1850. 40 ╇ NA, FADCR, inv. no. 65a, Victor de Constant Rebecque to Charles de Constant Rebecque, 22 February 1854. 41 ╇ Louise Ver Huell-de Vaynes van Brakell to Alexander Ver Huell, 23 November 1841 [French], in: Bervoets, De briefwisseling, 77. 42 ╇ NA, CHS, Otto Hora Siccama to Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck, 19 June 1825.



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Student behaviour Student language is a reflection of specific student behaviour. Ambro’s elder brother instructed him in their correspondence about how he should conduct himself as a student: I hope you’ve become rather more human by now and are already no longer a schoolboy. December’s about time, if you are to become a student in September, because otherwise you’re in danger of being thoroughly shafted, as you would deserve. Keeping your own counsel, not being dependent on others, being self-reliant, not worrying what anyone else thinks; not doing, saying, or thinking silly things; being decent, that is, not getting drunk, or puking, or sitting babbling about nothing, but knowing how to rub along well with others without bowing down to anyone. That’s what it takes, and that’s what I hope to see when you get here. And never knowing boredom, that’s another part of it, never being down in the dumps, except about bears [debts, WR]; always be a good, stalwart, ‘round’ brother.43

Several of the terms in this letter, such as ‘puking’ (kotsen), ‘babbling’ (lullen) and ‘bears’ (beeren) are typical student vocabulary.44 A few months later, Paul again imparted advice, this time both about how to write and how to behave. First, he criticized the style of Ambrosius’s letters for lacking coherence: You know of course that Buffon said ‘le style c’est l’homme’, but if ever that was true, it was roundly proved by your last letter. Where that excitement came from, and all that jumping back and forth from one thing to another in your letter – more of that anon. Certainly you didn’t read your letter through before you sent it, otherwise you would have laughed; look here, for example: […] try to make something of that, it hangs together like hot sand.45

The latter sentence is, incidentally, a variant or a garbled version of the expression, often used by correspondents, that a letter ‘hangs together like dry sand’.46 43 ╇ GAL, FAH, suppl. II, box 19, Paul Hubrecht to Ambrosius Hubrecht, n.d. [probably December 1847. 44 ╇ See also Alexander Ver Huell to Jan Kneppelhout, n.d. [6 July 1843], in: Bervoets, De briefwisseling, 115. GAL, FAH, inv. no. 675, Ambrosius Hubrecht to Paul Hubrecht, 2 October 1852. 45 ╇ GAL, FAH, suppl. II, box 19, Paul Hubrecht to Ambrosius Hubrecht, 4 April 1848. 46 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 90L, Otto Hora Siccama to Louis Hora Siccama, 16 December 1824.

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These comments about the style and contents of Ambrosius’ letter were followed by a lecture on amorous fancies. Paul cautioned his younger brother against excessive daydreams, fancies, ideals, and worldly delights.47 Ambrosius thanked Paul for his moral teachings and good advice.48 We find the same pattern in the correspondence between the Hora Siccama brothers: in this correspondence, too, the older brother imparts moral wisdom to the younger, and again this goes hand in hand with advice about the style and contents of the letters themselves. The nineteen-year-old Otto viewed the correspondence with his brother Louis, two years his junior, as a means for Louis to improve his idiom, handwriting and style: Perhaps you will find me a little pedantic, but I must tell you that in comparison with your earlier letters, your language, writing and style have undergone a marked improvement; I say this since it gives me an opportunity to urge you to pay attention to such details, especially in business matters or when corresponding with strangers. Our correspondence, which I strive thus to enliven, will furnish you with abundant practice; perhaps you have already experienced how an inaccurate letter furnishes the stuff of laughter or remarks; certainly this is the case at the office.49

It was not only handwriting, idiom and style that could be improved by the correspondence between the brothers. The content of their letters also served a purpose. Otto advocated ‘moral admonishments’ in his exchange of letters with his brother. He considered these extremely fitting for young men: All admonishments founded in morality, whether from you or from others, will always be highly welcome to me; for I do not see why youths of eighteen and twenty years old, who are well out of pinafores, should not correspond about more instructive and serious matters than those the conversations of young men tend all too often to resort to. […] Do not, dear brother, view or designate this letter as pedagogy, which would become me very ill, but as sincere brotherly interest in all that may influence your life to come.50

47 ╇ GAL, FAH, suppl. II, box 19, Paul Hubrecht to Ambrosius Hubrecht, 4 April 1848. 48 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 675, Ambrosius Hubrecht to Paul Hubrecht, 10 April 1848. 49 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 90L, Otto Hora Siccama to Louis Hora Siccama, 27 October 1824. 50 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 90L, Otto Hora Siccama to Louis Hora Siccama, 12 June 1825.



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Both Paul and Ambrosius Hubrecht and Otto and Louis Hora Siccama used correspondence to learn to write better letters, but also to improve each other’s characters. Often the two aspects were inextricable. The correspondences between the brothers in these two families display great similarities. This is due partly to the fact that adolescents’ letters are so characteristic. In terms of style, a typical exchange of letters between adolescent boys consisted of practising Latin and using colloquial language and student jargon. As for the contents, ‘moral admonishments’ were a characteristic theme, as was the desire for sincerity. Openness and sincerity were part of an understanding of friendship that was extremely influential among adolescents in general, and brothers in particular. Brotherly love, sincerity and friendship In one of the above quotations, Paul enumerates various qualities that Ambrosius should adopt as a student, including being ‘a good, stalwart, round brother.’ ‘Round’, or ‘round-chested’, meaning ‘open-hearted’, was part of the specific vocabulary of young men.51 Jan Hora Siccama, aged twenty, even viewed open-heartedness as a typical characteristic of young men: ‘in the company of their fellows, young men very seldom conceal their emotions, since the same fire of youth prevails in all of them’.52 In the correspondence between the Hubrecht brothers, the longing for open-heartedness became ever stronger, sometimes going to extremes: ‘see there the sincere, pure, simple, open truth, of which I trust you will reveal nothing to anybody’.53 Especially when writing letters, there was a deep-rooted desire to come across as sincere. The opposite of sincere was ‘stiff ’, or ‘proper’. When Ambrosius, aged fifteen, opened his letter ‘dear brother’, he asked Paul: ‘Dear brother! Tell me, you don’t find that stiff, do you?’54 The fear of coming across as conventional and insincere and the quest for sincerity were characteristic of adolescence.

51 ╇ Alexander Ver Huell to Jan Kneppelhout, 24 September 1843, in: Bervoets, De briefwisseling, 121. 52 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 72, Jan Hora Siccama to Otto Hora Siccama, 3 September 1822. 53 ╇GAL, FAH, suppl. II, box 19, Paul Hubrecht to Ambrosius Hubrecht, 1 May 1847. 54 ╇GAL, FAH, inv. no. 675, Ambrosius Hubrecht to Paul Hubrecht, 30 June 1846.

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In the case of Paul and Ambrosius Hubrecht, the desire for sincerity and the ideal of a bond of trust were strengthened after the death of their mother in 1849. This brought the brothers closer, especially since their father increasingly cut himself off from his family. Ambrosius was painfully aware of the distance between himself and his father, and poured out his heart to his older brother: O dearest brother, do not take it amiss; you are the only person on earth I can talk to about these things, and I have a strong need to talk intimately with somebody, but that has not happened for such a long time […] Oh, let us always be brothers, and live in trust with one another; this will be a comfort. […] It has done me good, writing like this, I am a little less stifled than just now, because oh! if I have nobody to turn to, nobody to provide a firm hold, I become submerged in despair, and can scarcely breathe.55

Brotherly love became an increasingly important theme in the correspondence between the Hubrecht brothers. It was connected with an ideal of friendship that was very much in vogue among adolescents at the time: ‘Come brother, let us forget all our childish bickering in the past […] let us reinforce the bond that nature has ordained between us still further with that of deepest friendship’.56 The Hora Siccama brothers, too, viewed brotherly love as the highest form of friendship, as the twenty-year-old Otto stated: ‘For we are now reaching an age at which one sensible exchange can give us more satisfaction that all of the pleasantries of our so-called friends, who generally only spend time with us because they can’t do any better for the moment’.57 At the age of nineteen, Jan Hora Siccama concluded a letter to his brother Otto, two years younger, with ‘your brotherly friend Jan’.58 This deep longing for a close and intimate friend was widespread in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.59 In the essay ‘L’Education par l’amitié’, for instance, published in 1835, the author

55 ╇GAL, FAH, inv. no. 675, Ambrosius Hubrecht to Paul Hubrecht, 15 July 1852. 56 ╇GAL, FAH, inv. no. 675, Ambrosius Hubrecht to Paul Hubrecht, 30 June 1848. 57 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 90L, Otto Hora Siccama to Louis Hora Siccama, 22 November 1825. 58 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 72, Jan Hora Siccama to Otto Hora Siccama, 23 January 1822. 59 ╇ See also Limonard, ‘Inleiding’, 40, 63, 76. Otterspeer, De wiekslag van hun geest, 521–522.



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Johan Kneppelhout argued that a devoted friend was the best education for a young man. He put this idea into practice in his friendship with Alexander Ver Huell, eight years his junior.60 However, this ideal of friendship prevailed not only among the romantic student authors of Leiden. Traces of it can be found in all the family archives consulted for the present study, often in letters between brothers, but also between friends and fellow students. Hendrik Oomen (1776–1815), whose daughter Maria (1809–1889) would marry Augustinus van Lanschot (1794–1874) in 1832, kept up with the friends of his student days, corresponding with them throughout his life. He studied Law at Duisburg and Leiden around 1800. In 1801, he became a lawyer in Amsterdam, and lodged with relations in the city centre. A year later, he moved to Breda, where he became established as an attorney, and later became a local councillor and deputy burgomaster. Several letters that Hendrik received from the friends of his student days have survived; he continued to correspond with them in later years. His friends from his time in Duisburg gossiped about their fellow former students, about professors, and their love lives. Railleries abounded in these letters, as in a New Year’s letter from a certain Wesselman: Therefore, my dear fellow, at this entry of the New Year (better late than never), I wish you whatever you can spread on a slice of bread. A girl – young, beautiful, wealthy, good – in a word, may the best come your way, and if you marry before 1st April, I wish that before the year is out you may have a little nipper that looks more like you than your neighbour, as the labour of making it you will probably wish to take upon yourself.61

In addition to sometimes rather smutty jokes, the friends sometimes poured out their hearts to one another. Another of Hendrik’s friends, J.H. Verhoeven, confessed to him that he was in love: In the earnest hope that you will keep silent […] there is a girl who is causing my heart a certain amount of restlessness. I found it difficult to enjoy her presence when in company; I then secretly and gently pressed her hand, and this did not seem displeasing to her, since she squeezed me ╇ J. Kneppelhout, Opvoeding door vriendschap, M. Mathijsen and F. Ligtvoet eds (Amsterdam 1980) and P. van Zonneveld, De romantische club. Leidse student-auteurs 1830–1840 (Leiden 1993) 117–121. 61 ╇ RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 1321, C.T. Wesselman to Hendrik Oomen, 29 January 1802. 60

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chapter four back with unspeakable gentleness, and tenderness, so that I was filled with emotion. And now I have no more opportunity to speak of her. Don’t know what I shall do about it either. I long for the vacation, so that I can pour out my heart to you entirely. I hope then to speak to you in person, et tuus de omnibus latius [to tell you of all that has passed]. Ah! How often I wish I could spend an evening with you every now and then – that would be a genuine pleasure to me.62

Hendrik confided in this friend in return, telling him that he was depressed because his law firm was not going well, and he feared that he would never be able to keep a wife. These young men cherished a romantic notion of friendship. Correspondence was viewed as preeminently the way to maintain a friendship, as was demonstrated by one of Hendrik’s friends, who described failing to write as follows: ‘I  have sinned against the duty of sincere and faithful friends’.63 Correspondence was an obligation for loyal and sincere friends. Otto Hora Siccama too saw a direct connection between friendship and correspondence. At the age of twenty, he wrote: ‘It would pain me immeasurably if what happened had embittered you so much towards me that you wished to break off both the correspondence and your friendship with me because of it’.64 Victor de Constant Rebecque’s father also encouraged him in such terms to correspond with his younger brother Jan Willem: ‘Why not enter into a regular correspondence with him – think of him as your best Friend’.65 The authors of letter-writing manuals and etiquette books also sometimes associated the concept of friendship with correspondence. In his Huisboek voor Vaderlandsche huisgezinnen [Housebook for families of the fatherland], Martinet dealt with the subject of friendship in his chapter about young people: If you seek a pastime in the home – such as playing draughts or chess, drawing, or studying commemorative medals, objects from natural history, or prints or paintings – then the lathe or any other exercise might give you the same pleasure. Here let me recommend to you the entertainment of a pleasant and useful correspondence with an absent friend or

62 ╇ RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 1321, J.H. Verhoeven to Hendrik Oomen, 15 February 1802. 63 ╇ RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 1315, F. Havermans to Hendrik Oomen, 20 June 1799 [French]. 64 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 90L, Otto Hora Siccama to Louis Hora Siccama, 12 June 1825. 65 ╇ NA, FADCR, inv. no. 120A, Charles de Constant Rebecque to Victor de Constant Rebecque, 9 November 1853.



adolescents’ letters177 acquaintance. This will also give you the opportunity to perfect the art of an elegant epistolary style, which is unfamiliar to many.66

An author in De recensent, ook der recensenten, writing in 1806, emphasized the important role played by letters in establishing a friendship: In the first beginnings of friendship, letters are, as it were, the ministers that keep alive the negotiations to bring about a union of hearts, and that actually effect it; once the covenant of eternal friendship has been concluded, the intervention of these emissaries is no longer necessary, since the parties share in each other’s interests and trust each other’s hearts, without having to be assured of this each time through written declarations. A true friendship, to my mind, has no need of letters to remain lodged within our hearts, even for years on end.67

The above quotation reveals correspondence’s performative function for friendship: friendship actually begins in the letters themselves before it can function independently of the text. According to this author, letters were no longer necessary once the friendship had been established. Although few of his contemporaries will have shared his view, it is interesting to note that the author is slightly sceptical about the efficacy of letters as a means to maintain a friendship once it has fully developed. In this quotation, he seems to be talking about friendship between adult men, so one could perhaps infer from this that correspondence is only beneficial between young men who are just embarking on a friendship. The anonymous author seems to consider correspondence between adult friends as rather excessive. A slight distaste for letters of friendship can also be sensed in G.C. Claudius’ Volledig brievenboek. Claudius objects to an overly romantic tone in letters requesting the recipient’s friendship: The language of such letters must above all be heartfelt and natural. If one asks another for his friendship, one should pay attention to the formalities and be more careful in choosing expressions than when writing to friends whom one has already known for a long time. One should state what prompts one to request the friendship of the person addressed, and should not employ any romantic assurances, or affected or contrived expressions; for affectation of this kind tends to make for dry and dull style. […] In letters in which one requests the continuance of friendship once given, or oneself gives assurance of such friendship, a more intimate tone is permitted.68 ╇Martinet, Huisboek, 313. ╇ Anonymous, ‘Iets over het brievenwisselen tusschen vrienden’, DR 1 (1806) 155– 156, here 156. 68 ╇Claudius, Volledig brievenboek, 209–210. 66 67

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It seems that letters of friendship between adult men may not be excessive, and certainly not romantic. No objection is raised, however, to romantic friendships between young men. On the contrary, such friendships seem to have been encouraged by authors such as Martinet and by young people’s parents. Perhaps, then, we would be justified in characterizing romantic friendship in the first half of the nineteenth century as mainly the province of adolescents, whereas in the eighteenth century it seems to have been a more general concept. This view has been taken by German and French historians.69 Friendship in this time of life is also sometimes referred to as a rite of passage, as it channels adolescents’ emotions in the years before they start to invest their energies in marriage relationships.70 Adolescents were expected to maintain romantic friendships, but friendships between adults should definitely not be romantic. Did this hold only for men, or also for women? Adolescents’ letters and gender Gender and friendship In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there was widespread discussion about the capacity of men and women to enter into friendships. A critic writing in De recensent, ook der recensenten in 1817, for instance, agreed with the author Ehrenberg, who posited that women’s nature was not very well suited to friendship: That nature did not form women […] quite so much for friendship; that especially the friendship of the heart is rarer and weaker in that sex than in men, and that as a general rule women are more suited to love than to friendship – we are in complete agreement with the writer.71

Other authors emphasized the danger that ‘sentimental and romantic attachments posed to young ladies’, as a writer in the Algemeene vaderlandsche letter-oefeningen put it in 1783. This author held that women, 69 ╇E. Meyer-Krentler, ‘Freundschaft im 18. Jahrhundert. Zur Einführung in die Forschungsdiskussion’, in: W. Mauser and B. Becker-Cantarino eds, FrauenfreundschaftMännerfreundschaft. Literarische Diskurse im 18. Jahrhundert (Tübingen 1991) 1–22, here 2. A. Vincent-Buffault, L’exercice de l’amitié. Pour une histoire des pratiques amicales aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles (Paris 1995) 158. 70 ╇Vincent-Buffault, L’exercice de l’amitié, 158. 71 ╇Anonymous, DR 10 (1817) I, 540–543, here 543.



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like men, were entirely capable of maintaining lasting friendships. However, he made fun of the excessive sentimentalism of young ladies who read sentimental books, penned sentimental letters, and embarked on sentimental friendships. He suggested that young women confirmed their soul-felt friendship through ‘constant exchanges of letters, although they live in the same town – a correspondence in which the two friends impress on one another the falsest of notions’. The letters ‘are filled to the brim with attestations of eternal friendship and never ending love’. Exclamations and quotations ‘make up a goodly part of them’. The author discouraged overly sentimental and romantic vocabulary in correspondence between young women.72 In general, the authors of advice literature held that women, especially young women, tended towards excessive sentimentalism, which might also find expression, incidentally, in keeping a diary.73 Despite such warnings about excessive sentimentalism, there were indeed profound friendships between women in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, such as that between Betje Wolff (1738–1804) and Aagje Deken (1741–1804).74 Nevertheless, literary historians and other scholars have often tended to view friendship in the eighteenth century as a men’s affair.75 However, as more works of literature and letters by women come to light, it increasingly emerges that they too wrote about friendship.76 In the present chapter, we are not so much concerned with descriptions of friendships between women in novels or treatises, as with the connection between friendship and letterwriting as social practice. The American historian Carroll SmithRosenberg has been a significant force in initiating research in this area. In 1975, she published an influential article about friendships

72 ╇ Anonymous, ‘Het gevaar van sentimenteele en romaneske verbintenissen aan de jonge jufferschap ontdekt’, AVL 5 (1783) II, 367–374. 73 ╇ W. Ruberg, ‘â•›“Je n’écris qu’en vue de m’amuser”. Over sekseverschillen in negentiende-eeuwse autobiografieën en dagboeken’, TvSG 25 (1999) 157–182, here 160. See also A. Meijer, ‘â•›“Houdt altyd in het oog dat gy een christen zyt”: de Nederlandse discussie over het sentimentalisme, 1750–1800’, De Achttiende Eeuw 31 (1999) 3–20. 74 ╇ See M. Everard, Ziel en zinnen. Over liefde en lust tussen vrouwen in de tweede helft van de achttiende eeuw (Groningen 1994) 30–79. 75 ╇ Meyer-Krentler, ‘Freundschaft’, 19–22. 76 ╇M. Heuser, ‘â•›“Das beständige Angedencken vertritt die Stelle der Gegenwart” Frauen und Freundschaften in Briefen der Frühaufklärung und Empfindsamkeit’, in: Mauser and Becker-Cantarino, Frauenfreundschaften, 141–165, here 165. B. BeckerCantarino, ‘Zur Theorie der literarischen Freundschaft im 18. Jahrhundert am Beispiel der Sophie La Roche’, in: Mauser and Becker-Cantarino, Frauenfreundschaft, 47–74.

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between women, in which she argues that there was a different sort of emotional landscape in nineteenth-century America that had an impact on the style and content of correspondence between women. Since, as Smith-Rosenberg explains, men and women’s worlds were strictly separate in this period, it was natural for women to address one another in extremely emotional terms, mentioning love, tenderness, and physical intimacy. For modern-day readers, this terminology has connotations of homosexuality, but, again according to SmithRosenberg, in the nineteenth century it was considered normal because the concept of homosexuality had not yet been invented.77 Another American historian, E. Anthony Rotundo, has studied letters between young men in the same period, establishing that they too wrote about friendship in romantic terms. He confirms SmithRosenberg’s hypothesis that no clear distinction was made in the nineteenth century between homo- and heterosexuality. One difference between the romantic friendships between girls and boys was that boys only described their friendships in flowery terms during adolescence, whereas women used rapturous and intimate language throughout their lives in entrusting their friendships with other women to paper. The reason for this was the requirement imposed on adult men to curb their emotions: they were expected to be self-sufficient and selfcontrolled. Once a man was married, founded his own household, and embarked on a career, he had to abandon the playful romanticism of adolescence. Women, on the other hand, Rotondo holds, continued to depend on the network of women that surrounded them and that had been building up from birth. For men, adolescence was a time in which they made new friends. Finally, Rotundo gives several reasons why romantic friendship became so popular among young men in America around 1800. First, in the early nineteenth century, young men became more independent of their families due to the opportunities to find work in expanding trade and in independent professions. Prior to this, family members had often arranged apprenticeships. Young men, a long way from home  and family, sought the support of their peers of the same sex. Men and women’s worlds were separate, so that young men were forced into contact with other young men. In Rotondo’s opinion, romantic

77 ╇C. Smith-Rosenberg, ‘The female world of love and ritual: relations between women in nineteenth-century America’, Signs 1 (1975) 1–29.



