Payne pops the question ...
Reading over the letters among
Mary, Payne, and Irving, I think it’s clear that Mary had no romantic feelings
for Payne whatsoever. She liked him—he was a “friend”—but his principal value
to her comprised two things: his friendship with Irving (in whom Mary was very interested); his ability to
score theater tickets for her (and her friends) on practically a moment’s
notice. Here’s a fairly typical example, Mary to Payne:
My
dear Payne,—I shall be most happy to see you at the theatre this evening,
though I hope to make such arrangements as to preclude your thinking it
necessary to escort me …. I am extremely obliged to you for the trouble you
take for me.
Ever yours, M.S.[1]
If I were, say, an eighth-grade
boy who received a note (or, today, a text) from the Object of My Affection, a
message that said, basically, Thanx for
the tix—no need for you to take me, I think even I—dense, dense, dense
I—would recognize that I was being, well, used—though
abused is probably a more accurate
term.
But Payne was so besotted that
it took him a while—and something far
more explicit and direct—for him to recognize the obvious. And surrender.
On the evening of June 25, 1825,
Payne and Mary went for a walk, and Payne, unable to endure the uncertainty any
longer, declared his affections and desires. And Mary told him she liked him as
a friend—the words no man in the history of the species has ever wanted to
hear. And then Mary (was she really so clueless about the workings of a man’s
heart?) asked Payne if he would mind, you know, working as her agent to
discover if Washington Irving might be interested in her.
And Payne, no doubt crushed,
agreed.[2]
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