Miss Sparkes came to spend the next day according to her appointment.
Mr. Flam, who called accidentally, staid to dinner. Mr. and Mrs. Carlton
had been previously invited. After dinner the conversation chanced to
turn upon domestic economy, a quality which Miss Sparkes professed to
hold in the most sovereign contempt.
After some remark of Mrs. Stanley, in favor of the household virtues,
Mr. Carlton said, "Mr. Addison in the Spectator, and Dr. Johnson in the
Rambler, have each given us a lively picture of a vulgar,
ungentlewoman-like, illiterate housewife. The notable woman of the one
suffocated her guests at night with drying herbs in their chamber, and
tormented them all day with plans of economy, and lectures on
management. The economist of the other ruined her husband by her
parsimonious extravagance, if I may be allowed to couple contradictions;
by her tent-stich hangings for which she had no walls, and her
embroidery for which she had no use. The poor man pathetically laments
her detestable catalogues of made wines, which hurt his fortune by their
profusion, and his health by not being allowed to drink them till they
were sour. Both ladies are painted as domestic tyrants, whose husbands
had no peace, and whose children had no education."
"Those coarse housewives," said Sir John, "were exhibited as _warnings_.
It was reserved for the pen of Richardson to exhibit _examples_. This
author, with deeper and juster views of human nature, a truer taste for
the proprieties of female character, and a more exact intuition into
real life than any other writer of fabulous narrative, has given in his
heroines exemplifications of elegantly cultivated minds, combined with
the sober virtues of domestic economy. In no other writer of fictitious
adventures has the triumph of religion and reason over the passions, and
the now almost exploded doctrines of filial obedience, and the household
virtues, their natural concomitants, been so successfully blended.
Whether the works of this most original, but by no means faultless
writer, were cause or effect, I know not; whether these well-imagined
examples induced the ladies of that day 'to study household good;' or
whether the then existing ladies, by their acknowledged attention to
feminine concerns, furnished Richardson with living models, I can not
determine. Certain it is, that the novel-writers of the subsequent
period have, in general, been as little disposed to represent these
qualities as forming an indispensable part of the female character, as
the contemporary young ladies themselves have been to supply them with
patterns. I a little fear that the predominance of this sort of reading
has contributed its full share to bring such qualities into contempt."
Miss Sparkes characteristically observed, that "the meanest
understanding and most vulgar education were competent to form such a
wife as the generality of men preferred. That a man of talents, dreading
a rival, always took care to secure himself by marrying a fool."
"Always excepting the present company, madam, I presume," said Mr.
Stanley, laughing. "But pardon me, if I differ from you. That many men
are sensual in their appetites, and low in their relish of intellectual
pleasures, I confess. That many others, who are neither sensual, nor of
mean attainments, prefer women whose ignorance will favor their indolent
habits, and whom it requires no exertion of mind to entertain, I allow
also. But permit me to say, that men of the most cultivated minds, and
who admire talents in a woman, are still of opinion that _domestic_
talents can never be dispensed with: and I totally dissent from you in
thinking that these qualities infer the absence of higher attainments,
and necessarily imply a sordid or a vulgar mind.
"Any ordinary art, after it is once discovered, may be practiced by a
very common understanding. In this, as in every thing else, the kind
arrangements of Providence are visible, because, as the common arts
employ the mass of mankind, they could not be universally carried on, if
they were not of easy and cheap attainment. Now, cookery is one of these
arts, and I agree with you, madam, in thinking that a mean understanding
and a vulgar education suffice to make a good cook. But a cook or
housekeeper, and a lady qualified to wield a considerable establishment,
are two very different characters. To prepare a dinner, and to conduct a
great family, require talents of a very different size: and one reason
why I would never choose to marry a woman ignorant of domestic affairs
is, that she who wants, or she who despises this knowledge, must possess
that previous bad judgment which, as it prevented her from seeing this
part of her duty, would be likely to operate on other occasions."
"I entirely agree with Mr. Stanley," said Mr. Carlton. "In general I
look upon the contempt or the fulfillment of these duties as pretty
certain indications of the turn of mind from which the one or the other
proceeds. I allow, however, that _with_ this knowledge a lady may
unhappily have overlooked more important acquisitions; but _without_ it
I must ever consider the female character as defective in the texture,
however it may be embroidered and spangled on the surface."
