Sir John carried me one morning to call on Lady Denham, a dowager of
fashion, who had grown old in the trammels of the world. Though she
seems resolved to die in the harness, yet she piques herself on being
very religious, and no one inveighs against infidelity or impiety with
more pointed censure. "She has a grand-daughter," said Sir John, "who
lives with her, and whom she has trained to walk precisely in her own
steps, and which, she thinks, _is the way she should go_. The girl,"
added he, smiling, "is well looking, and will have a handsome fortune,
and I am persuaded that, as a friend, I could procure you a good
reception."
We were shown into her dressing-room, where we found her with a book
lying open before her. From a glance which I caught of the large black
letter, I saw it was a _Week's Preparation_. This book, it seems,
constantly lay open before her from breakfast to dinner, at this
season. It was Passion week. But as this is the room in which he sees
all her morning visitors, to none of whom is she ever denied, even at
this period of retreat, she could only pick up momentary snatches of
reading in the short intervals between one person bowing out and another
courtesying in. Miss Denham sat by, painting flowers.
Sir John asked her ladyship if she would go and dine in a family way
with Lady Belfield. She drew up, looked grave, and said with much
solemnity, that she should never think of dining abroad at this holy
season. Sir John said, "As we have neither cards nor company, I thought
you might as well have eaten your chicken in my house as in your own."
But though she thought it a sin to dine with a sober family, she made
herself amends for the sacrifice, by letting us see that her heart was
brimful of the world, pressed down and running over. She indemnified
herself for her abstinence from its diversions, by indulging in the only
pleasures which she thought compatible with the sanctity of the season,
uncharitable gossip, and unbounded calumny. She would not touch a card
for the world, but she played over to Sir John the whole game of the
preceding Saturday night: told him by what a shameful inattention her
partner had lost the odd trick; and that she should not have been beaten
after all, had not her adversary, she verily believed, contrived to look
over her hand.
Sir John seized the only minute in which we were alone, to ask her to
add a guinea to a little sum he was collecting for a poor tradesman with
a large family, who had been burned out a few nights ago. "His wife,"
added he, "was your favorite maid Dixon, and both are deserving people."
"Ah, poor Dixon! She was always unlucky," replied the lady. "How could
they be so careless? Surely they might have put the fire out sooner.
They should not have let it get ahead. I wonder people are not more
active." "It is too late to inquire about that," said Sir John; "the
question now is, not how their loss might have been prevented, but how
it may be repaired." "I am really quite sorry," said she, "that I can
give you nothing. I have had so many calls lately, that my charity purse
is completely exhausted--and that abominable property-tax makes me quite
a beggar."
While she was speaking, I glanced at the open leaf at, "Charge them that
are rich in this world that they be ready to give;" and directing my eye
further, it fell on, "Be not deceived. God is not mocked." These were
the awful passages which formed a part of her _Preparation_; and this
was the practical use she made of them!
A dozen persons of both sexes "had their exits and their entrances"
during our stay; for the scene was so strange, and the character so new
to me, that I felt unwilling to stir. Among other visitors was Signor
Squallini, a favorite opera singer, whom she patronized. Her face was
lighted up with joy at the sight of him. He brought her an admired new
air in which he was preparing himself, and sung a few notes, that she
might say she had heard it the first. She felt all the dignity of the
privilege, and extolled the air with all the phrases, cant, and rapture
of _dilettanteism_.
After this, she drew a paper from between the leaves of her still open
book, which she showed him. It contained a list of all the company she
had engaged to attend his benefit. "I will call on some others," said
she, "to-morrow after prayers. I am sorry this is a week in which I can
not see my friends at their assemblies, but on Sunday you know it will
be over, and I shall have my house full in the evening. Next Monday will
be Easter, and I shall be at our dear Duchess's private masquerade, and
then I hope to see and engage the whole world. Here are ten guineas,"
said she in a half whisper to the obsequious Signor; "you may mention
what I gave for _my_ ticket, and it may set the fashion going." She then
pressed a ticket on Sir John and another on me. Ho declined, saying with
great _sang froid_, "You know we are _Handelians_." What excuse I made I
do not well know; I only know that I saved my ten guineas with a very
bad grace, but felt bound in conscience to add them to what I had before
subscribed to poor Dixon.