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friendship between young men is characteristic of the first half of the nineteenth century. At the end of that century, homosexuality was first defined and labelled as different, which meant that men tried to distance themselves from it. In addition, at the end of the nineteenth century, the concept of the strong, sporty man became popular, which lessened the divide between boys and men. From that period, the transition from boy to man more often occurred under the guidance of schoolmasters at school. A boy had less need of an intimate friend to help him in uncertain times.78 Two questions arise in response to Smith-Rosenberg and Rotundo’s articles. First: did Dutch girls in the first half of the nineteenth century use letters to shape romantic friendships? And secondly: what explanations can we suggest for the popularity of the ideal of friendship in this period? To start with the link between young ladies, correspondence, and friendship, there is only sporadic reference in letter-writing manuals and etiquette books to any connection between correspondence and friendship between girls. Only one advice book for girls recommends that they continue to exchange letters with their former classmates once they leave school: Anyone who has attended an institute as a girl rather than a child – that is, after the end of her schooldays – and has enjoyed all the benefits it had to offer while maintaining her bond with her home, parents, brothers, sisters and friends through intimate and steadfast correspondence, may rightly rejoice over this pleasant period. […] But how do things stand now with your correspondence? Has it already begun to dwindle, despite all those professions of friendship and tears of fond farewell, and is the way from the heart to the pen too far for you? – You have rediscovered your old friends at home, and have opened your heart to them, as they have done to you! That is good and praiseworthy; but your absent friends should not be entirely forgotten. It is precisely due to this swift transition that your sex is accused of inconstancy and fickleness; and yes, severe critics even accuse you of disloyalty. […] Constancy in all that is good is a beautiful thing, and loyalty in all that is proper is very much to be praised.79

78 ╇E.A. Rotundo, ‘Romantic friendship: male intimacy and middle-class youth in the Northern United States, 1800–1900’, JSH 23 (1989) 1–25. 79 ╇ K.N. Meppen, Agatha. Kern van levenswijsheid. Of: hoe bereikt het meisje hare bestemming? (Amsterdam 1846) 26.

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However, if we glance at the letters between girls and young women preserved in the family archives, we again encounter the view that correspondence is the way to maintain a friendship, or even more strongly: friendship and correspondence are virtually equated. As a friend of the twenty-three-year-old Catharina van Schinne put it: ‘those who speak as you say on the subject of correspondence have no soul whatsoever, and are not worthy to have friends’.80 Moreover, as with correspondence between young men, we see friendship described in emotional terms. The correspondence between the two young women Sophia Schimmelpenninck van der Oye van de Poll-van Rhemen and Julie d’Ablaing van Giesenburg, for instance, testifies to their earnest pursuit of sincere friendship: I think of you no less, my dearest. The friendship that I have bestowed on you is sincere and lasting, and in whatever situation in my life I may find myself, whether far or near, you will always remain the same for me. And I dare to flatter myself that this friendship is reciprocal.81

Sophie assured Julie that she never allowed her husband to read Julie’s letters. Another similarity between boys’ and girls’ correspondences is the use of correspondence as a means to impart moral instruction. Eugenie Steenlack, for instance, thanked her friend Marie Moens for the character-forming remarks in her letters. The girls’ correspondence aimed to improve their moral development. The bond between these two young women was described in romantic terms: If you even knew how much my affection for you grows stronger; for I sense more and more how much your correspondence has made me more vigilant, more heedful of myself and regarding myself. I would never wish to refute the much too good opinion you have of one who merits it in so few respects. Dearest Marie, if you had seen into the core of her whom you have been so good as to call your friend, oh, you would never have been able to vouchsafe to her this affection so tender, so gentle, so attentive, that you have shown her ever since she had the joy of making your acquaintance. You have put up with all my faults without complaining, and as though I were perfect. And this esteem that you have shown me has in itself been inherent to causing me to make some progress in godliness. Dearest good Marie, maintain this same kindliness ╇ NA, FAVS, inv. no. 157, Cornelie to Catharina van Schinne, August 1780 [French]. ╇ NA, FADCR, inv. no. 69V, Sophia Schimmelpenninck van der Oye van de Pollvan Rhemen to Julie d’Ablaing van Giessenburg, n.d. [French]. See also RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 132, Pauline and Aloïza Gibson to Maria Oomen, 1 May 1827. 80 81



adolescents’ letters183 towards me, this same attachment which makes me so very happy. And may the God in whom we love one another continue his blessings to you.82

Another example of correspondence functioning as an instrument of character-forming for young women is a passage from a letter written by Abrahamine Steenlack at the age of twenty-one, describing her correspondence with her friend Fanny. At long last the fourth arrived this evening, and brought me a delightful letter from dear Fanny. The first half was about committees, and the second half took me to task about various things I had written to her about before – you will understand, no doubt – above all that I was somewhat quick-tempered these days. And she is quite right. I cannot thank her enough for telling me all that, and in such a delightful manner.83

As far as the ideal of friendship is concerned, letters between girls and young women did not differ substantially from those between young men: both sexes advocated romantic friendship, in which intimacy was key. The correspondence itself was the ideal means to create or maintain this friendship. A further important characteristic of friendships of this kind was their aim to be character-improving. Several of the reasons Rotundo gives for the popularity of the ideal of friendship among young men in America in the first half of the nineteenth century seem equally applicable to young women in the Netherlands. After all, in the families studied here, a large number of the girls also went to boarding school and made new friends there. Nevertheless, the emphasis Rotundo places on the new friendships formed during a period at a boarding school or other educational institution does not seem to have been decisive for Dutch adolescents. Contact with family continued to be very important, as was clear from the exchanges of letters between brothers in the Hubrecht and Hora Siccama families. Moreover, the romantic ideal of friendship was also espoused between brothers and sisters. It was precisely within family relationships that a romantic friendship could flourish between men and women, particularly brothers and sisters. One example is the collection of 27 letters written by Henri van Lanschot (1797–1887) to his sister Theodora (1802–1887) between 82 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 1377, Eugenie Steenlack to Marie Moens, 2 January 1841 [French]. 83 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 408, Abrahamine Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht, 7 August 1828.

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1818 and 1838. Theodora’s letters have not survived, perhaps because she asked all her correspondents to burn her letters. This intimate correspondence between brother and sister consists largely of passages about the importance of their friendship and their exchange of letters. Accounts of events scarcely feature in the letters. Henri wrote openly about his melancholy, his aversion to ‘convivial’ soirées, and his desire to get married. Sometimes he gossiped about others in this letters, or asked Theodora about her sombre moods. The first paragraph of his letters was always devoted to his relationship with his sister and the state of their correspondence: The pleasure I experience, dear sister, in receiving news of you is difficult to describe to you, and this is why I affectionately supplicate you to pick up the pen frequently, to prove to me that I am in your thoughts. I would be very wrong to suspect that you no longer care about me, as the proofs of your friendship you gave me during my stay in the country assure me how much I am in your good grace. And I much appreciate them and strive to merit the esteem of a much loved sister, to which I attach the highest value.84

Henri was happy that Theodora dared to confide her secrets in him and wrote that for his part ‘frankness is my motto’.85 At New Year, the brother and sister wished each other a spouse, as Hendrik Oomen’s university friends wished him in about 1800. Perhaps the fact that they were both unmarried was the reason for the intimate bond between them. Only four letters from Henri to his sister have survived from the period after his marriage in 1831, and two of these are birthday greetings. But the Van Lanschot family archive includes eighteen letters to Theodora from Henri’s wife, Pauline van der Kun. This gives the impression that Pauline took over from her husband where everyday correspondence with her sister-in-law was concerned. The intimacy in the letters of friendship between the brother and sister seems to have been prompted more by their shared unmarried status than by their ages, although the two aspects are obviously connected, since the majority of unmarried people were indeed young.86

84 ╇ RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 228, Henri van Lanschot to Theodora van Lanschot, 7 August 1828 [French]. 85 ╇Ibid. 86 ╇Even in old age, unmarried brothers and sisters might continue to address one another in very intimate terms, as in the case of the 69-year-old Anthony Jan van Schinne and his 72-year-old sister Magdalena van Schinne. Anthony Jan, who had



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Anne Vincent-Buffault suggests that in France the distinction between friendship and family ties became less sharp in the nineteenth century: people were quick to attach the label ‘friendship’ to existing, intimate, familial relations. Moreover, friendships between men and women became increasingly problematic due to the sexual connotations. Only friendships between brother and sister were unproblematic.87 This is borne out by the intimate friendships between brothers and sisters cited above. It is also striking that virtually none of the surviving letters in the family archives I studied were the product of friendships between non-related men and women. The strict division between men and women – unmarried ones, at any rate – seems to have been important for the emergence of the romantic ideal of friendship. Living away from the parental home, at boarding school or for an apprenticeship, seems also to have been a contributing factor. And yet precisely the link with members of the family, especially brothers and sisters, remained very important in this phase. Romantic friendship was shaped especially in exchanges of letters between brothers and, to a lesser extent, between brothers and sisters.88 Fraternal love and friendship sometimes even became synonymous. The socio-economic explanations put forward by Rotundo, such as the fact that boys had to leave their parental home far behind them in seeking work, are therefore not sufficient to explain the popularity of the ideal of friendship. Pedagogical practices and literary influences perhaps also played a role. In the previous chapter we saw that parents advocated intimacy and friendship in their correspondences with their children. Boarding schools were also important socializing institutions. Jan Jacob de Gelder’s Paedagogium for Instruction in the Ancient Languages in Leiden, which Alexander Ver Huell, along with Paul and Ambrosius Hubrecht, attended in the 1840s, has been referred spent almost his entire life in the Dutch East Indies, sometimes addressed his sister as ‘my friend’, and viewed sincerity as the purpose of their correspondence and friendship. NA, FAVS, inv. no. 157, Anthony Jan van Schinne to Magdalena van Schinne, 20 January 1835. 87 ╇Vincent-Buffault, L’exercice de l’amitié, 124–125. 88 ╇ I came across virtually no correspondences between sisters in the family archives I studied. This is probably not due to them being thrown away, but merely because these families happened to have more sons than daughters. The exception to this is the Van Schinne family. In the exchange of letters between the sisters Magdalena and Catharina van Schinne, I found only one reference to a romantic ideal of friendship: ‘Adieu cher soeur, you can not comprehend how much j love you’ [in English], NA, FAVS, inv. no. 157, Magdalena van Schinne to Catharina van Schinne, 23 October 1777.

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to as ‘a hotbed […] of romantic notions’.89 And Maria Oomen’s mother asked her in a letter whether she had already made a friend at boarding school (although in this case she did not mean a friendship through correspondence).90 Furthermore, the model letters dictated to Maria by the nuns at her school largely consisted of letters between girls or young women. Both parents and teachers thus probably encouraged  young people to enter into intimate friendships through their correspondence. In addition to parents and teachers, romantic literature may also have been influential when it came to writing about and conducting friendships. When, at the age of twenty-five, Otto Hora Siccama wrote to his mother that he had made a true friend, he borrowed the terms in which he described this ‘enduring bond’ from Schiller’s trilogy of plays,  Wallenstein (1799), especially the fateful friendship between Wallenstein and Octavio Piccolomini.91 The Hubrecht brothers also quoted Schiller. Perhaps these young men had read Schiller’s poem Die Freundschaft. In any case, they were certainly familiar with German and French Romantic authors. Together with parents’ encouragement to develop a friendship through letters, reading texts about friendship must also have influenced adolescents to pursue this as an ideal. Expressing masculinity and femininity in letters The ideal of romantic friendship was pursued by both young men and young women. Both boys and girls aspired to friendships in which sincerity and intimacy were key. The differences between the sexes where correspondence between adolescents is concerned lay rather in young men’s use of Latin, colloquialisms, and student jargon. To judge from the letters in the family archives I studied, girls do not seem to have used a language of their own that could compare with the use of colloquial and student vocabulary by boys. Perhaps, as the linguistic historian Linke posits, institutionalization or a group identity are prerequisite for the development of a specific youth language.92 ╇ Bervoets, ‘De kostschooljaren van Alexander Ver Huell’, 116. ╇RADB, FAVL, inv. no. 135, Elisabeth Oomen-Ingen-Housz to Maria Oomen, 25 August 1825. 91 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 67, Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck to Otto Hora Siccama, 31 January 1830. 92 ╇See also A. Linke, ‘Backfischsprache. Kultursemiotische Überlegungen zum Sprachgebrauch jugendlicher Bürgerinnen der Jahrhundertwende’, in: J.K. AndroutÂ� sopoulos and A. Scholz eds, Jugendsprache/langue des jeunes/youth language. 89 90



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Boys also flouted the conventions by using colloquial language (including invectives and dirty jokes); girls did not do so. Aside from issues such as how to develop the right character traits and proper behaviour, girls’ letters consist mainly of accounts of outings, such as dances. Otto Hora Siccama was not entirely wrong when he wrote to his twenty-one-year-old sister Angelique: ‘I am delighted, my dear Angelique, to hear you reasoning in this way about the frivolity of worldly pleasures: you are the exception that proves the rule that the heads of young girls are filled entirely with pretty dresses and balls’.93 The purpose of balls was amusement. Linke was the first scholar to point out the ubiquity of the phrase ‘je me suis amusée beaucoup’ in the diaries of German girls of the upper bourgeoisie dating from the latter part of the nineteenth century. When girls noted in their diaries that they had had an amusing time, always referring to urban, semi-public social events such as outings and balls, this was a sign that they had internalized their feminine middle-class vocation. For after all, they had successfully participated in the company of people of the same class, thus affirming their identity as a member of the upper bourgeoisie.94 Mentions of the motif of ‘amusement’ have the same function in the Dutch correspondences between young girls examined here. Although young men also mention in their letters that they have had an amusing time, girls seem to write about it more often, and this impression is perhaps strengthened by the fact that girls do not write about other subjects that are important for boys, such as smoking, classical languages, and university. Studying the style and content of letters written by young men and women shows, then, that the real gender differences in correspondence were created in adolescence, not in childhood. This is also sometimes explicitly expressed by correspondents. When Otto Hora Siccama was sixteen, for instance, his father formulated the wish that Otto might ‘acquire a manly hand with a manly style’.95 The father was admittedly referring more to his son’s work as a clerk, but Otto’s handwriting in his Linguistische und soziolinguistische Perspektiven 7 (Frankfurt am Main 1998) 211–231. Linke did encounter one example of a ‘Backfischsprache’, a specific young girls’ jargon: in the chronicles of a Swiss girls’ association in 1900–1905. 93 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 91, Otto Hora Siccama to Angelique Hora Siccama, 26 January 1830 [French]. 94 ╇Linke, Sprachkultur und Bürgertum, 265–290. 95 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 66, Harco Hora Siccama to Otto Hora Siccama, 2 December 1821.

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letters also reflected his progress at the office. Otto himself urged his twenty-two-year-old brother Louis to cultivate particular manly characteristics: ‘you are now so closely approaching the age of manhood, that you must have the courage and strength to endure the blows of fate  with patience and submission’.96 Otto’s admonitions to his seventeen-year-old sister Angelique are even more explicit in terms of expressing feminine identity in the style and content of her letters. Otto made a clear distinction as regards the appropriate style for a child and for a young lady: Your letter of the 25th of this month, which I received this morning, gave me great pleasure – many thanks for it. Due to the scarcity of your letters, I was most struck by the genuinely good and natural style of this one, in comparison with earlier ones. Please do not take it amiss if I comment that for a moment I forgot that you have hung up your children’s shoes and are now entirely a young lady, so that it should not surprise me to find a good epistolary style in your letters. It would be very agreeable to me if, now that you are less busy at home, you would keep up a more regular exchange of letters.97

Otto’s view that writing good and long letters was one of the qualities of a young lady also emerges from a comment he wrote to his wife, Pietje, in 1846, when she was thirty-one: ‘You are truly behaving sensibly, like a big girl: you go out riding, you invite ladies to call, you write long letters! In a word, you are my dear little poetess!’98 As far as his sister Angelique was concerned, however, Otto had more criticism than praise in store. When she was nineteen years old, he reproached her for not mentioning their deceased father in a letter she wrote on his birthday, within a year of his death. Otto could perhaps have forgiven a young man for such an oversight, but for a girl of Angelique’s age it was extremely important to express the proper sentiment on this occasion: And it was also the 1st of June which had a large part in these memories, a date that has become considerably less agreeable for over a year now. I was therefore struck by a sentiment of regret – I may tell you frankly – to note that your letter dated that very day did not contain even a single 96 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 90L, Otto Hora Siccama to Louis Hora Siccama, 8 April 1829. 97 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 91, Otto Hora Siccama to Angelique Hora Siccama, 27 May 1826. 98 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 101, Otto Hora Siccama to Pietje Hora Siccama-van Capellen, 18 June 1846.



adolescents’ letters189 expression that might demonstrate that you had not entirely forgotten the date so often celebrated before in honour of a dearly beloved father, to whom we owe so much. In a man, more insensible in general, I would have been more willing to pardon an omission of this kind, but to a young girl, at that very age when the heart should hold sway over her the most, I can only express my regret at seeing such a day pass without honouring, with a single memory of sadness and bitterness, a being who left us too early, a father who loved us and sacrificed all to us, right down to the little pleasures so much the due of a man at the end of his career.99

A year later, on Angelique’s twentieth birthday, Otto addressed her not only birthday greetings, but also some pedagogical advice: Your letter was very pleasing to me, but allow me to voice one remark! Though haste prevents me from setting you a good example. – Do acquire the habit of writing slowly and neatly! A man may be forgiven a certain amount of negligence in this matter, especially if one knows that he is very busy! But a woman, especially a girl, is never so busy that she may be untidy! What will her suitors say, if they see such a thing! They will infer from the lesser to the greater and will think (I believe and trust wrongly) that this is not confined to your writing. In this I can hold up to you the example both of your own mother and of other women. Write half as much instead! This would be better for the writer and better for the reader.100

Slovenly handwriting might point to a slovenly and perhaps unprincipled character, and this would make a young woman a less attractive proposition on the marriage market. Young women’s letters must have neat handwriting and demonstrate the proper feminine emotions. Incidentally, Otto concluded the above letter with the exclamation ‘Adieu! Dear child! Be sweet! That befits a young maiden!’. As we saw in the previous chapter about children’s letters, girls were encouraged by way of letters to be good and sweet (douce). Adolescence was the time for learning to become a man or a woman. Adolescents were urged to adopt these identities in their correspondence. Their handwriting, like the style and content of their letters, should express their gender.

╛╛╛99 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 91, Otto Hora Siccama to Angelique Hora Siccama, 4 June 1828 [French]. A German businessman voiced a similar reproach to his daughter in 1875, see: U. Frevert, ‘The middle classes as public and private: culture, gender, and modernization in the nineteenth century’, in: A. Schuurman and P. Spierenburg eds, Private domain, public inquiry. Families and life-styles in the Netherlands and Europe, 1550 to the present (Hilversum 1996) 210–219, here 216. 100 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 91, Otto Hora Siccama to Angelique Hora Siccama, 27 July 1828.

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Courtship and accès The adolescent’s identity was thus clearly reflected in correspondence and was in part developed through letters. Aside from specific concrete events such as confirmation, this was a process that continued over several years, concluding in engagement and marriage. Engagement and marriage can be seen as the ultimate rite of passage, the moment at which two people are established in a union of two fully-fledged adults.101 A long period could elapse between courtship and an official engagement, and between engagement and the actual solemnization of matrimony. Moreover, this period was all too often beleaguered by problems, rejections or doubts. The present section will examine the role of correspondence in the entire process. Historians have written a great deal about engagement and marriage. For many years, there was debate about whether in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries marriages were contracted for love, or whether they were arranged by the parents, over the heads of the actual parties to the marriage. The general pattern for marriages among the elite in Western European countries in the nineteenth century is now relatively clear: in principle, men and women could choose a marriage partner themselves, and the ideal was to marry for love. However, the prospective husband’s social and material position was extremely important: if he did not possess or earn enough money to set up an independent household, the parents would not sanction a marriage. Moreover, the choice of partners was restricted, since young men and women of the upper classes were limited in their opportunities to meet: at balls, dinner parties, or private gatherings, when attending the opera or theatre, or when staying with relatives. Within these closed circles, however, unmarried men and women of the elite were relatively free to choose.102

101 ╇De Nijs, In veilige haven, 169. P. Ward, Courtship, love, and marriage in nineteenth-century English Canada (Montreal/Kingston/London/Buffalo 1990) 90. 102 ╇De Nijs, In veilige haven, 153–169. A.-C. Trepp, ‘Emotion und bürgerliche Sinnstiftung oder die Metaphysik des Gefühls: Liebe am Beginn des bürgerlichen Zeitalters’, in: M. Hettling and S.-L. Hoffmann eds, Der bürgerliche Wertehimmel. Innenansichten des 19. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen 2000) 23–55. Habermas, Frauen und Männer, 266–303. Vickery, The gentleman’s daughter, 40–41, 86.