Sir John Belfield declared, that though he had not that natural
antipathy to a wit, which some men have; yet unless the wildness of a
wit was tamed like the wildness of other animals, by domestic habits, he
himself would not choose to venture on one. He added, that he should
pay a bad compliment to Lady Belfield, who had so much higher claims to
his esteem, if he were to allege that these habits were the determining
cause of his choice, yet had he seen no such tendencies in her
character, he should have suspected her power of making him as happy as
she had done.
"I confess with shame," said Mr. Carlton, "that one of the first things
that touched me with any sense of my wife's merit, was the admirable
good sense she discovered in the direction of my family. Even at the
time that I had most reason to blush at my own conduct, she never gave
me cause to blush for hers. The praises constantly bestowed on her
elegant, yet prudent, arrangement, by my friends, flattered my vanity,
and raised her in my opinion, though they did not lead me to do her full
justice."
The two ladies who were thus agreeably flattered, looked modestly
grateful. Mr. Stanley said, "I was going to endeavor at removing Miss
Sparke's prejudices, by observing how much this domestic turn brings the
understanding into action. The operation of good sense is requisite in
making the necessary calculations for a great family, in a hundred ways.
Good sense is required to teach that a perpetually recurring small
expense is more to be avoided than an incidental great one, while it
shows that petty savings can not retrieve an injured estate. The story
told by Johnson, of a lady, who, while ruining her fortune by excessive
splendor and expense, yet refused to let a two shilling mango be cut at
her table, exemplifies exactly my idea. Shabby curtailments, without
repairing the breach which prodigality has made, discredit the husband,
and bring the reproach of meanness on the wife. Retrenchments, to be
efficient, must be applied to great objects. The true economist will
draw in by contracting the outline, by narrowing the bottom, by cutting
off with an unsparing hand costly superfluities, which affect not
comfort, but cherish vanity."
"'Retrench the lazy vermin of thine hall,' was the wise counsel of the
prudent Venetian to his thoughtless son-in-law," said Sir John, "and its
wisdom consisted in its striking at one of the most ruinous and
prevailing domestic evils, an overloaded establishment."
If Miss Sparkes had been so long without speaking, it was evident by her
manner and turn of countenance, that contempt had kept her silent, and
that she thought the topic under discussion as unworthy of the support
of the gentleman as of her own opposition.
"A discreet woman," said Mr. Stanley, "adjusts her expenses to her
revenues. Every thing knows its time, and every person his place. She
will live within her income, be it large or small; if large, she will
not be luxurious; if small, she will not be mean. Proportion and
propriety are among the best secrets of domestic wisdom; and there is no
surer test, both of integrity and judgment, than a well-proportioned
expenditure.
"Now the point to which I would bring all this verbiage," continued he,
"is this--will a lady of a mean understanding, or a vulgar education, be
likely to practice economy on this large scale? And is not such economy
a field in which a woman of the best sense may honorably exercise her
powers?"
Miss Sparkes, who was always a stanch opposer in moral as well as in
political debate, because she said it was the best side for the exertion
of wit and talents, comforted herself that though she felt she was
completely in the minority, yet she always thought that was rather a
proof of being right than the contrary; for if it be true, that the
generality are either weak or wicked, it follows that the inferior
number is most likely to be neither.
"Women," said Mr. Carlton, "in their course of action describe a smaller
circle than men; but the perfection of a circle consists not in its
dimensions but in its correctness. There may be," added he, carefully
turning away his eyes from Miss Sparkes, "here and there a soaring
female, who looks down with disdain on the party affairs of 'this dim
speck called earth;' who despises order and regularity as indications of
a groveling spirit. But a sound mind judges directly contrary. The
larger the capacity, the wider is the sweep of duties it takes in. A
sensible woman loves to imitate that order which is stamped on the whole
creation of God. All the operations of nature are uniform even in their
changes, and regular in their infinite variety. Nay, the great Author of
Nature himself disdains not to be called the God of order."