Hitherto I had never seen the gnat-strainer and the camel-swallower so
strikingly exemplified. And it is observable how forcibly the truth of
Scripture is often illustrated by those who live in the boldest
opposition to it. If you have any doubt while you are reading, go into
the world and your belief will be confirmed.
As we took our leave, she followed us to the door, I hoped it was with
the guinea for the fire; but she only whispered Sir John, though he did
not go himself, to prevail on such and such ladies to go to Squallini's
benefit. "Pray do," said she, "it will be charity. Poor fellow! he is
sadly out at elbows; he has a fine liberal spirit, and can hardly make
his large income do."
When we got into the street we admired the splendid chariot and laced
liveries of this _indigent_ professor, for whom our charity had been
just solicited, and whose "liberal spirit," my friend assured me,
consisted in sumptuous living and the indulgence of every fashionable
vice.
I could not restrain my exclamations as soon as we got out of hearing.
To Sir John, the scene was amusing, but to him it had lost the interest
of novelty. "I have known her ladyship about twelve years," said he,
"and of course have witnessed a dozen of these annual paroxysms of
devotion. I am persuaded that she is a gainer by them on her own
principle, that is, in the article of pleasure. This short periodical
abstinence whets her appetite to a keener relish for suspended
enjoyment; and while she fasts from amusements, her blinded conscience
enjoys a feast of self-gratulation. She feeds on the remembrance of her
self-denial, even after she has returned to those delights which she
thinks her retreat has fairly purchased. She considers religion as a
system of pains and penalties, by the voluntary enduring of which, for a
short time, she shall compound for all the indulgences of the year. She
is persuaded that something must be annually forborne, in order to make
her peace. After these periodical atonements, the Almighty being in her
debt, will be obliged at last to pay her with heaven. This composition,
which rather brings her in on the creditor side, not only quiets her
conscience for the past, but enables her joyfully to enter on a new
score."
I asked Sir John how Lady Belfield _could_ associate with a woman of a
character so opposite to her own? "What can we do?" said he, "we can not
be singular. We must conform a _little_ to the world in which we live."
Trusting to his extreme good nature, and fired at the scene to which I
had been a witness, I ventured to observe that non-conformity to such a
world as that of which this lady was a specimen, was the very criterion
of the religion taught by Him who had declared by way of pre-eminent
distinction, that "his kingdom was not of this world."
"You are a young man," answered he mildly, "and this delicacy and these
prejudices would soon wear off if you were to live some time in the
world." "My dear Sir John," said I, warmly, "by the grace of God, I
never _will_ live in the world; at least, I never will associate with
that part of it whose society would be sure to wear off that delicacy
and remove those prejudices. Why this is retaining all the worst part of
popery. Here is the abstinence without the devotion; the outward
observance without the interior humiliation; the suspending of sin, not
only without any design of forsaking it, but with a fixed resolution of
returning to it, and of increasing the gust by the forbearance. Nay,
the sins she retains in order to mitigate the horrors of forbearance,
are as bad as those she lays down. A postponed sin, which is fully
intended to be resumed, is as much worse than a sin persisted in, as
deliberate hypocrisy is worse than the impulse of passion. I desire not
a more explicit comment on a text which I was once almost tempted to
think unjust; I mean, the greater facility of the entrance of gross and
notorious offenders into heaven than of these formalists. No! If Miss
Denham were sole heiress to Cr[oe]sus, and joined the beauty of
Cleopatra to the wit of Sappho, I never would connect myself with a
disciple of that school."