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It was almost always the young man who initiated courtship. If he had made his choice, and his feelings were reciprocated, he could request ‘accès’, meaning that his parents asked the permission of the girl’s parents for their son to associate with her. A friend of Pieter Hubrecht’s gives the following account of the request for ‘accès’ that his parents addressed to his uncle and aunt (for the girl in question was his cousin, Keetje): Keetje was out, so they could discuss the matter at ease, since Uncle and Aunt are on very close terms with Papa and Mama. And both parties discussed the matter very freely, and I was permitted equally freely to continue to converse with Keetje: to write to her, take her out in public, and in fact to enjoy all those blessed privileges that ‘accès’ confers. Though since in Dordrecht, at least, ‘accès’ is understood as an undertaking to marry within the year or within such and such a time, which requires an official announcement to the whole family, in my case, it goes under the name of ‘entrée’; but in fact it boils down to ‘accès’.103

So accès entailed, among other things, the possibility of conversing and corresponding with one’s intended fiancée. The young man first asked the permission of his potential marriage partner, before he, and his parents, formally addressed themselves to the girl’s parents. In this way, although the initiative for the courtship came from the man, women did have the choice whether to go along with it, to reject the potential suitor, or keep him waiting. The period of courtship, before and after an engagement, was a period in which women were in an exceptional position of power, which they would never regain after marriage.104 Once accès had been granted, the young couple could begin to converse, go for walks, go to church together, and exchange letters. The engagement of Pieter Hubrecht and Abrahamine Steenlack The archives of the Hubrecht and Hora Siccama families each contain one correspondence between fiancés. We are fortunate that twenty letters from Abrahamine Steelack to Pieter Hubrecht have survived from the period leading up to their marriage in 1828, as Pieter’s future wife frequently besought him to ‘immediately stuff my letter in the stove and burn it, as I would not like it for my letters to be saved and read by

╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 454, A.G. Brouwer to Pieter Hubrecht, 10 June 1822. ╇ N. Eustace, ‘â•›“The cornerstone of a copious work”: love and power in eighteenthcentury courtship’, JSH 34 (2001) 517–546, here 527. 103 104

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others’.105 The fiancés’ fathers, Paul Hubrecht senior and Ambrosius Steenlack, were best friends, and the Hubrecht and Steenlack families had known each other for a long time. It is uncertain whether Abrahamine and Pieter were already in correspondence before they were engaged. It seems unlikely, as no correspondence of theirs has survived from before that event. In any case, once Pieter had singled out Abrahamine, they initially wrote to one another once every two or three weeks, but soon they were writing every three days. In the beginning, Pieter Hubrecht’s enthusiasm was rather greater than that of the Steenlacks, who had been taken by surprise by his plans. This initial reluctance is apparent in the first surviving letter from Abrahamine to Pieter. In this letter she confessed that she was not entirely convinced of her affections for Pieter: And as for becoming more closely acquainted with one another, as you write, I believe I have already stated my feelings to you clearly enough; I would be dissembling, and my behaviour would belie it, were I to avow that I was entirely indifferent to you; what little day-to-day congress I  have had with you has not shown me any unfavourable side of your character and has inspired me with respect for you; since my dear parents have no reasons to advise me against it, I have not rejected your request to become better acquainted, but for the time being I can say no more than that; it is truly no light matter to pledge oneself for one’s whole life, and it is difficult to decide to leave one’s parental home and all the dear relations in whose midst one feels so completely happy. I will and must be honest, then, and repeat to you again that I do not as yet feel I can make you happy, and we still know each other too little to be able to measure this one way or another. But enough of this. We can talk this all through at greater length before long.106

Abrahamine Steenlack did not leave her admirer in uncertainty for too long. After three months she already wrote openly of the union she would enter into with Pieter Hubrecht. She hoped that she would always continue to deserve the affection and love which the whole family [Pieter’s family; WR] always so unfeignedly bestow on me; and I may now add how delighted I am that I shall perhaps one day be part of such a dear, worthy family, and that I shall always strive to be a worthy member of it. Yes, dear friend! I may now tell you that I look forward with pleasure to a union which certainly imposes heavy duties on

105 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 408, Abrahamine Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht, 20 December 1827. 106 ╇Ibid.



adolescents’ letters193 us both, but which is made very much lighter and more pleasant by mutual love and a willing disposition. May our Heavenly Father, from whom all true happiness derives, bless our intentions and ensure that we never regret a choice which is intended to ensure the happiness of our lives.107

The word ‘perhaps’ in the second part of the first sentence was added later, possibly indicating that Abrahamine was not entirely convinced of the fittingness of her reference to their future marriage. Incidentally, this letter also reveals how important one’s future family-in-law was. Abrahamine would shortly become part of the Hubrecht family in Leiden, which was a long way away from her own family in Zutphen. When Pieter’s parents came to Zutphen to visit, she was afraid they would be disappointed in her. She wished very much to earn their love and to merit her place among their children.108 To get to know her future family-in-law even better, Abrahamine entered into correspondence with Pieter’s mother, sisters, and several of his aunts. She was aware that these women would judge her character partly on the basis of her letters, as she confessed to her fiancé: ‘I hope you will approve of my letter to your Mama, as it is conceivable that she will read it to you’.109 The fiancés also cautiously explored the matter of the relationship they envisaged with one another. Abrahamine wished for a candid relationship: ‘no happiness is possible without intimate candidness’.110 She also wanted to correspond with Pieter about serious subjects.111 For that reason, the two did not shy away from discussing their state of mind in their correspondence. Abrahamine admonished herself to be patient and Pieter to be less melancholy.112 She also wrote openly to her fiancé about the doubts she sometimes felt at the thought of their impending marriage: Sometimes I dread it terribly, but I also often look forward to that day calmly and happily. It is just that I am sometimes afraid that I will not be 107 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 408, Abrahamine Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht, 15 March 1828. 108 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 408, Abrahamine Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht, 21 June 1828. 109 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 408, Abrahamine Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht, 5 August 1828. 110 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 408, Abrahamine Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht, 26 April 1828. 111 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 408, Abrahamine Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht, 24 January 1828. 112 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 408, Abrahamine Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht, 6 June 1828.

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chapter four able to fulfil all the duties that are associated with that state, I know how little and how poorly I fulfil them at the moment, and now they are recalled to me daily by the example of the lessons of my dear parents. All the same, I trust all will be well, and hope and believe that we will make each other happy. Certainly nobody is perfect and we must learn to bear each other’s faults with patience, but affection and willingness to please lighten this task all round […] I know full well, your thoughts are not shallow, your fundamental principles are based on religion and virtue; mine I believe to be perhaps not bad at the core, but they are not very steadfast, and I am very easily swayed by the thoughts and behaviour of those I associate with closely. How lucky, then, that yours are serious and good, then mine will be governed by them and will adhere to them more and more, because I have already often found that without religion and virtue no true happiness is possible, […] without which [religion, WR] we cannot possess a good conscience, which is the first and foremost source of constant happiness.113

Abrahamine Steenlack thus used her correspondence with her fiancé to overcome her own doubts about her impending marriage, which would take place in 1828, and to analyse and improve her own and her fiancé’s character. Correspondence throughout the engagement also served to shape the couple’s future relationship. Knowing that her family-in-law would constitute an important part of her married life, Abrahamine already used letters to enter into contact with her prospective mother and sisters-in-law, though she was afraid that they would find her letters not good enough. Perhaps the fact that, right up to the age of thirty, young people had to ask their parents’ permission to marry also played a role here. ‘Notre fatable engagement’: the engagement correspondence between Otto Hora Siccama and Pietje van Capellen The extremely well documented engagement between Otto Hora Siccama (1805–1879) and Lady Petronella (Pietje) van Capellen (1814– 1848) ran a rather more problematic course. Otto, a clerk with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, had been a frequent visitor to the Van Capellen household for some time. But the father of the family, Vice Admiral and later Lord Chamberlain Theodorus van Capellen, died in 1824, and his wife followed him in 1835. The four unmarried sisters,

113 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 408, Abrahamine Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht, 5 August 1828.



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two of whom worked as maids of honour at the court, then rented a residence beside the gates of the royal palace in The Hague. There Otto, who, by his own account, was small and ugly, conversed a great deal with Pietje at convivial soirées, as they both greatly disliked playing cards. He fell in love with her and, in the winter of 1839, summoned up his courage and confessed his feelings to Pietje during supper at a ball given by Prince Frederik. Pietje immediately assented to his courtship. But this would be the beginning of two miserable years. Although it seemed that Otto’s feelings were reciprocated by the young lady, he still did not earn anywhere near enough at the Ministry to establish an independent household and keep a family. Pietje’s family raised objections: ‘fortunes were lacking, prospects were slight etc. But I would rather keep silent on all the sorrows your mother and I had to endure for almost two years. Our correspondence was our consolation’, as Otto put it in the unpublished autobiographical notes he wrote for his children.114 The correspondence between the fiancés – 106 letters in all, from both Otto and Pietje – has survived virtually in its entirety. But why this exchange of letters? After all, Otto lived on the Plein in The Hague, just 200 yards away from Pietje’s house on the Noordeinde. Why were regular visits and conversations not enough? The reason was, first of all, that Otto and Pietje were never allowed to converse without a chaperone. If Pietje’s sisters were out, the couple could not arrange to meet as there was nobody to ensure propriety. On one occasion, Pietje was angry with Otto for calling one morning when she was forced to receive him alone.115 Later the couple were allowed to meet at Pietje’s house unchaperoned, but Pietje threatened to ask a friend to be present at the conversations if Otto did not behave himself. Thus, with others constantly present, they could seldom speak openly with one another. The letters, delivered by a servant, allowed them to express thoughts and feelings that they could not utter face to face. Secondly, Pietje was sparing in granting Otto permission to visit her. Otto felt that he was too seldom allowed to visit, and that Pietje, who had spent part of her childhood in England, was guided too much by English engagement customs, which were apparently stricter than Dutch customs.116 Letters ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 56B, autobiography of Otto Hora Siccama, 1846–1859. ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 98, Pietje van Capellen to Otto Hora Siccama, 10 December 1840. 116 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 101, Otto Hora Siccama to Pietje van Capellen, 18 May 1841. 114 115

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Fig. 6╇Portrait of Otto Hora Siccama, Regionaal Historisch Centrum Groninger Archieven (n.d.). were the compensation for the fact that their meetings were brief and infrequent. At the beginning of his engagement with Pietje, Otto found these restrictions normal, as he wrote to his sister Angelique: ‘On Sunday we will attend the same church, but I may not walk through the streets



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Fig. 7╇Daguerreotype of Petronella Anna Catharina van Capellen, Regionaal Historisch Centrum Groninger Archieven (n.d.). with her arm in arm’.117 But within no time he was lamenting how few privileges Pietje permitted him. Otto fought hard and gained the right to kiss his fiancée’s hand, but this did not lead on to other things. Quite the contrary, Pietje behaved more and more distantly towards him. The reason was her uncertainty about her feelings for Otto (she feared she 117 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 91, Otto Hora Siccama to Angelique van Beeck Calkoen-Hora Siccama, 19 December 1839.

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did not love him) and her feelings of guilt about her sickly and jealous sister Jemina, whom she helped to care for and whose companion she was. Pietje was afraid that choosing Otto would mean losing her sister, as Jemina was hostile in her comments about Pietje’s fiancé. A year after the couple had become engaged, Otto complained about his ‘allocation’ – the maximum of three hours a week that Pietje permitted him.118 He was also angry because she did not want to write many letters. This was not fitting for a woman, Otto felt: And then already you prepare me for the sad effects of your coldness by making conditions with regard to the number of letters you could not dispense yourself from writing. Since when has a woman who loved even the least in the world not found the desire and consequently the time to write?119

When Pietje was about to set off to stay several months in Germany in 1841, she forbade Otto to write to her there with any frequency. This prohibition arose from her uncertainty about the future of their relationship, but had the added advantage that Pietje did not have to write too many letters in return. She was not fond of writing letters, as Otto reported to his mother: ‘You can imagine, dearest Mama, that I greatly dread this long separation, because she has such a horror of letterwriting that in all this time I shall surely hear very little from her’.120 The fact that Pietje did not like corresponding did not mean, incidentally, that she was not good at it, Otto pointed out: ‘Thereafter we wrote very sweet letters to each other, and she can, when she wishes, write very enchantingly’.121 The contents of correspondences between engaged couples Pietje’s writing so ‘enchantingly’ was the exception, however. A large proportion of Otto’s letters, which were almost always twice as long as his fiancée’s, consisted of Otto reproaching Pietje for being reserved and cold. Otto accused her of not behaving affectionately enough, and criticized her letters for lacking feeling. Otto expressed himself in ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 101, Otto Hora Siccama to Pietje van Capellen, 1 April 1841. ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 101, Otto Hora Siccama to Pietje van Capellen, 1 May 1841 [French]. 120 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 45, Otto Hora Siccama to Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck, 17 May 1841. 121 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 45, Otto Hora Siccama to Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck, 14 September 1840. 118 119



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strong and vehement language. And this ran counter to his belief that it was not fitting to use such language to women: ‘There is a sort of baseness in speaking harshly to a woman: imagine then how ashamed I must be to have written such things to you’.122 On this point, Otto’s views concurred with those of the authors of etiquette books, such as J.V.D.L.: If he is writing to a woman, a man must never compromise respect, either in his words or his opinion; though without lapsing into those Italian or Spanish cowardices, which are offensive both to feelings of self-respect and to good manners. A woman, on the other hand, seldom has recourse to expressions of respect.123

Otto alternated between sharp words and doting romantic sentiment: Does not a movement of your head suffice to temper the effects of the ardent desire I so often experience to draw you to my heart, to feel yours beating against my hand, and to go mad at the idea that this treasure will one day belong to him who, alas, will never cease to be tenderly yours.124

He also sent Pietje poems, such as ‘The Loveless Maid’, ‘To a Moss Rose’, and ‘My Dearest Friend’, and quoted from Romeo and Juliet. Yet he mocked himself for this ‘romantic’ language: As for me, since I am rather romantic, when I had the pleasure of being present at your luncheon, your tea seemed to me as nectar, your toast as ambrosia, and thus you never descended from Olympus in my eyes, although I must admit that Mietje Goedblad did not quite strike me as Hebe, when she came trotting in with the teapot.125

The term ‘romanesque’ or ‘romantic’ had ambiguous connotations. This is evident from the advice literature and unpublished letters. A model letter in a letter-writing manual dating from 1770, for instance, in which a lover replied to a sorrowing love letter from her young man, read: ‘I am full of praise for your writing style, and find it a great deal  more to the point than the cowardly, eloquent and romanesque expressions otherwise often found in letters from persons in our 122 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 101, Otto Hora Siccama to Pietje van Capellen, 29 August 1840 [French]. 123 ╇J.V.D.L., De wellevendheid, 143–144. 124 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 101, Otto Hora Siccama to Pietje van Capellen, 13 August 1840 [French]. 125 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 101, Otto Hora Siccama to Pietje van Capellen, 11 August 1841 [mainly French, some Dutch]. Hebe was the goddess of youth, who poured youthbestowing nectar for the gods on Mount Olympus.

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circumstances’.126 When it came to love letters, the authors of letterwriting manuals often advised men to compliment women, certainly, but not to be effusive or unrealistic.127 The correspondence between the Hora Siccama brothers also reveals an ambivalent attitude to romance. Otto, for instance, on the one hand urged his brother Louis to adopt a romantic attitude when ‘a-wooing’: Continue, amice, to approach matters of love with that delicacy and chivalrous gallantry that, to judge from your letters, I believe I have observed. This rather romantic approach seems very pleasing to me for your years: wooing according to today’s customs otherwise seems to me machinelike or puppet-like.128

On the other hand, however, Otto complained to his mother about a novel by Balzac that was ‘so abentheuerlich contrived, so thoroughly romantic’ that he would not recommend it to his daughter.129 Here the pursuit of moderation seems to be decisive. Otto not only had mixed feelings about the use of romantic phrases, he was also afraid of getting carried away in poetic expressions.130 In this area, he followed the advice of ‘De Wailly’. By this he probably meant Noël François de Wailly (1724–1801), whose works included the grammar book Principes généraux et particuliers de la langue Françoise (1754), in which De Wailly quoted Boileau’s warnings against excessively flowery writing.131 Otto went in search of a stylistic model for his letters, but feared he could never attain the level of the French romantic author Paul de Musset (1804–1880).132

╇Anonymous, Nieuwe handleiding tot de manier van brieven schryven, 169. ╇ Ibidem, 159. 128 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 90L, Otto Hora Siccama to Louis Hora Siccama, 25 March 1829. 129 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 44, Otto Hora Siccama to Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck, 17 May 1831. Rothman concludes from her research into courtship in America that both men and women used the term ‘romantic’ to qualify emotions as childish, uncontrollable and untrustworthy: E.K. Rothman, Hands and hearts. A history of courtship in America (Cambridge and London 1987) 39. 130 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 101, Otto Hora Siccama to Pietje van Capellen, 15 July 1840. 131 ╇ M. de Wailly, Principes généraux & particuliers de la langue françoise ([1754] 11th edn; Paris 1800) 420. 132 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 101, Otto Hora Siccama to Pietje van Capellen, n.d. [November 1840]. Paul de Musset was the brother of Alfred de Musset (1810–1857), a famous French author and poet, who in his four Lettres de Depuis et Cotonet (1836–1837) ironically denounced romanticism, censuring its sentimental excesses. Though one cannot prove that Otto Hora Siccama read these letters, it is very possible they influenced his style. 126 127



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Pietje responded equally laconically to all such endeavours. She insisted for almost two years that she did not know whether she could love her admirer. Part of the correspondence then concerned the differences between friendship and love and the question of the role of love in a marriage. Precisely because there were so many differences between the two fiancés, love – in the opinion of Otto and his mother – was indispensable for their marriage: Our characters, our ideas, our education – everything is different between us, and the only thing that could overcome the difficulties that must naturally be born from this state of affairs – fellow feeling, affection… is lacking to us! And this with so little chance of good fortune.133

If Pietje could not really love him, Otto said, she should view him initially as a friend, a brother, and forget for the time being that he loved her. This involved showing sincerity in their correspondence, as befitted true friends. Along these lines, Otto praised a letter from Pietje which had touched him ‘because you poured out your heart in it so much. – Without putting it in so many words, it was to a friend you were writing’.134 Not only did Otto encourage Pietje to see him just as a friend, he also tried to lessen her fear of marriage by extolling the joys of motherhood to her. If the prospect of the role of wife did not appeal to her, she should just concentrate on the attractive position of motherhood.135 This explicit encouragement to fulfil the role of motherhood is just one example of the way in which this correspondence between fiancés constituted an exercise in gender models. One other example is a letter in which Otto expressed his fear that Pietje would ridicule him if he used sentimental expressions. He asked her to hold him dear and thus to change him from a pedantic man into an ‘adroit and spiritual’ man.136 In Otto’s view, it was the task precisely of women to reform men and keep them on the straight and narrow. In the same vein, a month later he quoted a poem by Schiller, in praise of women: ‘Schiller’s tender heart knew the influence of women on us wrathful men, and knew the 133 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 101, Otto Hora Siccama to Pietje van Capellen, 5 January 1841 [French]. 134 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 101, Otto Hora Siccama to Pietje van Capellen, 1 October 1840 [Dutch and French]. 135 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 101, Otto Hora Siccama to Pietje van Capellen, n.d. [November 1840]. 136 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 101, Otto Hora Siccama to Pietje van Capellen, 1 February 1841 [French].

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power of a single gentle glance, a single loving word from a beloved mother, wife or sister on a man incensed by temper’.137 Otto felt that women should form a link between men and heaven: No, I was not mistaken when I saw united in you all those noble qualities accorded to women to make of them a chain between man and heaven: what would we men be, stranded, the slaves of our base passions, numbed by earthly joys, if woman did not exist to recall us to the exalted sentiment of what is beautiful, just, true, and virtuous? – Thus woe betide the woman who, forgetting her exalted mission, allows herself to be dragged down to earth by man and demean herself with him; – but woe, too, to the man who does not raise himself towards womankind, who does not respect all that is worthy and estimable in them.138

In addition to ideas about women’s influence on men’s character, Otto put forward his thoughts about the necessity of marriage for women in a poem he composed, ‘The Loveless Maid’. In this poem he reminded Pietje that now she was still young and could marry, but that she should beware of becoming an old maid: ‘Let not the spring flit away, / Pluck the bloom before it withers’.139 Pietje herself made a half-hearted attempt to imagine herself in the role of obedient wife: I still hope to manage to overcome these impulses of impatience and bad humour and to become a good wife, obedient to the slightest sign from my lord and master, willing even, if necessary, to sacrifice my pretty hands to tend to his laundry and ensure his stock of sauerkraut – aaaaaaaagh!140

In this correspondence, therefore, relations between the sexes were rehearsed and constituted by explicit references from Otto to Pietje about proper feminine behaviour, by quoting the opinions of various authors on the subject, by Otto asking Pietje to make a better man of him, and by the writer of the letter himself or herself promising to be a good husband or wife. Other research has pointed to examples in the correspondence between fiancés or newly married couples of the man sometimes commenting on or correcting his fiancée or wife’s writing 137 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 101, Otto Hora Siccama to Pietje van Capellen, 1 March 1841. 138 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 101, poem by Otto Hora Siccama for Pietje van Capellen, 23 April 1841 [French]. 139 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 101, poem by Otto Hora Siccama for Pietje van Capellen, 13 May 1840. 140 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 98, Pietje van Capellen to Otto Hora Siccama, 11 April 1841 [French].



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style.141 This does not hold for the couples from the Hubrecht and Hora Siccama families studied here. In this correspondence, the future roles in the marriage are negotiated, so to speak. Pietje often uses the term ‘I permit you to’, for example when she allows her fiancé to visit her. The power to shape the frequency and extent of their relationship was thus in her hands. Otto seems to realise this: ‘At the present time I have in all humility to accept the role of your submissive adorer; although I have sometimes revolted, I do fear that I have allowed you too much to glimpse your sovereignty, and if you disdain me, is it not perhaps that I am too much your slave?’142 The power struggle between Pietje and Otto also found expression in the constantly recurring debate about the concluding sentence of their letters and its significance. Otto ended his letters with the much used concluding sentence: ‘I embrace you in my thoughts’. To this he added: ‘A little kiss like this will not harm you; – moreover, you cannot prevent it or wipe it away’.143 But because Pietje was unsure of her feelings for Otto, she did not wish to encourage him in the slightest, and responded affrontedly to the merest allusion to a [written] kiss, as Otto claimed: ‘Did you, my dear!, recently also forbid me to embrace you in my thoughts? Or does your strictness not extend that far?’144 In a moment of reconciliation, Pietje did however concede: ‘I […] permit you a very small kiss in thought’.145 Otto then went a step further along the path of intimacy (perhaps also in reality), by describing the kissing of her hands: ‘I would take your delicious little hands and cover them with kisses as tender as… as… as butter! As you see, I take my poetical comparisons where I find them, which is to say, in my breakfast; – but the fact remains that I am sincere, indeed’.146 Pietje gave a humorous response to this: ╇Habermas, Frauen und Männer, 340–341. A. Baggerman, Een lot uit de loterij. Familiebelangen en uitgeverspolitiek in de Dordtse firma A. Blussé en Zoon, 1745–1823 (The Hague 2000) 48. Niemeyer, ‘Der Brief als weibliches Bildungsmedium’, 448. 142 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 101, Otto Hora Siccama to Pietje van Capellen, 11 October 1840 [French]. 143 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 101, Otto Hora Siccama to Pietje van Capellen, 20 May 1840. 144 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 101, Otto Hora Siccama to Pietje van Capellen, 3 July 1840. 145 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 98, Pietje van Capellen to Otto Hora Siccama, 15 July 1840 [French]. 146 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 101, Otto Hora Siccama to Pietje van Capellen, 9 September 1840 [French]. 141

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chapter four But do not rejoice too much in this inkling of a compliment, as I also have to rebuke you for permitting yourself to embrace me with your ‘heart and soul’, even in thought; in truth, you are becoming too impertinent, and my delicious little hands would punish you for your insolence if you were within their reach. They would escape in this manner the greasy kisses you promise them. I was quite indignant at this threat. How prosaic it is to seek your comparisons in your breakfast.147

This discussion about the possibility of a kiss, with an allusion to reality, continues in the correspondence throughout the entire engagement. A kiss on the forehead is the following step: ‘In the meantime, my dearest and most beloved Pietje, I permit myself to give you a tiny little kiss on the brow, in the hope that you will not hold it against me too much and that this will not stop you from pressing my hand as usual.148 A few months before they were eventually married, Pietje also dared to send Otto a kiss of friendship in a letter.149 The final sentence of the letter thus indicated the degree of intimacy, and this was a matter for negotiation. This also applied to the salutation that opened the letter. Pietje consistently chose not to open with a salutation, and used the briefest of concluding sentences. In the letter itself, too, she virtually never addressed Otto explicitly. All this gives an impression of distance. Otto, for his part, used the salutation and concluding formula to characterize the state of their relations. At a point when he was angry and wished to terminate the engagement, he no longer addressed Pietje as ‘chère amie’, but with a cool ‘Mademoiselle’. The concluding formula, too, contained no sweet words, but only his name. In this way, the salutation and the conclusion of the letter helped to express emotions. Letters with the future family-in-law The relationship between the affianced couple themselves was not the only thing that was important in the ritual of engagement. Introducing one’s new bride to her future family-in-law was also a significant step. Within hours of asking Pietje to marry him, Otto poured out his heart in a letter to his mother in Utrecht. His mother then asked her son ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 98, Pietje van Capellen to Otto Hora Siccama, 10 September 1840 [French]. 148 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 101, Otto Hora Siccama to Pietje van Capellen, 26 July 1841 [French]. 149 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 98, Pietje van Capellen to Otto Hora Siccama, 7 July 1841. 147



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whether she should now write to her future daughter in law: ‘Shouldn’t I perhaps write to Pietje? I wonder how to go about it’.150 This reaction shows that it was not a matter of course for the future mother-in-law to immediately embark on a correspondence with her daughter in law to be. Nevertheless, Otto thought it was a good idea: ‘It would be most pleasing to me, and it is something I forgot to ask Mama the last time, if she would write to Pietje some time: that will prompt her to reply, and that is a good way to get acquainted’.151 In the end, Mrs Hora Siccama did indeed write a letter to Pietje, in which she pressed for a meeting in the near future; after all, they had never even set eyes on one another. Mrs Hora Siccama also asked her son whether she should now send a formal invitation to Pietje. In response, Otto requested his mother indeed to send an invitation in forma to Pietje, so that the couple could show it to Pietje’s sister. This sister believed it was much too soon for the two families to meet, but it would be difficult for her to refuse a formal invitation of this kind. Otto’s mother was unsure, because Pietje was of noble birth and her family was more wealthy than the Hora Siccamas. Nevertheless, she believed that their cordiality would bridge the differences in class: ‘Moreover we are not the sort of people to call Pietje “My lady” for long, and we are already so accustomed to that familiar name that it will swiftly become very usual to us’.152 In return, Otto hoped that a letter from Pietje to his mother would promote a good impression of his fiancée: ‘Her letter to Mama will incline her favourably towards her’.153 He was very curious about Pietje’s letters to the members of his family in Utrecht. He even asked his sister Angelique if he could read a letter that Pietje had written her, as he was so anxious to know the tone of the letter. In addition, Otto apologized to his sister for the address on Pietje’s letter, which she had left blank  because she was not certain enough of Angelique’s names.154

150 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 68, Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck to Otto Hora Siccama, 18 December 1839 [Dutch and French]. 151 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 91, Otto Hora Siccama to Angelique van Beeck Calkoen-Hora Siccama, 19 December 1839. 152 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 69, Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck to Otto Hora Siccama, 16 January 1840. 153 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 90L, Otto Hora Siccama to Louis Hora Siccama, 25 December 1839. 154 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 91, Otto Hora Siccama to Angelique van Beeck Calkoen-Hora Siccama, 19 December 1839.

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Pietje’s uncertainty is also apparent from the salutation in the letter in question, in which she addressed her future sister-in-law with the impersonal and unspecific ‘Madame’, as well as from the following words from Otto to his sister: ‘Pietje recommended above all that I should not tell you too much about her; she is afraid she will not live up to your expectations’.155 Pietje, like Abrahamine Steenlack, was afraid she would not write well enough for her future family-in-law, as Otto wrote to his mother: ‘Added to this is the fact that my little bride very much shrinks from your visit, and said this morning that she was afraid that she would not write pleasingly enough for you’.156 For the time being, no meeting was to come about between Otto’s family in Utrecht and Pietje and her sisters of The Hague. A long period of uncertainty followed, in which Pietje, especially, expressed doubts about their engagement. Otto often lamented to his mother about Pietje’s cool demeanour. On one particular occasion he returned from Utrecht expecting to find a letter from Pietje, only to be disappointed yet again. As he wrote to his mother: I then took up her letters, her most recent missive and all her earlier ones, and having read through them I decided that I would not take a single step until I were forced to do so from her side. This morning I occupied myself by copying out several of her letters, of which the content, I must confess, generally struck me as more affectionate, after all, than my memory had held up to me in Utrecht.157

In the meantime, the families had to make do with reading each other’s letters aloud. Otto read his mother’s letters to his fiancée: ‘she takes great pleasure in hearing your letters’.158 Otto sent his mother copies of letters from Pietje so that she could read them and judge the relationship. Afterwards, however, Otto was not so happy about reading letters aloud, as he admitted to his sister Angelique: ‘I have not yet told you that I did not read your letter to P.: – actually I think it serves little purpose to share letters, and I believe I should have considered this

155 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 91, Otto Hora Siccama to Angelique van Beeck Calkoen-Hora Siccama, 19 December 1839. 156 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 45, Otto Hora Siccama to Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck, 19 October 1841. 157 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 45, Otto Hora Siccama to Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck, 8 January 1840. 158 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 45, Otto Hora Siccama to Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck, 29 May 1840.



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before’.159 Otto skipped some passages when he read his mother’s letters to Pietje: This morning I read out the passages from your letter about Henriette and Aernout’s stay in Schalkwijk to my dear P: she is so taken with your way of writing that I always give her great pleasure with communications of this kind. – The passage about Jemina, on the other hand, I skipped. I think P. despairs of ever seeing her sister more congenially disposed.160

Otto often asked the advice of members of his family, such as his sister Angelique, to whom he gave a detailed account of a conversation he had had (in French and Dutch) with Pietje. ‘I have conveyed to you our entire conversation, as well as my memory allows, faithfully and almost line for line, and I would gladly hear your judgement as to whether I could and should have acted differently’.161 Several times Otto decided, partly on the advice of his family, to break off his engagement, but he then allowed Pietje to talk him round to maintaining the relationship. With his mother, Otto did not paraphrase his conversations with Pietje, but sometimes sent Pietje’s letters to his mother to judge. His mother did not mince words: ‘I enclose the letter from Lady van Capelle you sent, without any comment. She is beneath all criticism. You would have to be as blinded as you say not to discern in it the height of selfishness, the greatest coldness, and the lack of any self-respect.’162 When the engagement was teetering on the brink yet again, Pietje begged Otto to ask his mother’s advice once more before they definitively broke off their engagement. But Pietje did demand that Mother Hora Siccama should be more moderate and less prejudiced against her: ‘but ask her to write to you in such a manner that, if need be, you could read her letter to my sisters’.163 Thus letters circulated in both families, and were read aloud and judged, in this way playing an important role in shaping the relationship between the fiancés themselves, but also between the fiancés and their families. 159 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 91, Otto Hora Siccama to Angelique van Beeck Calkoen-Hora Siccama, 24 January 1841. 160 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 45, Otto Hora Siccama to Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck, 24 February 1841. 161 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 91, Otto Hora Siccama to Angelique van Beeck Calkoen-Hora Siccama, 13 January 1841. 162 ╇NA. CHS, inv. no. 68, Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck to Otto Hora Siccama, 9 January 1841 [Dutch, with ‘self-respect’ in English]. 163 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 45, Otto Hora Siccama to Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck, 10 January 1841.

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The importance of these letters was also apparent on another occasion when Otto was on the point of breaking off his engagement. He offered to return Pietje’s letters to her, although he would prefer to keep them: You would, my love (I cannot stop myself from saying it one more time), no doubt wish to have your letters back? – I would greatly like to keep them! They would be like a sacred relic for me: – but I understand that I have no right to them at all: so if you could resolve to leave them with me, I would hasten to return them to you at the first request that was made to me on your part.164

Although Pietje had the right to demand her own letters back, Otto would ideally like to preserve them as a relic. Many years before, Otto had asked another woman to marry him. She refused and ultimately married another man. Otto continued to come across her, and one evening they decided ‘laughing, to stuff all the piles of letters we had exchanged into the stove together’.165 So letters between fiancés might either be cherished as a souvenir or consigned to the flames. In the case of Otto Hora Siccama and Pietje van Capellen, the correspondence between the two survived. They finally married in 1841, and their marriage would last seven years, until Pietje’s death in 1848. Summary: the function of correspondences between fiancés Although Otto Hora Siccama followed the advice of a French grammar book as regards the general style of his love letters, the fiancés discussed above probably did not copy model letters from letter-writing manuals.166 The correspondences examined above are too personal in nature for this to have been the case. The engagement correspondence between Pieter Hubrecht and Abrahamine Steenlack differs greatly from that between Otto Hora Siccama and Pietje van Capellen, but one can discern a few similarities. In both correspondences, as was customary, it was the man who took the initiative for the courtship. It was very

164 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 101, Otto Hora Siccama to Pietje van Capellen, 5 January 1841 [French]. 165 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 56B, autobiographical notes of Otto Hora Siccama 1846–1859. 166 ╇Baggerman, Een lot uit de loterij, 47–48. Lystra believes that nineteenth-century American correspondents made little use of letter-writing manuals as models: K. Lystra, Searching the heart. Women, men, and romantic love in nineteenth-century America (New York/Oxford 1989) 13–15.



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unusual for a woman to initiate a correspondence of this kind.167 In the early stages of the period of ‘courting’, the woman’s role tended to be passive. After the first contacts had been made and access had been granted, however, the woman’s control over the relationship increased considerably. In both of the engagement correspondences examined above, the woman had a rather detached attitude. This pattern has also been encountered in other research. Two reasons can be identified for this. First, the reputation of a woman and her family could be damaged if it became known that an engagement was imminent but it did not eventually come to pass, or worse still, was broken off.168 Second, young women were more prone to misgivings than were young men, because marriage was a greater step for them than for their future spouses. They left their parental home and often had to move to a different part of the country. Correspondence was therefore an important way for the fiancés to get to know one another and achieve greater certainty.169 This was particularly necessary as the fiancés had often only just met and were, moreover, not permitted to spend very much time together unchaperoned. One of the ways to become surer of their love for one another was to build various trials into the exchange of letters. This might include creating minor or even major crises in the engagement: doubts about one’s feelings and the wisdom of getting married, or other such obstacles. Karen Lystra’s research into love letters and letters between fiancés in nineteenth-century America demonstrates the great frequency of these types of tests and trials, which were generally set up by women. For them this was a way of obtaining clarity regarding their admirers’ intentions, usually in the wake of a significant commitment, such as engagement. If the man stood the test, this strengthened the relationship between the fiancés. In Lystra’s view, couples resorted to these sorts of tests because parents increasingly allowed their children to make their own marriage plans, without parental involvement.170 We see the same pattern in exchanges of letters between fiancés in the Netherlands: here too women express doubts and put up hurdles on the path to the altar. Correspondence between fiancés was not just an extension or reflection of the relationship between them; the relationship was actually formed through the exchange of letters.171 ╇Lystra, Searching the heart, 187. ╇ See also Baggerman, Een lot uit de loterij, 45. 169 ╇ See also Rothman, Hands and hearts, 56–57. 170 ╇Lystra, Searching the heart, 158, 166. 171 ╇Rothman, Hands and hearts, 9. 167 168

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One aspect of this was the relationship between man and woman, husband and wife. Correspondence between fiancés provided an opportunity to rehearse gender roles and, where possible, to negotiate them. When one of the parties was assailed by doubts about the marriage, as was the case with Pietje van Capellen, it could be reassuring to characterize the relationship with one’s fiancé as friendship. That was perhaps less intimidating than love, but did imply openness and sincerity. Another way in which the woman could exercise power during the engagement period was her influence over the frequency and content of the letters exchanged. Pietje van Capellen determined how often her fiancé might write to her and stipulated the degree of intimacy of their correspondence. We also saw, finally, that from an early stage of the engagement, letters were exchanged with one’s future family-in-law. In both cases, it was the woman of the engaged couple who corresponded with the women in her future family-in-law. These women also judged her by her letters, which led her to fear that her letters, and thus she herself, would be found wanting. The involvement of the future family-in-law proves that in the first half of the nineteenth century engagement was not yet a matter between two individuals. In the research literature, the eighteenth century is often described as a period of transition: before that time, marriage was an alliance between families, generally agreed with minimal involvement of the future fiancés. In the nineteenth century, on the other hand, the choice would come to lie in the hands of the young man and woman themselves. Thus in the eighteenth century, love letters were still read by family members, whereas by the nineteenth century they had become a private matter between fiancés.172 Neither of the correspondences between fiancés discussed in the present chapter seems to have been read by other family members, except incidentally. On the other hand, one cannot conclude from this that the engagement was a matter between two individuals. We saw that the young women also entered into correspondence with the women in their future family-in-law. Moreover, Otto Hora Siccama even gave his fiancée’s letters to his mother to read. Perhaps, then, it would be more apt to describe the first half of the nineteenth century, too, as a period of transition from the collective influence of the family on a marriage to a situation in which the wishes of two individuals were paramount. ╇Eustace, ‘â•›“The cornerstone”â•›’, 517–518.

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In this chapter I have argued that the letters of adolescents bore a quality all their own. Moreover, correspondence played an important role in rites of passage, events that marked the transition from childhood to adolescence and from adolescence to adulthood, but also in more structural changes in the life of young men and women. One of the first rites of passage that springs to mind is confirmation. On his confirmation, a boy received letters from his family and relations, warning him of the worldly hazards that might ensnare him and reminding him of the solemn promises he had just made. These letters also emphasized the strengthening of family bonds through confirmation. These sorts of letters were kept and re-read often. A more structural change in the life of a young man was going to university. Young men and boys used letters to teach each other about student habits, but also to experiment with adolescent and student language. This included using colloquialisms, writing in Latin, and affecting student jargon. Another characteristic feature of correspondence between adolescents is romantic ideals of friendship. Such friendships were also common among girls, and between brothers and sisters. This model of friendship was encouraged at boarding schools and through romantic literature. The ultimate rite of passage was of course marriage and the period of engagement that preceded it. Fiancés used correspondence as a way to get to know one another and to exchange views about the contours of their future relationship. This could become somewhat of a power struggle, especially if the woman was not sure of her feelings. This meant that correspondence between fiancés was one of the last times the woman was in control. Throughout the engagement, letters played an important role not only for the engaged couple themselves, but also as a means to introduce a prospective wife to her future family-in-law. Like letters between children, letters between adolescents served in many ways as an important means of socialization. Family members, especially those who were similar in age, encouraged young people to write as adolescents (in the role of student, true friend, young man, or young woman). It was pretty clear how an adolescent was expected to conduct himself or herself. Correspondences between young men bear strong similarities to one another. Not only did correspondence between adolescents serve to develop their identities as young men or women; these letters also functioned as a means to fulfil certain roles in society: human relationships were,

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so to speak, actually lived out in these texts. Especially in correspondences between friends or between fiancés, relationships were created through letters before they existed off the page. The chapter opened with a quotation from Kant, in which he suggests that the Dutch have no finer feelings and are only interested in what they can gain from relationships. The German philosopher accuses the Dutch of simply numbering as their friends all those with whom they are in correspondence. Kant suggests here that true, deep relationships of friendship are unknown to this race of pragmatists. As we have seen in the present chapter, this certainly cannot be said of adolescents, for whom sincere, romantic friendship was crucial. Jan Hora Siccama did reflect that the German ideal of friendship was more sentimental that the Dutch one. When, at the age of thirty-two, he considered presenting his brother with a ring, he debated to himself whether this was a suitable present for a man. He believed that since he had been in Germany he had become infected with the sentimental ideals that prevailed there between men: We are not used to it, it is not in our nature, and we are initially overcome with distaste if we witness friends embracing one another, walking hand in hand, or exhibiting a tenderness which seems to us overly sentimental or effeminate. And yet, I have now come across this strange behaviour so much, among all classes and all ages, that I cannot say otherwise than that these people are moulded differently, but are no softer than we. What I wanted to say now – the friendship that exists between us is brotherly love – may the strength of this word be a recommendation of my gift. And if it does not fit, let it at least serve as proof that when a few hundred hours’ distant from you, you are in my thoughts no less than when I am at home.173

Even when they were well over thirty, the correspondence between the Hora Siccama brothers continued to evidence all the preoccupations that were typical for adolescents. This confirms the theory that the phase of adolescence could often last a long time, especially for unmarried young men such as Jan and Otto. They also continued to comment on one another’s letters, as will be clear from the following chapter.

╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 72, Jan Hora Siccama to Otto Hora Siccama, 2 July 1835.

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Ceremonial correspondence From now on, I wish to live as improperly as possible: that is, I wish to act only in accordance with the word of God, the whisperings of my conscience, and the precepts of common sense. I no longer wish to express my condolences, congratulations, and compliments to people to whom I am entirely indifferent, and who only desire my bow for the sake of propriety.1

Introduction Ceremonial correspondence, such as New Year letters, letters of congratulation or letters of condolence, merits a chapter of its own because this sort of letter was viewed as a specific genre by contemporaries. Betsy Steenlack, for instance, wrote to her brother-in-law on the occasion of his birthday: ‘I certainly cannot permit my pen to be idle on such an occasion, although ceremonial writing is not otherwise quite my thing, or my forte’.2 Letter-writing manuals, too, devoted a special chapter to ceremonial correspondence, recommending an ‘elevated style’ for these letters. They also recommended keeping them short. For after all, both in the case of a birthday or a death, the recipient had better things to do. Betsy Steenlack was well aware of this in her birthday letter to her brother-in-law: ‘You will perhaps say that this letter is indiscreetly long for a first letter of congratulation; I hope not everyone will occupy you for so long’.3 The family archives I studied contain a total of 900 ceremonial letters in manuscript. Some of the family archives have preserved more of these letters than others. The Hubrecht family archive, for instance, includes a very large number of letters of congratulation and letters of condolence. This may mean that some families attached more importance to ceremonial correspondence and were thus more likely to keep

╇Peterson, Het fatsoen, 119. ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 406, Betsy Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht, 17 January 1828. 3 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 423, Betsy Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht, 18 November 1831. 1 2

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such letters. In addition, the archives of the Van Lanschots, a Roman Catholic family, include several ceremonial letters that are typical of the Catholic calendar, such as Lenten and Easter letters. On the one hand, ceremonial letters had a clear social function: family members and acquaintances could use such letters to express their awareness of important events such as births, marriages or deaths. This awareness strengthened the bonds of friendship. ‘Friendship’ here does not mean the romantic concept of friendship that applied mainly to adolescents. Rather it is friendship as Kooijmans has described it for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: links with relations, who together made up a network of solidarity one could rely on for support. These links were maintained by keeping up ‘correspondence’: writing one another letters and exchanging courtesies, gifts, and services.4 Births, birthdays, marriages, deaths, and New Year were the occasions on which to take stock of the state of such relations: great precision attended the question of what notification was appropriate for whom. The response to such a notification also revealed a good deal about how relations stood. Ceremonial letters could thus function as a means of distinction: to indicate who did or did not belong to one’s intimate circle of friends, but also to show what social class one belonged to. On the other hand, ceremonial letters also had a very personal dimension: the sender had somehow to give a personal touch to a highly standardized letter whose contents were prone to clichés. He or she had somehow to convey the impression of sincerity. In this way, ceremonial correspondence functioned both as a social binding agent and as a measure of the sincerity of the individual. This tension between the private sphere (the sincere individual) and the public sphere (bonds of friendship) is at the centre in the present chapter. Means of communication and customs Announcing deaths and births Various means of communication could be used to inform people of a birth, a marriage, or a death. One could make use of an announcer, place an advertisement in the paper, or send printed or handwritten letters. 4 ╇ L. Kooijmans, Vriendschap en de kunst van het overleven in de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw (Amsterdam 1997) 14–17, 327–329.