"How many ways there are of being unhappy!" said Sir John, as we
returned one day from a ride we had taken some miles out of town, to
call on a friend of his. "Mr. Stanhope, whom we have just quitted, is a
man of great elegance of mind. His early life was passed in liberal
studies, and in the best company. But his fair prospects were blasted by
a disproportionate marriage. He was drawn in by a vanity too natural to
young men, that of fancying himself preferred by a woman who had no one
recommendation but beauty. To be admired by her whom all his
acquaintance admired, gratified his _amour propre_. He was overcome by
her marked attentions so far as to declare himself, without knowing her
real disposition. It was some time before his prepossession allowed him
to discover that she was weak and ill-informed, selfish and
bad-tempered. What she wanted in understanding, she made up in spirit.
The more she exacted, the more he submitted; and her demands grew in
proportion to his sacrifices. My friend, with patient affection,
struggled for a long time to raise her character, and to enlighten her
mind; but finding that she pouted whenever he took up a book, and that
she even hid the newspaper before he had read it, complaining that he
preferred any thing to her company; the softness of his temper and his
habitual indolence at length prevailed. His better judgment sunk in the
hopeless contest. For a quiet life, he has submitted to a disgraceful
life. The compromise has not answered. He has incurred the degradation
which, by a more spirited conduct, he might have avoided, and has missed
the quiet which he sacrificed his dignity to purchase. He compassionates
her folly, and continues to translate her wearisome interruptions into
the flattering language of affection.
"In compliment to her, no less than in justification of his own choice,
he has persuaded himself that all women are pretty much alike. That in
point of capacity, disposition, and knowledge he has but drawn the
common lot, with the balance in his favor, of strong affection and
unsullied virtue. He hardly ever sees his fine library, which is the
object of her supreme aversion, but wastes his days in listless idleness
and his evenings at cards, the only thing in which she takes a lively
interest. His fine mind is, I fear, growing mean and disingenuous. The
gentleness of his temper leads him not only to sacrifice his peace, but
to infringe on his veracity in order to keep her quiet. All the
entertainment he finds at dinner is a recapitulation of the faults of
her maids, or the impertinence of her footmen, or the negligence of her
gardener. If to please her he joins in the censure, she turns suddenly
about, and defends them. If he vindicates them, she insists on their
immediate dismission; and no sooner are they irrevocably discharged,
than she is continually dwelling on their perfections, and then it is
only their successors who have any faults.
"He is now so afraid of her driving out his few remaining old servants,
if she sees his partiality for them, that in order to conceal it, he
affects to reprimand them as the only means for them to secure her
favor. Thus the integrity of his heart is giving way to a petty
duplicity, and the openness of his temper to shabby artifices. He could
submit to the loss of his comfort, but sensibly feels the diminution of
his credit. The loss of his usefulness too is a constant source of
regret. She will not even suffer him to act as a magistrate, lest her
doors should be beset with vagabonds, and her house dirtied by men of
business. If he chance to commend a dish he has tasted at a friend's
house--Yes, every body's things are good but hers, she can never please.
He had always better dine abroad, if nothing is fit to be eaten at home.
"Though poor Stanhope's conduct is so correct, and his attachment to his
wife so notorious, he never ventures to commend any thing that is said
or done by another woman. She has, indeed, no definitive object of
jealousy, but feels an uneasy vague sensation of envy at any thing or
person he admires. I believe she would be jealous of a fine day, if her
husband praised it.
"If a tale reaches her ears of a wife who has failed of her duty, or if
the public newspapers record a divorce, then she awakens her husband to
a sense of his superior happiness, and her own irreproachable virtue. O
Charles, the woman who, reposing on the laurels of her boasted virtue,
allows herself to be a disobliging, a peevish, a gloomy, a discontented
companion, defeats one great end of the institution, which is happiness.
The wife who violates the marriage vow, is indeed more criminal; but the
very magnitude of her crime emancipates her husband; while she who makes
him not dishonorable, but wretched, fastens on him a misery for life,
from which no laws can free him, and under which religion alone can
support him."