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The profession of the ‘announcer’, also known as the ‘doodbidder’ (proclaimer of death) or ‘begraavenis-nooder’ (funeral announcer), was an old and venerable one. The announcer was both an undertaker and the person who went from house to house to notify people of a birth or a death, or to invite people to attend the funeral. Until the end of the eighteenth century, the announcer often distributed printed mourning letters, sometimes with a rhyming text.5 At the beginning of the nineteenth century, he imparted his message orally; later the announcer only delivered a printed card.6 The profession of announcer seems to have gone into decline in around 1860.7 In the nineteenth century, he was often ridiculed for his pompous speech, stiff and arrogant bearing, and meticulous mourning apparel (black cloak, white bands, black three-cornered hat with mourning crape and a long silk hatband, and white gloves), whilst his heart was indifferent to the deceased.8 According to Derk Snoep, already at the end of the eighteenth century the announcer was criticized for appealing only to the snobbery of the bereaved (who had to pay for each extra attribute or item of clothing the announcer used) and for basing his income on this. Not only was there criticism of the announcer’s demeanour; new forms of communication gradually rendered them redundant. In 1846, J. Boeke wrote in the Vaderlandsche letteroefeningen that the announcer often came too late: people had heard about the death a day earlier from the paper or by word of mouth. Servants no longer felt it was worthwhile to pass on the announcer’s message, Boeke wrote.9 The smarter the family, the more announcers it hired.10 The Van Lanschot family, for instance, hired eight announcers for the funeral of Godefridus van Lanschot in 1799.11 That was the height of decorum.12 One can reconstruct the means of communication used in connection

╇ J. le Francq van Berkhey, Natuurlyke Historie van Holland. Vol. 3 (Amsterdam 1773), 1857–1859. ╇6 ╇D. Snoep, ‘Sterven en rouwen 1700–1900’, in: Dood en begraven. Sterven en rouwen 1700–1900 (Utrecht 1980) 4–73, here 46–48. ╇7 ╇ Anonymous, ‘De Amsterdamsche aanspreker’, in: F.H. Greb ed., Jaarboekje voor Rederijkers 4 (1860) 180–184, here 183. ╇8 ╇ J.v.L., ‘De aanspreker’, in: De Nederlanden (The Hague 1841) 21–24. ╇9 ╇ J. Boeke, ‘Gesprek over onze manier van begraven en rouwbetoonen’, VL (1846) II, 209–241, here 223. 10 ╇ Snoep, ‘Sterven en rouwen’, 10–11. 11 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 36, documents relating to the death and burial of the parents of Franciscus van Lanschot, Godefridus van Lanschot and Anna Potters, 1799. 12 ╇ Le Francq van Berkhey, Natuurlyke Historie, 1859. ╇5

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with events such as funerals and births from the accounts. In addition, some family archives – such as the Hubrechts’, for instance – include lists of the names of those called on by the announcer and those who received printed and handwritten mourning letters, marriage announcements and birth announcements.13 Pieter Hubrecht’s accounts book notes that in 1838 Hendrik Kokshoorn was paid five florins for ‘announcing the death of my beloved child’ Elisabeth Hubrecht, and Gerrit Kokshoorn received three florins for ‘telling it abroad’.14 Births were also announced, as Johannes le Francq van Berkhey described in his anthropological study of the population of Holland: ‘People of note, in the large cities, employ an announcer for this purpose; he then makes the event known, dressed on this occasion merely decorously in black, with white gloves, without his mourning dress, cloak or bands’.15 The birth of Paul Hubrecht on 29 November 1829 was announced to fifteen people that same day, as his father’s list shows. The following day, the announcer Hendrik Kokshoorn called on 155 of the Hubrechts’ acquaintances in Leiden, and another announcer informed thirtysix households in neighbouring Leiderdorp of the happy event. All in all, then, 206 people were informed of Paul’s birth by word of mouth (this included both family members who lived locally and acquaintances). The close relatives among them probably swiftly called to view the new arrival. Printed and written announcements In addition to hiring the announcer, Pieter Hubrecht also sent written birth announcements. According to the same list, Pieter wrote fortyone of these letters, addressed to more distant family (uncles, aunts, cousins, etc.) who lived further afield. The archives preserve thirty-five letters of congratulations on the birth of Pieter’s firstborn son. These were nearly all written by people who had received a written birth announcement. A written birth announcement was thus expected to be followed by a written response. A further distinction was made when it came to announcements of births, marriages and deaths: between entirely handwritten letters, entirely printed letters, and printed letters in which the salutation ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 365 and 443. ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 519, account book of Pieter Hubrecht 1838–1843, April 1838. 15 ╇ Le Francq van Berkhey, Natuurlyke Historie, 1242–1243. 13 14



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(the name of the person addressed), and possibly the title (for which blank spaces could be left) and the signature were written by hand. Writing the names and addresses on printed marriage announcements was quite an arduous task, as Betsy Steenlack discovered when she helped her sister Octavie and the latter’s fiancé to do so: ‘we have to hurry to get everything done before the post. Yesterday we wrote and filled in the names, and that was already a pretty long session’.16 When Pieter Hubrecht and Abrahamine Steenlack got married in September 1828, seventy-six distant relatives and acquaintances received entirely printed letters, forty people received a letter with a handwritten salutation and signature, and thirteen close relatives merited a completely handwritten letter. The newly-weds received fifty-six letters of congratulations. The senders of these letters correspond with the names on the list of those who were sent entirely handwritten wedding invitations, or printed invitations with handwritten names. This means that acquaintances who received entirely printed wedding invitations were not required to respond, but that this was de rigueur if one received a partially or entirely handwritten letter. Letter-writing manuals and etiquette books did not prescribe how one should deal with written and printed ceremonial letters; this was apparently something one learned in practice. It was not always exactly clear what etiquette demanded. Jan Hora Siccama, for instance, was not entirely sure whom he should inform of his intended marriage. When sending the wedding invitation to his brother Otto, he commented: ‘We’re sending you this letter two days before we post the remaining sixty. For nobody here seems to be able to tell us whether, in my capacity as clerk of a national administration, I am also required to inform the king and princes, the Prince of Orange and Prince Frederik – of intended marriage’.17 A year later, Otto consulted his brother Jan, who was now experienced in the matter of sending wedding invitations: ‘Finally, I would indeed like a model of your letter of announcement, as well as the list of people they should be sent to, stating which should be entirely handwritten, which just signed, and which entirely printed’.18 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 420, Betsy Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht and Abrahamine Hubrecht-Steenlack, 5 June 1846. 17 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 74, Jan Hora Siccama to Otto Hora Siccama, 24 April 1840. 18 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 52, Otto Hora Siccama to Jan Hora Siccama, 25 September 1841. 16

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Notices in the newspaper In addition to printed and handwritten announcements of births, marriages and deaths, notices in the newspaper could also serve as a manner of informing people. On the death of his wife in 1849, for instance, Pieter Hubrecht placed a death notice in the local paper, De Leydsche Courant, which cost him 4.30 florins. He also spent 9.50 florins on 110 folio-sized mourning letters, and had 244 mourning letters delivered.19 Notices in the newspaper had been used to announce births, marriages and deaths from 1793.20 From the second half of the eighteenth century it was customary in the higher echelons to have mourning letters and wedding invitations printed. However, due to the high costs of printing and postage, at the end of the eighteenth century people began to resort to notices in the newspaper, which were considerably cheaper. For the government, the printing of such notices meant a reduction in the income derived from postal services. This prompted the Provincial Government of Holland to levy a tax on all birth, marriage, and death notices: 1 florin for a birth, 2 florins for a death, and 3 florins for a marriage announcement.21 However, this tax did not lead to a decline in the number of such notices.22 Death notices were inserted to inform people who would not receive personal notification that a death had taken place. Such notices were not intended as an invitation to the funeral, as there was not enough time between the publication of the notice and the burial ceremony to allow somebody to make the journey.23 Nevertheless, sometimes a notice in the newspaper conveyed the news of a death more quickly than a letter. Just as Sophia Schimmelpenninck van der Oye-van de Poll was reading a letter from her friend Julie saying that an acquaintance had not yet died, her aunt read the announcement of his death in the paper.24 It also happened that family members had heard the news 19 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 342, documents relating to the death and burial of A.A.L. Hubrecht-Steenlack, 1849. 20 ╇P.D. ‘t Hart, ‘De eerste overlijdensadvertenties in de Nederlandse kranten’, Jaarboek van het Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie 37 (1983) 243–269, here 251. 21 ╇ Publication of the Provincial Government of Holland, 1797. Quoted in Rignalda, Hoofdtrekken, 108–109. 22 ╇Franke, De dood, 26. 23 ╇Ibid., 29. 24 ╇ NA, FADCR, inv. no. 69V, Sophia Schimmelpenninck van der Oye-van de Pollvan Rhemen to Julie d’Ablaing van Giessenburg, 25 September 1824.



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on the grapevine before they received their official announcement, as in the case of a birth, for instance: ‘Yesterday evening we heard the joyous news that our dear sister had been happily and safely brought to bed of a healthy son, and today we received the ceremonial announcement thereof; for both which swift communications our heartfelt thanks’.25 A notice in the paper could be less expensive than having a death announced by an announcer. Thus when Pieter van Lelyveld’s second wife was on her deathbed in Leiden, his brother-in-law Rudolf Mees, who lived in Rotterdam, asked in advance ‘please let me know, when it comes to announcing the death, whether apart from my children there are any others here whom you would like me to send my servant to inform, and whether this is also to be carried out generally by announcers’.26 When on 17 March 1806, two days later, the lady did die, Rudolf Mees only had his servant deliver the message of her death to his own relatives in Rotterdam: ‘We have had the announcement made to our closest relatives by our servant in our own name, and will leave it at that, since it is your intention to place a notice in the paper, and a general announcement can be rather a cumbersome and costly business here’.27 Some acquaintances only heard about the death through the newspaper. This meant that the families in question were no longer in regular correspondence. In such cases, a letter of condolence had to be prefaced by an apology: Although we are no longer accustomed to write letters of communication […], bound by mutual love and friendship I hope you will not take it amiss that I have taken the liberty to write this letter, since due to the relations between our families our forefathers (as I am well aware) always maintained sincere friendship to the death. […] it would be agreeable to me to continue the same.28

It was not customary to send a letter of condolence if the writer had heard of the death through the paper or had received a printed mourning letter. A cousin of Pieter Hubrecht’s acknowledged: ‘etiquette may

25 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 1163, A. Mees and Hester Mees-van Staphorst to Pieter van Lelyveld and his parents, 17 February 1765. 26 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 1177, Rudolf Mees to Pieter van Lelyveld, 15 March 1806. 27 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 1168, Rudolf Mees and Sara Mees-van Lelyveld to Pieter van Lelyveld, 17 March 1806. 28 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 236, G. van Hoogeveen to Paul Hubrecht sr., 30 April 1809.

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perhaps absolve me from replying to your announcement, but I cannot refrain from sending you a few lines on so deeply sad an event’.29 Mr Matthes, the proprietor of the boarding school attended by Ambrosius Hubrecht, and with whom Ambrosius even lodged, reacted in the same way on learning of the death of his former pupil through a printed mourning letter. ‘Although etiquette absolves me of the obligation to answer your sad letter, my heart feels the need to address a few words to you, sir, on the occasion of the sad loss you have suffered’.30 Proper convention Sometimes correspondents hesitated about what the proper convention was. In a letter to his mother, Otto Hora Siccama claimed that in 1841 it was falling out of fashion to write letters to announce both the intended marriage and the solemnization of matrimony: I planned not to announce our intention to marry, but merely the marriage itself in the paper – since here the writing of letters of communication is rather falling out of fashion. I deliberated about it somewhat, whilst on my bride’s side there are no relatives to whom they need to be addressed, so that it is scarcely worth the trouble to get them printed: […] why should I make all those unknown cousins stump up the postage?31

Printing was evidently an expensive matter in small quantities; moreover, sending marriage announcements put the recipients to expense. In another letter, Otto complained to his brother Jan that he had to pay so much money for the letters of congratulation he received after his wife Pietje gave birth to their first child.32 He obviously never got used to it, because after their second child was born, Otto grumbled about the strain of sending birth announcements: ‘Understandably tired as I am from the abundant writing of letters and notes […], consider that I am entirely on my own in all this, and on Pietje’s side there are also many uncles and aunts who must have letters, and you will perhaps understand why I have drawn a line at all the possible cousins etc.’.33 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 443, E.A. Mees to Pieter Hubrecht, 11 December 1849. ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 444, Matthes to Pieter Hubrecht, 14 January 1853. Inv. no. 342 shows that after the death of Abrahamine Hubrecht-Steenlack Matthes received a printed mourning letter, so this was probably also the case after the death of Ambrosius Hubrecht. 31 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 45, Otto Hora Siccama to Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck, 10 October 1841. 32 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 52, Otto Hora Siccama to Jan Hora Siccama, 6 November 1846. 33 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 52, Otto Hora Siccama to Jan Hora Siccama, 9 August 1842. 29 30



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Five years earlier, Otto had grumbled to his other brother, Louis, that receiving congratulations on the occasion of his marriage had cost him so much money, and answering them so much time.34 Communication by word of mouth via relatives was another possibility. Thus Otto Hora Siccama promised his brother Louis, who had just become a father, that he would pass on the news to one of their uncles: ‘I shall call on Uncle B., who is indisposed, and tell him of your fatherhood; and since he is in regular correspondence with Uncle and Aunt, I shall ask him to tell them of it on your behalf: I see no reason for a separate communication. Neither Uncle or Aunt is punctilious in such matters, so you can save them the postage and yourself the letterwriting.35 The aunt and uncle in question would apparently not be offended to be informed of the birth in the family by way of another relative, even though their family connection should really entitle them to expect a written communication from the proud parents themselves. This could indeed be otherwise. Paul Hubrecht had received a printed letter to inform him of the death of his aunt Antonia. He had expected a more personal, handwritten letter, and viewed the printed letter as lacking in feeling. He complained about this to his father, who answered: the letter of communication about Aunt Antonia’s death affected you […] So much has been said and written about those letters already, and I will tell you plainly that I had no opportunity, no time to get that message to you in any other way. It was agreed and decided to inform everybody in this way, so that the people concerned would not find out through the newspapers. […] For with all those letters and all those deliveries it was impossible for me to write individual letters; I have frequently received letters with the names printed, which I answered, since I viewed the communication as a sign of friendship and not as a cold mourning letter.36

Other correspondents felt mildly offended if they heard of an intended marriage via a letter from a third party, as happened to a friend of HenÂ� drik Oomen’s: ‘Nothing could be pleasanter to me than to hear from a letter from Wesselman to NONNE that you are shortly to embrace the matrimonial state: truly this was great news to me, of which I would perhaps have expected to be apprised by a letter from you yourself ’.37 The matter of whether important news was communicated by word of ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 90L, Otto Hora Siccama to Louis Hora Siccama, 3 October 1841. 35 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 90L, Otto Hora Siccama to Louis Hora Siccama, 16 July 1837. 36 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 433, Pieter Hubrecht to Paul Hubrecht jr., 23 November 1852. 37 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 1320, J. Valentijns to Hendrik Oomen, 2 February 1802. 34

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mouth, or by a printed or handwritten letter could have deeper significance, therefore: it revealed something about the state of the relationship between the sender and the recipient. Criticism of ceremonial correspondence: mourning letters The choice of whether to announce births, marriages of deaths in handwritten or printed letters was a means of marking out the boundaries of intimacy within the circle of family and friends. The distinction between printing and writing could also reflect class differences. Thus an anonymous commentator writing in De Denker (The Thinker) in 1774 expressed the opinion that sending printed mourning letters was a bourgeois habit: ‘As you know, when bourgeois people die, mourning letters are printed; bourgeois people, I say, since this excludes the nobility, who, since printing is now so common, have these things written by hand’.38 In his view, then, members of the nobility used writing as a means of distinction, a way to distance themselves from the bourgeois custom of printing. In the dictionary M. Noël Chomel published in 1792, he made a distinction not between the middle classes and the nobility, but between the middle and lower classes. In his view, all ‘decent’ people wrote mourning letters; ‘the lowly people do not yet share in this splendour’.39 Le Francq van Berkhey, on the other hand, believed that ‘less wealthy people’ produced these letters ‘in mere hand-writing’ because they could not afford to print them.40 Though their interpretations differ, these late eighteenth-century critics all view the approach to mourning letters as a means of distinction. The lower classes did not write mourning letters at all, or had no choice but to write them by hand because printing was too expensive. The middle classes sent a great many, and because they tended to print them, the nobility apparently reacted to this by resorting to handwritten mourning letters to distinguish themselves. Since my research is confined to the higher classes, I cannot draw a comparison with the habits of the lower classes in sending mourning letters. I could find no evidence, either, of a difference between the nobility and the middle classes. This is perhaps partly because the archives preserve fewer ╇Anonymous, De Denker 11 (Amsterdam 1774) 273–278. ╇M. Noël Chomel, Algemeen huishoudelyk, natuur-, zedekundig- en konstwoordenboek. Vol. 8 (Amsterdam 1792) 5877–5880. 40 ╇ Le Francq van Berkhey, Natuurlyke Historie, 1859. 38 39



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mourning letters from the eighteenth than the nineteenth century; moreover, the archives of the De Constant Rebecque family, the only family of the nobility studied here, contains few mourning letters of any kind, and none from the end of the eighteenth century. Nevertheless, it is important to note that the difference between having ceremonial letters printed or writing them by hand could be viewed as an expression of class. Herman Franke has concluded, furthermore, that in the first half of the nineteenth century the nobility aimed to distinguish themselves from other social groups by publishing very sober, solemn death notices. This would be imitated by the lower classes in the period from 1855 to 1865. Franke’s impression is that ‘precisely when the wearing of outward signs of mourning and cultivating specific precepts regarding mourning became commonplace among wider sections of the population, members of the upper classes began to distance themselves from this’.41 The late-eighteenth-century commentators quoted above also express criticism of the habit of sending mourning letters. The world and his wife is sent a mourning letter, they say, even people one has just bumped into by chance along the way. Under the heading ‘rouwbrief ’ (mourning letter), Chomel dismissed sending such letters as a ridiculous and expensive habit. Although, in his view, mourning letters had been rendered obsolete by the advent of the newspapers, everybody continued to send ‘corpse letters’, boasting about the number sent, which showed how extensive one’s circle of acquaintances was. Chomel advocated doing away with mourning letters: that way the costs for both the sender and the recipients – who, after all, had to pay to receive the letter – would not run so high. Chomel also found the contents of mourning letters hypocritical.42 Other authors, too, criticized such letters for their lack of solemnity and sincerity.43 Criticism of ceremonial correspondence: New Year letters In the nineteenth century, various authors expressed criticism regarding the practice of sending best wishes for the New Year. In 1805, Arend Fokke Simonsz. remarked that New Year greetings were a sorry shadow of what they had once been: ╇Franke, De dood, 49, 62. ╇Chomel, Algemeen huishoudelyk, natuur-, zedekundig- en konstwoordenboek, 5877–5880. 43 ╇ ‘t Hart, ‘De eerste overlijdensadvertenties’, 249. 41 42

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chapter five It is thus clear as day that this habit of wishing people a happy New Year is becoming more and more an irritating, meaningless, yet considerably expensive formality which, certainly in this enlightened age, should either be abolished entirely, or at least instituted in an entirely different way among decent people and people of taste.44

According to Fokke Simonsz., the elite had begun to realize how meaningless the New Year letters had become, and had started sending one another cards bearing only a name. He suggested replacing these cards with printed letters with best wishes for the New Year. The author of a letter-writing manual published in 1811 also took a dim view of New Year letters: ‘the cowardly nonsense of a New Year letter inspires the greatest aversion; may the duties of this ceremony not become too rigid’.45 When Landré came to write a letter-writing manual in 1839, he expected to be criticized for devoting too much attention to ceremonial letters. He gave the excuse that many still considered such letters to be ‘an important duty’.46 Although ceremonial letters were thus still exchanged in great numbers, evidently some people had reservations about them. We find these objections again in an etiquette book written two years later, in which the habit of leaving calling cards on New Year’s Day was alluded to as a ‘meaningless reminder’ that certainly did not merit a return visit. It was sufficient to reciprocate by sending one’s own card.47 Whilst cards at New Year were initially a substitute for calling, they had gradually become a meaningless end in themselves. For this reason, the author of another etiquette book, published in 1855, feared that bringing round cards on New Year’s Day might be impolite: ‘One should equally not take this leaving of cards, especially on New Year’s Day and suchlike, too far, since etiquette demands that the person who receives a card leave one in return. Thus by forcing them to do so, an excess of politeness would actually end up making us impolite’.48 The custom of leaving cards at New Year seems to have declined by the end of the nineteenth century, to judge from a passage in an etiquette book by Engelberts:

44 ╇ A. Fokke Simonsz., ‘Ontwerp van een nieuw formulier van nieuwjaarswensen’, AVL (1805) II, 695–700, here 695–696. 45 ╇Anonymous, De keizerlijke secretaris, 141. 46 ╇Landré, Verzameling van brieven, x–xi. 47 ╇J.V.D.L., De wellevendheid, 83–84. 48 ╇Van der Aa, Lessen over de wellevendheid, 68.



ceremonial correspondence225 Genuine New Year letters are written only to blood relations or close friends. For the rest, it is sufficient to send one’s calling card, and this is done to one’s whole circle of friends and acquaintances. However, it is not all too great an omission if one does not send calling cards. This custom is no longer as widespread as it once was.49

Mrs Van Rijnkerke-Olthuis, writing an etiquette book in the late nineteenth century, believes she has observed a new development, however: For some years now it has been the fashion to send special New Year cards with elaborate flowers or other drawings. However, since this fashion is becoming so common that even servants are sending pretty cards, one has to resort to extremely expensive and unusual ones if one wishes not to resemble them. For this reason, we believe that this fashion will not last long, and will certainly not become a firm custom.50

The above quotation again reveals the urge of the elite to stand out: as soon as their inferiors began to imitate a given habit – in this case sending ornate New Year cards – the upper classes had to think of some other way to be distinctive. Ceremonial letters seem to have been a way to articulate social distinctions. The content of ceremonial letters As we have seen, then, the form of a ceremonial communication – whether it was printed or written – served as a means for the elite both to distinguish themselves from other classes and to indicate a hierarchy of intimacy within their own class and their circle of family and acquaintance. The contents of the various types of congratulatory letters, which were often virtually identical, could also help to reinforce family or group ties by alluding to shared values. Birthday greetings Birthday greetings were not simply a matter of wishing the person in question a happy day. The aim of these ceremonial letters was to pause for a moment, to dwell on the meaning of life and to give thanks to God. Abrahamine Steenlack expressed precisely these sentiments in congratulating her fiancé on his birthday: 49 50

╇Engelberts, De goede toon, 336. ╇Van Rijnkerke-Olthuis, De vrouw, 187.

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chapter five The occasion of this day, when a new year is about to begin for you, prompts me to address you my felicitations; may the dear Lord add many years of happiness to the year which has just passed, and pour out on you His richest blessings. Although I do not much care for birthdays or name days, I nevertheless believe that they can be very beneficial. They are junctures in human life when one pauses for a moment, or returns for a moment to the past, and notes how much time one has lost, or even misspent; this leads to contemplation and to good resolutions for the future.51

Victor de Constant Rebecque, too, philosophized about the function of birthday greetings on his father’s birthday: A birthday, or rather its celebration, is not about quickly conceiving and expressing a wish. Rather, this is the moment when one expresses the wishes of the whole year, and a moment of calm in life to think about the past, and thence to prepare for the future. God hears my wishes for you.52

In a birthday greeting, the sender reviewed the happinesses of the past year of the recipient’s life and thanked God for sparing both of them. He or she wished the recipient good health and yet more blessings for himself and his family, as well as a ‘useful and industrious life in society’ (for men). Furthermore, the writer did not fail to mention eternal life, since every birthday was a step closer to the day of joyful reunion with the Heavenly Father and departed loved ones. This strikes the twenty-first-century reader as somewhat morbid. Thus Pieter Hubrecht, on reaching his fortieth birthday in excellent health, received the following wishes: ‘God grant you […] all that you need to stride forth and fight the good fight, and to await the end calmly and with presence of mind.53 Evaluating the year just past and anticipating death and the life to come are core elements of birthday greetings. Additional sentences often express the hope that the recipient may enjoy the company of his or her spouse and children (‘domestic happiness’) for many years to come, as well as the wish that children may grow up to be decent and useful people, a joy (‘jewel’) to their parents, and that they may be a support to their parents when the latter reach old age. Generally the 51 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 408, Abrahamine Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht, 17 January 1828. 52 ╇ NA, FADCR, inv. no. 65A, Victor de Constant Rebecque to Charles de Constant Rebecque, 15 September 1857. 53 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 407, Jaqueline Guye-Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht, 17 January 1845.



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birthday greeting, like so many other letters, concludes by commending the sender to the friendship of the recipient. Several of these elements can be found in all birthday greetings, but Protestants generally devoted a greater part of their birthday letters to religious matters. The Protestant Hubrecht and De Constant Rebecque families, especially, were inclined to take a birthday as an occasion to reflect about religion, individual conscience, death and the life to come, whereas the Roman Catholic Van Lanschots concentrated on the immediate future and one’s fellow men. Marriage congratulations Letters of congratulation on a marriage generally invoked blessings on the couple. The sender hoped that the newly wed couple would experience ‘domestic contentment’ for ‘many years to come’, well ‘into old age’; he or she ‘shared in their joy’. In addition to expressing thanks for ‘the honour of receiving the communication’, the letter of congratulation again generally concluded with a commendation in friendship. Several terms from the marriage announcement, such as the ‘legal permission of the respective parents’ were repeated. In comparison with birthday greetings, which often also included other news, letters of congratulation on a marriage were short. Senders apologized for writing too much, and especially for being self-centred. One person who congratulated Pieter Hubrecht on his marriage, for example, was apologetic: ‘It is my wish that your marriage will be an abundant source of domestic contentment for both you and your dear wife, and, if I may be permitted to express myself so selfishly, that the happiness which I have so abundantly enjoyed with my own wife will also be granted to you both in the same measure’.54 As was noted above, egocentricity was to be avoided in correspondence, and this applied also – or perhaps particularly – to ceremonial correspondence. A similar taboo forbade alluding to future progeny in marriage congratulations. Although Geerling, whose letter-writing manual was published in 1838, explicitly stated that it was permissible to express the hope that the recent marriage would be blessed with children, he seems to have been an exception in the nineteenth cÂ� entury.55 Whereas eighteenth-century marriage poems and letters of 54 55

╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 336, unknown sender to Pieter Hubrecht, 13 September 1828. ╇Geerling, De Nederlandsche briefsteller, 186.

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Â� congratulation frequently alluded to future offspring, often humorously, in the nineteenth century the subject was mentioned in increasingly euphemistic terms or simply omitted. A festive poem from 1792 contains the lines: ‘And you, my dearest sister bride, when May comes back again, he will find you at the cradle, singing to the babe therein’.56 A few nineteenth-century correspondents did still hint at the arrival of children,57 but this element was increasingly omitted altogether or circumscribed in terms such as ‘all the delights […] that the very happiest of marriages may bring’.58 In the same way that pregnancy came to be referred to only in roundabout terms in nineteenth-century letters, the gradual disappearance of explicit references to children in letters expressing marriage congratulations is a further sign of society becoming more prudish. Birth congratulations The archives of the Hubrecht family include both printed birth ments and printed birth congratulations. The printed announceÂ� announcements date from between 1768 and 1794; the date of the printed congratulations is 1765. Since I did not come across any printed birth congratulation letters from the nineteenth century, it would seem that printing such letters was a passing fashion in the late eighteenth century. In the second half of the nineteenth century, telegrams were sometimes used to inform people of a birth. Telegrams enforced conciseness, as Pieter Hubrecht wrote in 1853, after the birth of his grandson: ‘these telegraphic dispatches are pleasant for the sake of speed, but leave many questions unsatisfied’.59 The fact that there were also printed birth congratulation cards, with blank fields in which the writer only had to fill in the titles and name of the recipient, and the child’s sex and date of birth, shows how standard 56 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 32, celebration poems on the occasion of the marriage of Franciscus van Lanschot and Jacoba van Rijckevorsel, 1792. See also A. Nieuweboer, ‘Medeleven volgens voorschrift en verzen op bestelling. Achttiende-eeuwse gelegenheidsgedichten’, Literatuur 3 (1986) 15–22, here 20. 57 ╇ ‘have the privilege that has not befallen us/ to have children who will enhance life for you and who may grow up to be a joy to you and to be the perfection of your happiness and virtues.’ RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 138, Van Ryckevorsel and T.M. van Ryckevorsel-van Lanschot to Augustinus van Lanschot and Maria Oomen, 7 May 1832. 58 ╇GAL, FAH, inv. no. 336, A.G. Boetzelaer to Pieter Hubrecht, 15 September 1828. 59 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 433, Pieter Hubrecht to Paul Hubrecht and Marie HubrechtPruys van der Hoeven, 4 March 1853.



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the contents of these types of letters were. A typical letter of congratulation on a birth (though this time written by hand) might read: Dearest nephew! With thanks for your communication of the happy confinement of your beloved wife, our dear niece, we heartily wish that the newborn child may prosper and grow up to the honour of his creator, the good of society, and the joy of his parents and grandparents, and that, after a felicitous lying-in, the new mother may swiftly be restored to the fullness of her powers. Commending ourselves mutually to your friendship, we have the honour, dearest nephew, of addressing you with the greatest of respect, your most humble servants Ad. Mees [and] C.E. Mees née Van Oordt.60

The essential elements here are the congratulations on the birth and the propitious confinement, as well as the hope that the new mother will make a swift recovery. Almost always the sender also adds the wish that the child may grow up to be a joy to his parents (and other members of the family), sometimes to the greater glory of God and the greater good of society. Many express their thanks for the honour of receiving the communication, and most explicitly commend themselves to the friendship of the recipient. Moreover, many ask to be kept informed. It was probably customary for the birth announcement to be followed by further letters reporting on the health of the mother and child, though I did not come across any examples. The good wishes on the birth of a daughter differ slightly from those on the birth of a son. A son has higher expectations to live up to. Of course it is only if he has a son that the father is congratulated on the birth of an heir, and the hope is expressed that the child will contribute to the ‘glory of the line’. But in letters of congratulation on the birth of a son one also comes across sentences such as ‘may the child grow up to make a worthy contribution to society’. This aspect is not mentioned in printed unisex birth congratulation cards, since it only applies to boys. The phrase ‘to be a joy to the child’s parents’ also occurs less frequently in relation to daughters. This is not by any means to say that people were not overjoyed with the birth of a daughter. Quite the contrary. When Pieter Hubrecht’s second son was born, several relatives and acquaintances wondered whether he and his wife were perhaps a little disappointed. And most parents were particularly delighted if 60 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 422, Ad. Mees and C.E. Mees-van Oordt to Pieter Hubrecht, 1 December 1829.

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their (second or subsequent) child was a daughter.61 The ideal was evidently a family with both sons and daughters. New Year letters New Year greetings, like birthday greetings, had the function of pausing to reflect with gratitude on the year just past, as Cornélie SteenÂ� lack put it: ‘on such occasions it is customary to wish people happiness and to cast a grateful glance on the past’.62 A New Year letter consisted of wishing the recipient God’s most generous blessings, contemplating the year just past, expressing gratitude for blessings received, and finally affirming the bonds of friendship for the year to come. The priest Father Oomen, in thanking his sister-in-law Elisabeth Oomen for her New Year letter, acknowledged the ‘uplifting’ function of such greetings: I was not a little uplifted by your letter of the day before yesterday, in which my sister, though younger in years, contemplates the newly commenced year as though it were the last of her life. This is truly what we should think, in this way liberating ourselves for the eternal life to come. If we act in this way, the year that has just commenced will be blessed for us.63

Incidentally, this New Year letter from the archives of the Roman Catholic Van Lanschot family is an exception. Most of the New Year greetings from Roman Catholics were a great deal shorter and less pious, and were generally part of a longer letter containing other news. Catholics often limited themselves to wishing the recipient health and happiness in a postscript. New Year letters from children, on the other hand, seldom contained other news. This gives them a more ceremonial quality than those written by adults. Finally, one should mention that individual families might have their own conventions regarding writing at New Year. At the age of eleven, Jan Willem de Constant Rebecque commented, for instance: ‘I recently received a letter from Isard, but how do you think his letter concluded? Every health and blessing for the N.Y. etc. etc. You can imagine how 61 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 1304, Augustinus van Lanschot to Elisabeth OomenIngen-Housz, n.d. [1837]. 62 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 443, Cornélie Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht, 30 December 1849. 63 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 1338, Antonius Oomen to Elisabeth Oomen-Ingen-Housz, 7 January 1836.



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boring we found this at home.’64 Evidently the De Constant Rebecques did not appreciate clichéd New Year greetings. Outward conventions for printed mourning letters and letters of condolence Letters of condolence occupy a place of their own within the genre of ceremonial correspondence. Although the function of this sort of letter has a certain amount in common with letters of congratulation and New Year letters – i.e. conveying and confirming middle-class norms and values (socialization), and consolidating relationships – the primary purpose of letters of condolence is to comfort the recipient. Letters of condolence were often a response to a mourning letter or printed letter notifying people of a death. Mourning letters, notifying people of a death, almost always had a black border. However, not all letters of condolence were written on black-edged paper. Many people used white or light blue paper for such letters. If mourning letters or letters of condolence had a black border and were sealed with black wax, one could see well in advance that the letter concerned a sad event. The recipient of a letter might get a terrible shock on seeing a black seal. When Pietje van Capellen received a packet from her fiancé that was sealed with black wax, without this having anything to do with a death, she begged him in future only ever to use a black seal in the case of a bereavement.65 Not only mourning letters and letters of condolence were usually black-edged; the daily correspondence of the deceased’s family was also supposed to have black borders to display mourning. For this reason, Otto Hora Siccama apologized, after his father’s death in March 1827, that he did not have any mourning paper to hand when writing a letter to his mother.66 There were also conventions governing the breadth of the black border on mourning paper. The border was to become narrower as the period of mourning progressed. As with mourning dress, where gradually certain elements could be omitted, or replaced with shades of grey, the outward characteristics of mourning also became less pronounced as time went on. After Otto Hora Siccama’s father ╇NA, FADCR, inv. no. 120C, Jan Willem de Constant Rebecque to Victor de Constant Rebecque, 9 January 1853. 65 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 98, Pietje van Capellen to Otto Hora Siccama, 16 October 1840. 66 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 44, Otto Hora Siccama to Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck, 16 April 1827. 64

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died, Otto’s letters had black borders until December of that year. His mother, on the other hand, continued to use black-edged writing paper for her letters until February 1829. It was customary for a widow to show mourning for longer than a son, both in clothing and in other areas of life. It was not always easy to keep to these rules, as Otto wrote to his mother: ‘I have written to De Bas to send me some writing paper with broad borders; here it is impossible to get it any wider than this, and it is extremely expensive even then. – I am only telling you this so that you will not take it amiss that I am not meeting the requirements in this matter’.67 The other way around, correspondents sometimes resorted to mournÂ�ing paper if they had no other paper to hand, as did Jan Hora Siccama: ‘Why the paper with black borders? Your question is as simple as my answer: “I had none other to hand.” When I think about it, this display of mourning is not entirely inappropriate. According to a letter that we received yesterday, our respected cousin Benier passed away in Makassar on 5th May’.68 Since the death rate in the nineteenth century was fairly high, it frequently happened that people used black-edged writing paper for their daily correspondence for years on end: every time the end of mourning was in sight, another family member succumbed, so they had to resort to black-edged paper yet again. Here too there is a parallel with clothing: old women in the nineteenth century were sometimes permanently dressed in black, because by the time the period of mourning for one relative elapsed, another had died. The rule that the black borders on writing paper should become narrower as time passed by was stated in a few etiquette books,69 but most did not mention it. Like choosing between printed and handwritten letters, this was a part of the etiquette that had to be picked up in practice. For this reason, a bereavement often prompted a lively exchange of letters about the right mourning customs, such as the duration of mourning and the specific materials and colours permissible for mourning dress.70 ╇NA, CHS, inv. no. 44, Otto Hora Siccama to Amelie Hora Siccama-Falck, 11 March 1827. 68 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 72, Jan Hora Siccama to Otto Hora Siccama, 24 October 1829. 69 ╇Van der Woude, Vormen, 233. 70 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 231, Pauline van Lanschot-van der Kun to Theodora van Lanschot, 15 March 1839. NA, FAVS, inv. no. 157, Sara van Schinne-van Ruster to Catharina van Schinne, 5 December 1774. 67



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The content of printed mourning letters and letters of condolence Not only the outward appearance of mourning letters and letters of condolence was subject to rules; this also held for the contents. At the end of the eighteenth century, Le Francq van Berkhey had this to say about mourning letters: ‘These days one can buy customized letters for this purpose at booksellers’ shops; but in the majority of cases the bereaved compose a letter themselves, which they then have printed on black-edged paper’.71 The mere fact that pre-printed mourning letters were available to buy suggests that the content of such letters was fairly standard. Although many mourning letters resemble one another, the content did also vary from one period to another. Sturkenboom has noted that printed mourning letters in the second half of the eighteenth century were personal and emotional in nature. From the mid-nineteenth century, printed mourning letters changed from ‘extensive, emotional announcements to short notifications of a sober nature’.72 One example of a standard printed mourning letter is the following, from the Hubrecht family archives, dating from 1847. The body of the letter is printed, but the salutation, address, and concluding sentence were added by hand: Honourable Lady! Dearest cousin! It is my sad duty to inform you, honourable lady, that it has pleased Almighty God today to bring to an end the life of my beloved husband, the honourable Meester Cornelis Constantijn van Valkenburg, Former Alderman and Director of the Post Office in Haarlem. He passed away after a slow decline in strength, at the advanced age of eighty-three years, after a happy marriage of over thirty-three years. Deeply saddened by this loss, so irreparable for me, my children, children in law and other relations, I hope, in grateful reverence to the all-knowing and beneficent Heavenly Father for all the blessings enjoyed by the deceased, to mourn his death with Christian fortitude, trusting, through the merits of our Lord and Saviour, that he has entered into everlasting glory and that for this reason for him to die is gain. Firm in my conviction that you will share in my loss, I wish that you, honourable lady, may long be spared from sad losses. ╇ Francq de Berkhey, Natuurlyke Historie, 1859. ╇D. Sturkenboom, ‘â•›“…want ware zielesmart is niet woordenrijk”. Veranderende gevoelscodes voor nabestaanden 1750–1988’, in: A. van der Zeijden ed., CultuurÂ� geschiedenis van de dood (Amsterdam 1990) 84–113, here 98. 71 72

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chapter five I have the honour, honourable lady, dearest cousin, respectfully to address you as your grieving honourable servant, C.J. van Heeckeren Wuise, widow Van Valkenburg.73

The opening sentence of a printed mourning letter always stated that it had pleased God to take a member of the family. Then the age of the deceased and the illness of which he or she had died were given in detail. As the nineteenth century progressed, mourning letters or letters of condolence gave fewer and fewer details about the deceased’s last illness. Thus a letter-writing manual published in 1806 advised mentioning ‘the nature of the illness (in just a few words)’.74 Franke notes that in death notices from 1815 onwards there is also increasingly little detail concerning an illness or cause of death.75 In addition, a man’s profession was often stated, and the duration of a marriage. If the deceased was married, it was standard to refer to him or her as ‘my dearly beloved spouse’ and to the marriage as ‘the happiest of unions’. Sometimes this was followed by a sentence typifying the character of the deceased. Then came the reasons for consolation. At the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries, these were primarily religious: the deceased had ‘exchanged this temporal life for eternal life’ and was now blessed in heaven, where the family hoped eventually to be reunited with him or her again. In the course of the nineteenth century, the sentiment was added that the memory of the many good and loving gifts of the deceased also brought comfort. It seems as though the consolation of a happier existence in the life to come was gradually replaced by this consolation of keeping the memory alive, but also by the emphasis on a ‘gentle and peaceful’ departing, which appeared in printed mourning letters from about 1840. This is in line with the image presented by Pat Jalland on the basis of British accounts of people dying written by the bereaved. Jalland observes that in the late Victorian period the ideal of the deathbed shifted from concern about the state of the dying person’s soul to an emphasis on a death free of physical suffering.76 Not only was a ‘gentle death’ important in printed mourning letters; the dying person was also praised if he or she faced death with ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 194, printed mourning letter from C.J. van Valkenburg-van Heeckeren to Antonia Hubrecht, 26 January 1847. 74 ╇ Anonymous, ‘Voorschriften tot het opstellen en schrijven van brieven’, 21. 75 ╇Franke, De dood, 33–38. 76 ╇ P. Jalland, Death in the Victorian family (Oxford 1996) 52. 73



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fortitude. The bereaved relatives who composed the mourning letter, for their part, stated their intention to bear their loss with Christian acceptance. Accepting God’s will also entailed keeping one’s emotions in check. Sturkenboom has studied both mourning letters and letters of condolence from the point of view of expressing emotions. She concludes that in the second half of the eighteenth century, the bereaved wished to express both ‘impassioned mourning’ and ‘devout acceptance’, which resulted in lengthy and emotional letters of condolence. The Romantics placed less and less emphasis on the necessity for self-control, and there was more room for grief. The words of consolation were less admonitory in tone, and placed a greater emphasis on the sender sharing in the grief of the bereaved. From the second half of the nineteenth century, curbing emotions played a more central role.77 Both the letter-writing manuals and the letters in the archives confirm this general tendency.78 At the end of the eighteenth century, the letters of condolence in the family archives did indeed reveal both strong emotions and the wish to control them. In the nineteenth-century letters, feelings were given a place, as Henriëtte Steenlack explicitly stated: Do not be ashamed to let your tears flow, for after all we may indeed weep on the graves of our dear departed, […] but do also recognize that the dear child is better looked after above, that it will be brought up better there with Jesus than you could have done here below, with the best will in the world. […] so weep not as those without hope.79

Her sister Betsy took the same view: ‘oh how fortunate the person who can be at the same time deeply feeling, resigned and accepting’.80 The consolations proffered did not change much in the period from 1770 to 1850. Several correspondents did show an awareness of the conventional nature of these consolatory words. Paul Hubrecht, for instance, wrote in a letter of condolence: ‘Just a few words to extend my sympathy to you, as one customarily says after the senseless blow that

╇ Sturkenboom, ‘â•›“…want ware zielesmart’, 90–98. ╇ See, for instance, Anonymous, Nieuwe handleiding, 34. Van der Aa, Lessen over de wellevendheid, 174. 79 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 427, Henriëtte Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht and Abrahamine Hubrecht-Steenlack, 4 April 1838. 80 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 427, Betsy Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht and Abrahamine Hubrecht-Steenlack, 3 April 1838. 77 78

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has struck us all’.81 And on the death of his young daughter Maria, Pieter Hubrecht received a letter of condolence from his good friend Storm with the following words: ‘I need not remind you of the usual and well-known consolations; you are familiar with them, and I am glad to see from your letter that you recall them to one another’.82 He then went on to sum up these conventional consolations regardless, though in his own words. Religion offered the most significant comfort. People wrote that God’s wise decisions are sometimes beyond our mortal comprehension, but that He always has our best intentions at heart. After all, whom the Lord loveth, he correcteth. Moreover, the dear departed was now in heaven and thus happier than here on earth, where he or she would perhaps have had to suffer a great deal more. Above all, however, there was comfort in the thought of the reunion of the deceased with already departed family members in heaven. According to Sturkenboom and Jalland this comfort motif of the joyful reunion was a nineteenthcentury innovation: before that the emphasis was on the joy of being reunited with God, rather than with loved ones who already dwelled in the land of the blessed.83 However, I also came across a few late-eighteenth-century letters of condolence that mention the joyful reunion with loved ones. A second consolation was the memory of the deceased. This consolation seems to have been invoked more often as the nineteenth century progressed. A third comforting phrase often used is that ‘time heals all wounds’.84 Sturkenboom suggests that the end of the nineteenth century saw a change when it came to the letter-writer expressing his or her own emotions: letter-writing manuals and etiquette books at the time advised against excessive displays of grief, suggesting eulogies about the life and virtues of the deceased instead.85 As I pointed out in the first two chapters above, criticism of egocentrism in everyday correspondence 81 ╇ GAL, FAH, suppl. II, box 19, Paul Hubrecht to Betsy and Cornélie Steenlack, 18 December 1849. 82 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 440, W. Storm to Pieter Hubrecht, 28 June 1844. 83 ╇ Sturkenboom, ‘â•›“…want ware zielesmart’, 95. Jalland, Death in the Victorian family, 310. 84 ╇Jalland, Death in the Victorian family, 315. According to Jalland, this consolation was avoided in condolences in the early and mid-nineteenth century because at that time the bereaved rejected the suggestion that they might ever forget the deceased. Since only a few of the letters I studied mention this consolation, this seems a plausible explanation. 85 ╇ Sturkenboom, ‘â•›“…want ware zielesmart’, 99.