We continued talking, till we reached home, on the multitude of
marriages in which the parties are "joined not matched," and where the
term union is a miserable misnomer. I endeavored to turn all these new
acquaintances to account, and considered myself at every visit I made,
as taking a lesson for my own conduct. I beheld the miscarriages of
others, not only with concern for the individual, but as beacons to
light me on my way. It was no breach of charity to use the aberrations
of my acquaintance for the purpose of making my own course more direct.
I took care however, never to lose sight of the humbling consideration
that my own deviations were equally liable to become the object of their
animadversion, if the same motive had led them to the same scrutiny.
I remained some weeks longer in town, indulging myself in all its safe
sights, and all its sober pleasures. I examined whatever was new in art,
or curious in science. I found out the best pictures, saw the best
statues, explored the best museums, heard the best speakers in the
courts of law, the best preachers in the church, and the best orators in
parliament; attended the best lectures, and visited the best company, in
the most correct, though not always the most fashionable sense of the
term. I associated with many learned, sensible, and some pious men,
commodities with which London, with all its faults, abounds, perhaps,
more than any other place on the habitable globe. I became acquainted
with many agreeable, well informed, valuable women, with a few who even
seemed in a good measure to live above the world while they were living
in it.
There is a large class of excellent female characters who on account of
that very excellence, are little known, because to be known is not their
object. Their ambition has a better taste. They pass through life
honored and respected in their own small, but not unimportant sphere,
and approved by Him, "whose they are, and whom they serve," though their
faces are hardly known in promiscuous society. If they occasion little
sensation abroad, they produce much happiness at home. And when once a
woman who has "all appliances and means to get it," _can_ withstand the
intoxication of the flatterer, and the adoration of the fashionable;
_can_ conquer the fondness for public distinction, _can_ resist the
temptations of that magic circle to which she is courted, and in which
she is qualified to shine--this is indeed a trial of firmness; a trial
in which those who have never been called to resist themselves, can
hardly judge of the merit of resistance in others.
These are the women who bless, dignify, and truly adorn society. The
painter indeed does not make his fortune by their sitting to him; the
jeweler is neither brought into vogue by furnishing their diamonds, nor
undone by not being paid for them; the prosperity of the milliner does
not depend on affixing their name to a cap or a color; the poet does not
celebrate them; the novelist does not dedicate to them; but they possess
the affection of their husbands, the attachment of their children, the
esteem of the wise and good, and above all they possess _His_ favor,
"whom to know is life eternal." Among these I doubt not I might have
found objects highly deserving of my heart, but the injunction of my
father was a sort of panoply which guarded it.
I am persuaded that such women compose a larger portion of the sex, than
is generally allowed. It is not the number, but the noise which makes a
sensation, and a set of fair dependent young creatures who are every
night forced, some of them reluctantly, upon the public eye; and a bevy
of faded matrons rouged and repaired for an ungrateful public, dead to
their blandishments, do not compose the whole female world! I repeat
it--a hundred amiable women, who are living in the quiet practice of
their duties, and the modest exertion of their talents, do not fill the
public eye, or reach the public ear, like one aspiring leader, who,
hungering for observation, and disdaining censure, dreads not abuse but
oblivion; who thinks it more glorious to head a little phalanx of
fashionable followers, than to hold out, as from her commanding
eminence, and imposing talents she might have done, a shining example of
all that is great, and good, and dignified in woman. These
self-appointed queens maintain an absolute but ephemeral empire over
that little _fantastic aristocracy_ which they call the
world--admiration besets them, crowds attend them, conquests follow
them, inferiors imitate them, rivals envy them, newspapers extol them,
sonnets deify them. A few ostentatious charities are opposed as a large
atonement for a _few amiable weaknesses_, while the unpaid tradesman is
exposed to ruin by their vengeance if he refuses to trust them, and to a
jail if he continue to do it.