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and in letters of congratulation is found in the advice literature before this time. I did not find any explicit prohibitions against mentioning one’s own feelings in letters of condolence. However, the letters in the archives do show that even in the first half of the nineteenth century some letter-writers felt it was more appropriate to keep themselves in the background in letters of condolence, as a friend of Pieter Hubrecht’s intimated in 1844: ‘I could write a great deal more about my brother – about myself – but this letter should be devoted entirely to you and to your circumstances’.86 It is conceivable that in addition to taking centre-stage, it was also perceived to be impolite to discuss matters other than the bereavement in a letter of condolence. The letter-writing manuals say little on this subject. In practice, however, it is striking that, in both mourning letters and letters of condolence, the response to the death of a child is often combined with discussion of more general matters. Johan SteenÂ� lack, for instance, wrote to his brother-in-law Pieter Hubrecht that his wife had had a fine delivery, but had given birth to a stillborn daughter. Although this had not been entirely unexpected, he was nevertheless disappointed. He did count himself fortunate and grateful that his wife was in good health. He continued with an account of the ‘rheumatic pain’ suffered by a family member, and congratulated Pieter on his son, who had just completed his studies.87 A few decades later, one of Paul Hubrecht’s cousins mentioned the death of his child in terms which to our eyes seem excessively dismissive. In a letter about winding up an inheritance, he mentioned in passing ‘since this week I again lost a child; otherwise all is well, as I hope it is with you too’.88 Otto Hora Siccama, too, followed up his condolences to his sister Angelique on the death of her child with a question about whether another of her daughters could speak yet. Perhaps in our eyes this may seem somewhat inappropriate, but in the second half of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century it was customary to discuss other matters besides the bereavement. It also depended on the age of the child who had died. When children died very young, shortly after birth, for instance, letters of condolence were often short, and ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 440, W. Storm to Pieter Hubrecht, 28 June 1844. ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 415, Johan Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht, 20 May 1850. 88 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 314, Egbert Thesingh to Paul Hubrecht, 14 March 1873. See also NA, CHS, inv. no. 52, Otto Hora Siccama to Jan Hora Siccama, 13 January 1849 and RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 117, A.J. Ingen Housz to Augustinus van Lanschot and Maria van Lanschot-Oomen, 14 October 1840. 86 87

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offered the consolation, apart from the fact that the child had probably been spared much suffering and was now blessed in heaven, that at least the mother still had her health. The high death rates for babies and for women in childbirth thus had an influence on the content of mourning letters and letters of condolence. If older children died, these sorts of letters were often longer and more emotional. Otto Hora Siccama did find it difficult to find the right tone to comfort his sister in the above-mentioned letter of condolence. Having adopted the accepted stance of manly self-control, he corrected himself: ‘I perhaps spoke just now with a little too much confidence of the greater strength of mind that is generally expected of a man; indeed I fear, on closer reflection, that he [Angelique’s husband Calkoen, WR] must also have been deeply affected, and perhaps even less in control of himself than you are’.89 In a subsequent letter, written two days later, Otto apologized for his first letter of condolence: to tell you that I am not at all happy with the letter I sent you a few days ago. I fear that I did not adopt a tone that could please you, or that could let you see the sincere sympathy for you and Calkoen that fills me. –All that I can add in my own defence is: I meant it better, but I did not have the talent to express such things; or rather, I was afraid to say too much or too little, and thus tied myself up in knots.90

When Otto’s brother Louis and his wife Coosje lost their son Harco, Otto also had to search for the right words: ‘Oh how can I find the words that do not seem cool in the face of the violent emotions of the first moments?’91 He consoled them with the thoughts that Harco had brightened all their lives, that the child was preserved from evil, that his death would bring them closer to one another, and that Johanna, Harco’s little sister, would be a comfort to them all. Most of these consolations are in line with the advice given by a letter-writing manual on sending a letter of condolence to parents who had just lost a child: If one has to write to a father or mother about the death of a child, one mourns with the parents; one can scarcely believe the sad tidings; this was such a beautiful, such a good, such a promising child. Yet the child is

89 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 91, Otto Hora Siccama to Angelique van Beeck Calkoen-Hora Siccama, 23 May 1837. 90 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 91, Otto Hora Siccama to Angelique van Beeck Calkoen-Hora Siccama, 25 May 1837. 91 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 90L, Otto Hora Siccama to Louis and Coosje Hora Siccama, 25 October 1838.



ceremonial correspondence239 not lost forever, the afflicted parents will see it again one day, in a better life. God perhaps gathered it to himself earlier in order to spare it many tribulations, much bitter suffering on this earth. One draws the attention of the grief-stricken to other, still more unfortunate parents.92

Due to the comfort they gave, letters of condolence were especially suitable for keeping and rereading. Thus, for instance, when Abrahamine Hubrecht’s daughter died, she received a letter from an acquaintance who had herself lost a child. With her letter, she enclosed one of the letters of condolence she had herself received at that time, in the hope that it might be a source of consolation to Abrahamine, as it had been to the original recipient.93 The function of ceremonial correspondence Strengthening bonds of friendship and disciplining In addition to comforting the family of the deceased and allowing the letter-writer to ‘vent his or her feelings’, letters of condolence also had the function of strengthening family ties and bonds of friendship. On the death of a person who formed a link between a family and familyin-law, for instance, a letter of condolence might express the hope that relations would not fade: ‘In the sincere hope that her loss will not weaken the bonds of affection between her remaining relatives, which she valued so greatly’.94 Others were of the opinion that bereavements actually drew the family circle closer together: ‘grief unites us even more than joy’.95 Precisely after one of their number has died, a group feels weakened and tries to compensate for this by sharing grief, in this way giving the group a new lease of life.96 On happier occasions, too, such as engagements, marriages and births, ceremonial letters strengthened the bonds of friendship. MoreÂ� over, the content of ceremonial letters affirmed the norms and values of the upper middle classes. Extolling domestic happiness, expressing ╇Geerling, De Nederlandsche briefsteller, 228. ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 427, M.I. Quarles van Ufford-Hoeuff to Pieter Hubrecht and Abrahamine Hubrecht-Steenlack, 1 April 1838. 94 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 240, unknown sender to Paul Hubrecht sr., 23 February 1844. 95 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 342, Margaretha van der Goes-Hubrecht to Pieter Hubrecht, 20 December 1849. 96 ╇D. van den Bosch, ‘De laatste eer aan de eerste stand. Aristocratische begrafenisrituelen in Limburg van de 18e tot de 20e eeuw’, TvSG 17 (1980) 181–210, here 182. 92 93

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the hope that little boys would grow up to be of value to society, or the conviction that a dead man had led a useful life, as well as the constant emphasis on gratitude, all constitute core values of the upper bourgeoisie. Domesticity, family, and usefulness are viewed as typically middle-class concepts. Religion also has a firm place in this set. Ceremonial letters were eminently suitable for strengthening religious convictions. Faith and emotions were shaped in this way. There was constant repetition of how one should use one’s reason to keep joy and grief in check. For this reason, Ursula Machtemes, in her study of nineteenth-century widows of the German Bildungsbürgertum, discusses the disciplining function of letters of condolence. She concludes that letters of condolence to widows had two functions. First of all, they affirmed the bonds between the widow and her surrounding circles (society) by showing that the widow could count on the support of her family and friends. Secondly, however, they had a disciplining function: they prescribed what the widow should feel and what the rest of her life should be like. Thus letters to widows spoke of eternal love for and fidelity to the deceased husband, with the aim of discouraging the widow from remarrying; in letters to widowers, on the other hand, such ideas were not invoked.97 I did not find any letters in the Dutch family archives in which a widow was explicitly encouraged to remain unmarried and to worship her dead husband’s memory. It was indeed striking, however, that in mourning letters in the Hubrecht family archives, widowers depicted themselves and their children as helpless. This terminology was also often adopted in letters of condolence. This might implicitly indicate a wish to remarry. Incidentally, letters of condolence did have a disciplining function in the sense that they prescribed to what degree it was permissible to display emotions in mourning. Men as senders As far as gender aspects are concerned, there is one other matter to note regarding the sex of the senders of ceremonial letters. We already saw in Chapter 1 that many contemporaries viewed correspondence as a woman’s task. A number of historians (and anthropologists) have also described it as being above all women who maintained family contacts, 97 ╇ U. Machtemes, Leben zwischen Trauer und Pathos. Bildungsbürgerliche Witwen im 19. Jahrhundert (Osnabrück 2001) 249–250.



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including through correspondence.98 De Nijs, in his study of the nineteenth-century bourgeoisie of Rotterdam finds it impossible either to confirm or deny this hypothesis. Fewer letters from women than from men have been preserved in the family archives he consulted. In this context, De Nijs points out that correspondence by women, which was often viewed as less important, was more likely to be destroyed.99 It is indeed the case that family archives virtually always centre on men with an important position in society. Nevertheless, the presence of letters by women also varies from one family archive to another. The part women originally took in a family’s correspondence also seems to have varied. One way to investigate the role of women in keeping the family together by means of correspondence is to focus on the period immediately after a marriage. Did anything change in the correspondence habits of women and men? Did the new wife take over the task of maintaining the correspondence with her family-in-law from her husband? Although a lack of suitable archive material makes it difficult to find a clear answer to this question, several cases do throw some light on the matter. Pauline van der Kun wrote to her future sister-in-law, Theodora van Lanschot, that she was delighted that she would soon be able to number her among her sisters and that, now the marriage was imminent, she was already entering into correspondence with her familyin-law to be: ‘It is infinitely pleasing to me that I will soon number you among my sisters. Now that the moment has come for you to marry dear Henri, I am seizing the first occasion that presents itself to commence correspondence with my revered new family’.100 Before his marriage with Pauline, Henri van Lanschot maintained a frequent and intimate correspondence with his sister Theodora. After the marriage, Pauline seems to have taken over the task: the family archives preserve only letters from her during this period. In this case, it does indeed seem to be the wife who maintains the bond with her family-in-law through correspondence. ╇98 ╇M. di Leonardo, ‘The female world of cards and holidays: women, families, and the work of kinship’, Signs 12 (1987) 440–453. Gillis, A world, 77–78. E. Joris and H. Witzig, ‘Die Pflege des Beziehungsnetzes als frauenspezifische Form von “Sociabilité”â•›’, in: H.U. Jost and A. Tanner eds, Geselligkeit, Sozietäten und Vereine (Zürich 1991) 139–158, here 141. ╇99 ╇De Nijs, In veilige haven, 251. 100 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 231, Pauline van der Kun to Theodora van Lanschot, 15 April 1831.

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The Van Lanschot family archive includes another letter that resembles the one quoted above. When Maria and Augustinus van Lanschot were on their honeymoon in 1832, they too wrote to Augustinus’s sister Theodora. Maria was a friend of Theodora’s even before marrying her brother, but still she seems to have perceived a difference: ‘I feel a very great pleasure, my dear Dorothy, at being able to write to you as a sister. As a friend, you have occupied a place in my heart for a long time – would that I may merit the place that I desire in yours’.101 Here it is clearly a matter of a rite of passage: after the marriage the women become sisters. The latter quotation does not reveal whether this also marked the beginning of a correspondence. Pauline or Maria may have written to their future sisters-in-law before they were married, but no such letters have been preserved. It is clear, however, that in each of the above cases it was the ‘newcomer’ to the family who wrote a letter to commence a new relationship with her new sister-in-law. Jalland observed precisely the opposite: in families of the English nobility, it was the bridegroom’s female relatives who greeted his future bride as a new sister or daughter by writing warm letters of welcome.102 However, there were also families in which the correspondence habits scarcely changed after a marriage. Unlike the women in the Van Lanschot family, Otto Hora Siccama continued to write to his mother with the same frequency after his marriage in 1839. His new wife did not take over the correspondence with either her mother-in-law or other members of the family. As a general rule, many men seem to have continued to exchange letters with their own families, even after they were married. Sometimes married couples composed letters to family members together. Since many letters have been lost, it is difficult to reach a definitive conclusion about women’s part in family correspondence. Practices seem to differ. What is striking, however, is that it was men, not women, who were responsible for ceremonial correspondence. Birthday greetings and letters of condolence were generally written by men. If an immediate relative was involved, husband and wife did indeed each write a letter, especially in the case of a bereavement. However, in the case of more distant relatives or acquaintances, it was virtually always the husband who took on the task of sending a ceremonial letter on 101 ╇RANB, FAVL, inv. no. 225, Augustinus van Lanschot and Maria van LanschotOomen to Theodora van Lanschot, 25 May 1832. 102 ╇ P. Jalland, Women, marriage and politics 1860–1914 (Oxford 1986) 30–31.



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behalf of a married couple. Sometimes the husband composed the letter and his wife signed it afterwards. Married women only took up their pens in exceptional circumstances, such as if their husbands were absent or ill. Mrs Hoynck van Papendrecht-Elgens, for instance, explained why she was the one to congratulate Pieter Hubrecht on the birth of his son: ‘Since my husband has been prevented from writing to you every day due to pressures of work, and yet did not wish to postpone it still further, he asked me to do so’.103 Mrs Van Hogendorp-van Citters also wrote her own letter of congratulation: ‘I am taking up the pen on behalf of my husband, since I wished to write to you myself ’.104 The only possible explanation for this pattern seems to be that on ceremonial occasions men took their place as the head of the family, in this way perpetuating the ties with other families. Cult of sincerity In addition to the social aspect, however, ceremonial letters also had a private or individual side. Births, for instance, were not an occasion for public celebration in the nineteenth century. It was no longer a matter of the whole village turning out; birth announcements were sent in the private sphere.105 Cultural-historical studies about death, too, have often observed a privatization process from the eighteenth century onwards: following in the footsteps of Ariès, various authors have concluded that death was increasingly banished from public life and established itself more in private circles.106 P.D. ‘t Hart comments that it is less personal to print a mourning letter than to write it by hand. Since hand-written mourning letters were only sent to close relatives, this might seem to indicate that the mourning process was being confined to the circle of intimates. Van ‘t Hart views the request in many printed mourning letters to be spared from receiving letters of condolence (expressed, according to Franke, in death notices from 1795 to 1835107) 103 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 426, G.H. Hoynck van Papendrecht Elgens to Pieter Hubrecht, 11 November 1836. 104 ╇GAL, FAH, inv. no. 422, I.I. van Hogendorp-Citters to Pieter Hubrecht, 1 December 1829. 105 ╇Gillis, A world of their own making, 192. 106 ╇M. Duijvendak, ‘Elite families between public and private life: some trends and theses’, in: Schuurman and Spierenburg, Private domain, 72–88. Van den Bosch, ‘De laatste eer’, 202–203. 107 ╇Franke, De dood, 46.

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as a further indication of a desire to exclude more distant acquaintances from the mourning process.108 We saw above that the distinction between printing and writing by hand was indeed used to mark degrees of intimacy within one’s circle of acquaintance. In this sense, we may speak of demarcating the private sphere with regard to various solemn occasions. At the same time, certainly well into the first half of the nineteenth century, an announcer was hired, which might seem to indicate that the public aspect of death and birth remained significant. Another way to study the emergence of the private sphere is to focus on the emergence of the individual. Franke found, for instance, that from 1825 onwards, but especially around 1835, death notices frequently requested people to refrain from wearing mourning because this was mere outward display, whereas it was the feelings within that should count. What this amounts to is discouraging the public exhibition of grief. This reference to public displays of grief occurred less frequently in such notices after 1835, and by 1875 it had disappeared altogether.109 At the end of the nineteenth century, people were apparently no longer worried about whether external displays of grief were in tune with the internal emotions of the bereaved. The emphasis on sincere emotions and a possible discrepancy between exterior and interior were also of great importance when it came to ceremonial letters. In this vein, Claudius, in his letter-writing manual, alluded to the danger of hypocrisy that lurked in courtesy letters, such as letters of congratulation or condolence: These sorts of letters are among the most difficult: the aridity and uniformity of the material, on the one hand, and the hackneyed treatment of daily occurring circumstances of life, on the other, are the reason that cases of this kind offer very few new viewpoints. […] They are products one can scarcely avoid manufacturing, and which mostly bear the stamp of deceit, hypocrisy, self-interest and toadyism. If such letters be addressed to friends or relations, let sincerity and truth prevail: one should write what one feels; if addressed to prominent persons, or our betters, let them be brief: without betraying any intimacy, one should express the feelings of one’s mind without affectation, and above all avoid high-sounding words.110

Claudius contrasts truth and naturalness with hypocrisy and affectation. An anonymous writer of a letter-writing manual published in ╇ ‘t Hart, ‘De eerste overlijdensadvertenties’, 261. ╇Franke, De dood, 48–49. 110 ╇Claudius, Volledig brievenboek, 144. 108 109



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1811 also brings up this subject. He feels that in letters of congratulation ‘contentment and happiness [should] prevail; feeling must be revealed, either genuinely meant or dissembled; in the former case, the heart itself rejoices in it; in the latter, etiquette requires it’.111 Not only the authors of letter-writing manuals warned of the danger of hypocrisy in ceremonial letters; many correspondents were also aware of it. They also made a distinction between ceremonial letters as a ‘duty’ and letters that were ‘truly meant’. Cornélie Steenlack, for instance, wrote in a birthday greeting: ‘Do not think either that it is only duty that brings me to do so; rather it is my heart which dictates these words to me’.112 Baroness De Constant Rebecque reproached her son Victor for not sending New Year greetings to his parents: ‘A stiff, meaningless duty letter to strangers I find very excessive; those kinds of letters are worthless, but for the Christian a day of reflection about the past is a day of humility combined with praising and giving thanks’.113 Letters of congratulation (on the birth of a child, for instance) were also viewed by contemporaries as a duty: ‘Since I wished to answer the announcement of your dear wife’s delivery myself, not merely as a duty, but from sincere engagement’.114 Writing ‘from the heart’ was contrasted with ceremonial letters that were written ‘according to the rules’: ‘You will not take it ill of me, dear friends, that I do not write you a ceremonial letter of felicitation according to the rules’.115 A cousin of Pieter Hubrecht’s also excused himself from the letter-writing conventions: ‘Excuse this doggerel, but I had no wish or desire to write you a ceremonial answer; I always find that so stiff ’.116 A letter of condolence might also be viewed as too conventional: ‘excuse this writing […] I have written to you as my heart inspired me. I felt no desire to send you a ceremonial answer; I did not feel disposed to do so’.117 It seems as though correspondents tried in vain to struggle free of clichés, like Paul Hubrecht, for instance: May God grant you many more happy, many good days in your life, and if possible every new birthday fewer thoughts of the grave, but rather ╇Anonymous, De keizerlijke secretaris, 133. ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 406, Cornélie Steenlack to Pieter Hubrecht, 17 January 1834. 113 ╇NA, FADCR, inv. no. 120B, Julie de Constant Rebecque-d’Ablaing van Giessenburg to Victor de Constant Rebecque, 8 January 1854. 114 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 423, Mrs Helmolt-van Rossem to Pieter Hubrecht, 3 January 1832. 115 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 422, H.A. de Veer to Pieter Hubrecht, 1 December 1829. 116 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 423, Van Lanschot to Pieter Hubrecht, 27 December 1831. 117 ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 443, Van Lanschot Hubrecht to Pieter Hubrecht, 10 December 1849. 111 112

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Ambrosius Hubrecht sent his brother Paul ‘a more proper letter than usual’ on his birthday. Having listed all the standard good wishes, he wrote, oddly enough: ‘It is perhaps not very elegant style. I am not to blame for that, I just wrote to you plainly as I mean, and did not think up a pleasant-sounding, melodious, ear-caressing, standard phrase of congratulation, which would not, I think, have been pleasing to you’.119 ‘Proper’, ‘stiff ’, ‘according to the rules’, and ‘ceremonial’ were contrasted with ‘informal’, ‘sincere’, and ‘unaffected’. A few letters between Otto and Jan Hora Siccama, in which they commented on another’s style of writing, reveal what stylistic ideals may have underlain such contrasts. In 1835, when the two brothers were already in their thirties, Otto accused Jan of adopting an affected style in his letters. In Otto’s view, this style was only appropriate for ceremonial correspondence. Jan acknowledged this, but pointed out in his own defence that he used this style deliberately: he did not wish only to aspire to a ‘pure form’ on special occasions such as New Year, marriages and births, but wanted to write ‘in his Sunday best’ every day. He viewed this as a sign of refinement and courtesy.120 Four years later, a similar debate blew up in the correspondence between the brothers, which shows even more clearly what Otto’s stylistic ideal was and how Jan’s writing ran counter to it. Jan sent Otto the following letter, telling him of his plans to get married: Dearest brother! See here my actual communication of my intended marriage. I hope in due time, you, as one, of all, to whom I have until now accorded the powers of discernment, will become acquainted with your future sister-in-law. I shall not describe her to you, any more than I shall justify my choice. Her heart has responded to mine, and that has been enough for me for the time being.121

Otto answered the following day: May I then pour out my heart again, to say something unpleasant to you in the midst of the happiness that you radiate at this time? – But I would ╇ GAL, FAH, suppl. II, box 19, Paul Hubrecht to Betsy Steenlack, 29 March 1852. ╇ GAL, FAH, inv. no. 675, Ambrosius Hubrecht to Paul Hubrecht, 17 November 1848. 120 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 73, Jan Hora Siccama to Otto Hora Siccama, 25 April 1835. 121 ╇ NA, CHS, inv. no. 73, Jan Hora Siccama to Otto Hora Siccama, 27 March 1839. 118 119



ceremonial correspondence247 suffocate if I did not say it to you.- Proff. van der Hoeven recently gave a talk here about Buffon’s saying: ‘le stile c’est l’homme’, and argued the truth of it. I was much inclined to agree. – Now, however, I would present your latest letter to him as incontrovertible proof to the contrary; for how could anyone who knows you recognize you, your character, your normal manner of being in those compositions? Believe me: as a true lawyer you sacrifice the content to the form: – it is study, it is art; you violate your nature. To such an extent that the one and only line in Angelique’s letter depicts you more and better. And who, on reading your letter of yesterday to me, your brother, the letter in which you further confirm to me the fulfilment of your most heartfelt desires, would recognize in that style the man of whom Louise writes to me so charmingly: ‘Hora is in the throes of inexpressible gaiety; – he is already rejoicing about the two [chocolate] “H’s, he will presently receive on St Nicholas” day’? – Here is the true, the ‘unsophisticated’ [in English – WR] Jan Hora! – The lovable, the simple, the natural Jan Hora! – In his compositions, for I cannot honestly call them letters, it is the Jan Hora with a veneer, the Jan Hora of the perfect Betsy. – I want, saprebleu!, to shake you! – I’ve set my heart on it. You can do better! And you will do better! – Just you wait! Your honest courtship and then the snare of marriage will shake all that affectation off you! ‘Quantum distet ab Inacho Codrus,’122 that much is your present style an adopted one and not your own, which, in the long term, is the only one in which you will be able to succeed and live up to. As Boileau puts it: ‘All too often a spirit flatters itself, and he who loves himself is mistaken about his genius and does not know himselfâ•›’.123

Otto’s stylistic ideal was that of Buffon: ‘le style c’est l’homme’. This entails that the letter-writer’s style should reveal his or her personality. According to Otto, Jan’s writing style did not reflect his character. Precisely in a letter in which Jan announced that he was going to get married, Otto would have expected unalloyed happiness, not affectation and studied phrases. This was not the ‘true’ Jan, who was ‘simple’ and ‘natural’. It is questionable whether this was what Jan was really like, or whether Otto is here holding up a second stylistic ideal, namely of a simple and natural style. ‘Natural’ here also has the meaning of ‘in keeping with a unique personality’, whereas in the eighteenth century ‘naturalness’ referred precisely to the shared nature of all human beings.124 122 ╇ ‘as distant as Inachus from Codrus’, Horace, Odes 3.19. Inachus was the son of Oceanus, Codrus the last king of Athens. 123 ╇ ‘Mais souvent un esprit qui se flatte et qui s’aime/ Méconnaît son génie et s’ignore soi-même’. Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (1636–1711), L’art Poétique (1674); Chant premier. NA, CHS, inv. no. 52, Otto Hora Siccama to Jan Hora Siccama, 28 March 1839. 124 ╇Sennett, The fall of public man, 96.

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In any case, naturalness, simplicity and sincerity are the ideals for letter-writing style in the first half of the nineteenth century. And particularly when writing ceremonial letters, the risk of lapsing into clichés was great, which heightened writers’ concern to make a sincere impression. Gillis has suggested that the fear of coming across as insincere was typically Protestant,125 but my archive material demonstrates that Catholics were also concerned about this, especially in ceremonial correspondence, though they did express such qualms less in daily correspondence. The English traveller Bowring noted that the ‘false coinage of compliments’ was more common in the Netherlands than in England.126 Perhaps the widespread fear of insincerity among the Dutch correspondents in the present study was a reaction to this. The ideal of sincerity encompassed more than just letter-writing style. Streng, for instance, has pointed out the importance of sincerity as a criterion for appreciation of art in the mid-nineteenth century. Critics valued the personal experience of the artist as the basis for his art. Here too the adage ‘le style c’est l’homme’ applied: the style was to be determined not by the subject, or the intended public, as in the case of rhetoric, but by the artist.127 We can even go a step further and extend the ideal of sincerity not only to art in general in the Netherlands, but to a new type of personality that emerged in the nineteenth century. The sociologist Sennett, for instance, has linked the emergence of a capitalist, secular urban culture after the fall of the ancien régime with the emergence of the unique personality. Whereas in the eighteenth century the predominant idea was that of the natural character, a nature shared by all human beings and independent of outward manifestations, in the nineteenth century precisely these outer manifestations were seen as the exact reflection of a unique personality. If one was well acquainted with a person’s dress, speech and behaviour, one also knew his or her personality. In the previous chapters, for instance, we came across the idea that neat handwriting was a sign of an orderly personality. Where in the eighteenth century the spoken word still had meaning in itself (speech as a sign), a century later speech was understood as a symbol, an allusion to the ╇Gillis, A world, 63. ╇Bowring, Brieven, 270–271. 127 ╇T. Streng, ‘â•›“Waar waarachtige poëzie mij aangrijpt”. “Oprechtheid” in de Nederlandse kunst- en literatuurbeschouwing rond het midden van de negentiende eeuw’, TNTL 111 (1995) 230–240, here 232. 125 126



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speaker as a person. People constantly wondered whether gestures or words did indeed spring directly from the unique character of the person speaking. Everything that was said in public was decoded by the listeners. Nineteenth-century speakers thus lost their spontaneity in public, because everything they said could be traced back to their own, most intimate personality. In the eighteenth century, speakers could still be spontaneous in public, because the performance was separate from the private individual; it was bound by conventions. In the nineteenth century, however, spontaneity was contrasted with convention, and that led to reticence from the fear of saying the wrong thing, as this might then be interpreted as a reflection of an unrefined personality.128 Karen Halttunen, too, has noted a cult of sincerity among the American middle classes halfway through the nineteenth century. In the dynamic immigrant society of North America, especially in the major cities, social identity – recognizing and placing people – could prove problematic. Large cities afforded anonymity, and the unlimited possibilities for individuals to ‘make it’ ensured that society was constantly in flux. For this reason, there was a fear of hypocrisy, of people who were not what they seemed. The middle classes wanted all social utterances to express true, sincere, inner emotions. However, this ideal of sincerity was rather at odds with the aim of coming across as refined and collected. In order to serve the ideal of self-control as well as that of sincerity, Halttunen suggests, in about 1830 the American middle classes came up with the idea known as ‘genteel performance’: a system of polite behaviour that combined self-discipline with an apparently natural, simple, and sincere manner of going about things. The inner substance of polite social behaviour was seen as natural and sincere, but observing the outward forms of good manners and etiquette was a sign of proper self-control. The ultimate effect of this was that in about 1850 the ideal of sincerity was itself formalized to become a norm of etiquette. After 1850, people recognized the necessity of etiquette to regulate social life, and were no longer worried about whether such precepts were hypocritical. Letter-writing was an important aspect of genteel performance: ‘The genteel art of letter-writing demanded above all a controlled communication of proper sentiments’.129 The contents of ╇Sennett, The fall of public man, 64–65, 80–87, 152–153. ╇ K. Halttunen, Confidence men and painted women. A study of middle-class culture in America, 1830–1870 (New Haven/London 1982) 93, 121. 128 129

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the letter should demonstrate sincerity, but its form should evidence self-control and standardization. Writing letters of condolence was the ultimate occasion for showing self-discipline in emotional self-expression, as well as for self-improvement.130 The ceremonial letters discussed in this chapter also fit into this pattern of genteel performance: many letter-writers felt the need to emphasize that they sincerely meant what they wrote, but at the same time they were stuck in the clichéd trammels of the ceremonial letter. The contents had to be sincere, and in keeping with the unique personality of the sender, but at the same time the letter had to contain all the components demanded by the etiquette of ceremonial correspondence. Despite all the criticisms of the clichéd and hypocritical nature of ceremonial letters, people continued to uphold their importance. It was not until the end of the nineteenth century that long ceremonial letters began to give way to shorter cards. In this way, as Halttunen describes, etiquette became so formalized that the degree of sincerity of the contents was no longer very relevant. Conclusion At the end of the eighteenth century and well into the nineteenth century, criticism of ceremonial correspondence was a constant topic of discussion. Both commentators and correspondents themselves viewed writing such letters as a duty, and their contents as clichéd and sometimes even hypocritical. Nevertheless, few dared to advocate abolishing these types of letters. The function of ceremonial correspondence in affirming the bonds of friendship and strengthening middle-class and religious values rendered it indispensable as social cement. Besides keeping family and friends together, ceremonial letters could also serve as a means of distinction. If a given habit in ceremonial correspondence became the norm in a certain class, the higher classes came up with a different custom to distinguish themselves from their inferiors. Letter-writers also used ceremonial correspondence as a means to mark degrees of intimacy within their circle of family and friends. Close family and good friends received hand-written letters, acquaintances merely printed ones. Etiquette stipulated that printed

╇Halttunen, Confidence men, 134.

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announcements did not require a response. This distinction in degrees of intimacy may be a sign of a process of privatization. The language used in correspondence also points to emerging taboos: pregnancy was referred to in increasingly euphemistic terms in everyday correspondence in the nineteenth century. Similarly, detailed descriptions of illnesses were no longer included in printed mourning letters, and it became improper to include explicit references to future offspring in marriage congratulations. This can be interpreted as increasing prudishness. On the other hand, until the mid-nineteenth century, the elite continued to employ public announcers, and the funerals of important local personages continued to be a public attraction.131 There is no clear answer to the question of whether one can really speak of increasing  ‘privatization’ of births, marriages and deaths. One can certainly observe a tension between the public and private aspects of such events. This tension finds expression particularly in the cult of sincerity in connection with ceremonial letters. Many of these types of letters attest to the writer’s wish to make the inevitably clichéd content of such letters come across as sincere. The underlying concept here is the idea of each individual’s unique personality, which should be able to be read from the person’s appearance, and therefore also from clothing (including mourning) and letters. This idea grew up in the nineteenth century, and has sometimes been described as the emergence of the ego. The desire for the sincere individual’s inner being to shine through in letters became problematic in the context of clichéd ceremonial correspondence. This tension would only be resolved at the end of the nineteenth century by substituting short cards for long ceremonial letters. Etiquette itself, observing the formalities, had by then become more important than ensuring harmony between outer form and the sincerely intended content within.

131

╇Duijvendak, ‘Elite families’, 86. Van den Bosch, ‘De laatste eer’, 190–191.

Conclusion This study focused on letter-writing. Unlike other historical studies, which tend to use letters as a source of historical content, here the central issues were the writing process, the acquisition of correspondence skills, and the norms and values that were passed on through letter-writing. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, letters served not only as a means of communication, but also a means of socialization. This aspect came to the fore particularly in the chapters about children’s and adolescents’ letters, as well as the chapter on ceremonial correspondence. Children learned from an early age that a neat letter was a mirror of an orderly character, and they were urged to ensure that their letters exhibited neatness, respect for their elders, and punctuality. Young men were encouraged by their peers to adopt student jargon, which consisted of colloquialisms and typical students’ vocabulary. Forming intimate friendships through and in correspondence was also characteristic for this age-group. Ceremonial correspondence, finally, was used as a means to affirm values such as piety, or benefit to society. Another aspect examined was the performative function of letters, the ability of correspondence to actually create relationships within the exchange of letters before they exist independently of the written text. This was apparent from the intimate relationship parents tried to create in correspondence with their children, from the romantic friendships in letters exchanged by adolescents, and from correspondence between fiancés, in which the relationship between the future married couple took shape before it was actually constituted off the page. Furthermore, it was striking that letters were used to control and channel the emotions. Women especially tried to instil the proper emotions in themselves by rehearsing them in letters. In that sense, correspondence also functioned as a means of disciplining oneself. Pietist Protestants, finally, used their letters to deepen their religious feelings; through correspondence, an intimate relationship developed between the sender, the recipient, and God, which led to a stronger experience of faith. The performative and socializing functions of letters are closely connected with the times in which they are written. It is essential to study egodocuments in their historical context, rather than subjecting them to anachronistic analysis. The period between 1770 and 1850 saw a

conclusion253 number of developments that influenced the practice of letter-writing. First, in 1751, the popular German author Gellert argued in favour of a natural style in letter-writing. The Dutch translation of Gellert’s work came out in 1776. Throughout the last decades of the eighteenth century, and especially in the first few decades of the nineteenth century, there were frequent calls for a new, natural, simple and informal style. There seems to have been a turning-point in the culture of Dutch letter-writing in about 1810–1830: reviewers in that period contrasted the new, natural style with an antiquated, stiff style. The authors of letter-writing manuals also expressed disapproval of a self-centred style. In the same period, correspondence between parents and children reveals traces of a new pedagogical ideal, in which the child was to be treated as a child, and allowed to develop naturally and gradually. ParÂ� ents wanted the correspondence to be intimate and confiding, but in practice this intimacy was limited by the boundaries of propriety. Parents also urged their children to adopt a natural style in their letters. Here too ‘natural’ might mean uncontrived, but also ‘fitting for a child’ or ‘proper, as befits the elite’. This reveals the inherent contradictions of this pedagogical ideal: parents wished to bring up their children in line with the new pedagogical insights (by emphasizing childlikeness and naturalness), but at the same time they wanted to ensure that they grew up well-mannered and aware of their place in society. Moreover, the fact that romantic friendship is so prevalent in adolescents’ letters reveals the influence of Romanticism, despite the letter-writers’ own ambivalence about the term ‘romantic’. In this sense, the NetherÂ�lands did not escape Romanticism. Finally, historians have viewed the birth of the individual and the emergence of the private sphere as characteristic of the late eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century. Though it remains very difficult to define these terms precisely, I found some indications in support of this view. The intimate bond that parents aim to constitute in correspondence with their children, for instance, is an example of creating a private sphere. The concern about sincerity, which comes to the fore especially in ceremonial correspondence, attests to the importance attached to the individual. This also emerges in Buffon’s popular adage ‘le style c’est l’homme’: the individual character of the letter-writer should be reflected in his or her letter-writing style. The censure of egocentrism in letter-writing, which we encountered both in letter-writing manuals and several letters written in the early nineteenth century, also seems to be related to the emergence of the ‘ego’ – in this case, in the sense of a reaction against it.

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Nevertheless, this new central position of the individual remains at odds with public, or semi-public, ideals of propriety and etiquette. This is again apparent from letters exchanged between parents and children, in which the exhortation to write naturally and openly often turns out to mean ‘with propriety, as befits one’s social standing’. But in ceremonial letters, too, such as birthday greetings, individuals strove almost desperately for sincerity, but could not or would not break free of the constrictions of the cliché-ridden standard letter. Further research would be needed to establish whether etiquette did indeed become more rigid at the end of the nineteenth century, as several etiquette books seem to suggest. It seems as though the concern for sincerity, for harmony between outward behaviour and inner feelings, is no longer an issue in this period. The cult of sincerity appears to have reached its peak in about 1830–1850. In addition to the importance of the individual and the private sphere, then, propriety and etiquette, as well as friendship and family ties, play a significant role. Letters served not only to form the individual, but also to express class differences. As we saw above, this was especially the case in ceremonial correspondence. The nobility and the upper middle classes could use the difference between written and printed ceremonial letters to indicate class distinctions. And within the elite, too, this difference between printing and writing letters, either in part or in their entirety, could serve to establish a hierarchy of intimacy in one’s circle of friends. Bourdieu has pointed out the function of language as a means of distinction, a way to express power. Language usage often reflects the social position of the speaker: a speaker of the dominant class can permit himself to be careless, lazy, or nonchalant in his use of language, since his position of power is so evident that even expressions that are normally associated with the lower classes will not detract from this position. Bourdieu’s theories are equally applicable to the written language of the elite. First of all, there is the very important concept of naturalness. Not only did every letter-writing manual extol the natural style, but the children of the elite were urged from an early age to write natural letters. This natural style is also associated with the wish to exude nonchalance. The viewer, listener or reader should not be able to divine how much effort it takes to uphold the proper style or appearance. Secondly, we can deduce from their use of colloquialisms, invectives, and scurrilous jokes that adolescents of the elite could take the liberty

conclusion255 to be sloppy in their use of language, a usage which might be associated with the lower classes. The assurance of the position of the upper middle classes and nobility afforded young men of this standing the freedom to use this type of vocabulary in their letters. Thirdly, analysis of a few letters written by correspondents from the lower classes, such as Pieter Hubrecht’s gardener, shows that they used humble and formal language. Although my sample number of letters sent by members of the lower classes is small, this nevertheless does seem to point in the direction of the hypercorrect and careful use of language Bourdieu associates with speakers of the petty bourgeoisie, who are thus more correct than their social superiors.1 The elite’s position of power thus seems to be reflected in their use of language in letters. We should bear in mind, however, that letters from subordinates to their employers of a higher class are difficult to compare with correspondence amongst members of the elite. We cannot rule out the possibility that members of the lower classes also wrote informally and carelessly when corresponding amongst themselves. However, the emphasis on writing naturally, on casualness, may well have been characteristic of the elite. For the upper middle classes and nobility, correspondence was such a matter of course that it should give an appearance of effortlessness. For the lower classes, on the other hand, writing a letter could be quite an achievement, so why should this not be reflected in the fruit of that labour, the letter? Although in ceremonial correspondence, especially, we do find some evidence of typical bourgeois values such as religious devotion and being of benefit to society, on the whole it seems more appropriate to talk of the letter-writing culture of the elite, i.e. both the upper middle classes and the nobility. I observed very few differences, in terms of writing culture, between the De Constant Rebecques, who were members of the nobility, and the families of the high bourgeoisie. However, since I studied far more letters from upper middle-class families than from aristocratic senders and recipients, further research would be needed to establish what is typically bourgeois, and what is simply customary for the elite in general. Rather than class differences, it was gender differences that were most striking in virtually all the areas considered in this study. Even in the theory of letter-writing, a sharp distinction was drawn between men 1

╇ Bourdieu, ‘De economie’, 112.

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and women on the basis of gender difference theory. Women’s letters were praised because women were said to display their emotions in them, and because female writers were thought to have an instinctive command of the natural style. In practice, the differences between letters by girls and those by boys become increasingly marked during  adolescence. It is no coincidence that sloppy language usage is found virtually exclusively in letters by young men. Girls seem not to have dared to deviate much from polite language. The gender differences reinforced through correspondence, such as neat hand-writing and expressing proper feminine emotions, were accorded increasing importance during adolescence. The manner in which masculine and feminine behaviour was taught, practised and internalized is one example of how the analytical distinction between theory and practice can fail to do justice to the historical reality. It is not the case that advice literature enshrines norms, and that these are then imposed on actual practice as revealed in Â�correspondence. The relationship between theory and practice, between letter-writing manuals and exchanges of letters, is a great deal more complex. Otto Hora Siccama’s reproofs to his younger sister Angelique show that letters, too, could sometimes bear a resemblance to etiquette manuals and could propagate norms. I found little evidence of correspondents of the elite making copious use of letter-writing manuals or etiquette books. They were more likely to pick up the rules of good letter-writing from family members. This meant that the family was a significant instrument of socialization. Many of the precepts of the letter-writing manuals can be found in correspondence practice, but this practice had its own norms, which never surface in the manuals. There is not a single letter-writing manual, for instance, that prescribes who should receive a handwritten or a printed letter to inform them of an important occasion. It thus remains somewhat of a mystery exactly who did read etiquette books and letterwriting manuals. In light of the large print-runs and many reprints, there must have been a considerable market for such works. Perhaps their main readership was among the lower classes, whose members used advice literature to make their way up the social ladder. In any case, the status of advice literature and its relation to actual pracÂ�tice should be approached more critically than has hitherto been the case in historical research. The concept of Â�appropriation, as applied in historical anthropology, proves helpful here. After all, it emerges clearly that different readers may adopt a given notion from advice literature

conclusion257 but give it individual interpretations. ‘Naturalness’ is one such example. From the mid-eighteenth century, when Gellert gave new meaning to the term, it was adopted by many correspondents. However, depending on the situation in hand, the term was given a wide range of meanings, including ‘fitting’, ‘child-like’ and ‘uncontrived’. The culture of correspondence, in the broadest sense, is a fruitful area for historical research, and there is a great deal more to explore. Here I am referring not only to exchanges of letters between members of the lower classes, but particularly to the writing culture within government bodies and within clubs or societies and associations. The link between letter-writing culture, modernization and civil society in the Netherlands has not yet been examined in detail.2 But where the elite is concerned, too, one could place the subject of correspondence in perspective by comparing letters with other types of texts from family archives, such as diaries and notebooks. Future research of this kind could draw on the insights that emerge from the present study. Egodocuments must be studied against the background of the specific characteristics of the period in which they were written. Comparison with the relevant advice literature, but also with other contemporary sources such as journals or newspapers, could also be beneficial here. Moreover, it is important always to bear in mind the function of the writing in question. When studying correspondence, the functions of socialization and performativity emerged as extremely important. Letters did not simply record everyday reality. Correspondence was used precisely to impart norms and values and to form social relations.

2 ╇ For Germany, see I.F. McNeely, The emancipation of writing. German civil society in the making,1790s–1820s (Berkeley and Los Angeles 2003).

Appendix 1 Table 1.╇ Language of the letters Language

Amount of letters

Dutch French French/Dutch Latin Latin/Dutch German English Other1

1775 (77%) 394 (17%) 76 (╇ 3%) 31 (╇ 1%) 12 (╇ 1%) 4 (