"I agree with you," said Sir John. "A philosophical lady may 'read
Malebranche, Boyle, and Locke;' she may boast of her intellectual
superiority; she may talk of abstract and concrete; of substantial forms
and essences; complex ideas and mixed modes, of identity and relation;
she may decorate all the logic of one sex with all the rhetoric of the
other; yet if her affairs are _delabre_, if her house is disorderly, her
servants irregular, her children neglected, and her table ill-arranged,
she will indicate the want of the most valuable faculty of the human
mind, a sound judgment."
"It must, however, be confessed," replied Mr. Stanley, "that such
instances are so rare, that the exceptions barely serve to establish the
rule. I have known twenty women mismanage their affairs, through a bad
education, through ignorance, especially of arithmetic, that grand
deficiency in the education of women, through a multiplicity of vain
accomplishments, through an excess of dissipation, through a devotedness
to personal embellishments, through an absorption of the whole soul in
music, for one who has made her husband metaphysically miserable."
"What marks the distinction," said Mr. Carlton, "between the judicious
and the vulgar economist is this: the narrow-minded woman succeeds
tolerably in the filling up, but never in the outline. She is made up of
detail but destitute of plan. Petty duties demand her whole grasp of
mind, and, after all, the thing is incomplete. There is so much bustle
and evident exertion in all she does! she brings into company a mind
exhausted with her little efforts! overflowing with a sense of her own
merits! looking up to her own performance as the highest possible
elevation of the human intellect, and looking down on the attainments of
more highly gifted women, as so many obstructions to their usefulness;
always drawing comparisons to her own advantage, with the cultivated and
the refined, and concluding that because she possesses not their
elegance they must necessarily be deficient in her art. While economists
of a higher strain--I draw from living and not absent instances," added
he, looking benignantly round him--"execute their well ordered plan, as
an indispensable duty, but not as a superlative merit. They have too
much sense to omit it, but they have too much taste to talk of it. It is
their business, not their boast. The effect is produced, but the hand
which accomplishes it is not seen. The mechanism is set at work, but it
is behind the scenes. The beauty is visible, the labor is kept out of
sight."
"The misfortune is," said Mr. Stanley, "that people are apt to fancy
that judgment is a faculty only to be exercised on great occasions;
whereas it is one that every hour is calling into exercise. There are
certain habits which, though they appear inconsiderable when examined
individually, are yet of no small importance in the aggregate.
Exactness, punctuality, and other minor virtues, contribute more than
many are aware, to promote and to facilitate the exercise of the higher
qualities. I would not erect them into a magnitude beyond their real
size; as persons are too apt to do who are _only_ punctual, and are
deficient in the higher qualities; but by the regular establishment of
these habits in a family, it is inconceivable to those who have not made
the experiment, how it saves, how it amplifies time, that canvas upon
which all the virtues must be wrought. It is incredible how an orderly
division of the day gives apparent rapidity to the wings of time, while
a stated devotion of the hour to its employment really lengthens life.
It lengthens it by the traces which solid occupation leaves behind it:
while it prevents tediousness by affording, with the successive change,
the charm of novelty, and keeping up an interest which would flag, if
any one employment were too long pursued. Now all these arrangements of
life, these divisions of time, and these selections and appropriations
of the business to the hour, come within the department of the lady. And
how much will the cares of a man of sense be relieved, if he choose a
wife who can do all this for him!"
"In how many of my friends' houses," said Mr. Carlton, "have I observed
the contrary habits produce contrary effects! A young lady bred in total
ignorance of family management, transplanted from the house of her
father, where she has learned nothing, to that of her husband, where she
is expected to know every thing, disappoints a prudent man: his
affection may continue, but his esteem will be diminished; and with his
happiness, his attachment to home will be proportionably lessened."
"It is perfectly just," said Sir John, "and this comfortless deficiency
has naturally taught men to inveigh against that higher kind of
knowledge which they suppose, though unjustly, to be the cause of
ignorance in domestic matters. It is not entirely to gratify the animal,
as Miss Sparkes supposes, that a gentleman likes to have his table well
appointed; but because his own dignity and his wife's credit are
involved in it. The want of this skill is one of the grand evils of
modern life. _From the heiress of the man of rank, to the daughter of
the opulent tradesman, there is no one quality in which young women are
so generally deficient as in domestic economy._ And when I hear learning
contended for on one hand, and modish accomplishments on the other, I
always contend for this intermediate, this valuable, this neglected
quality, so little insisted on, so rarely found, and so indispensably
necessary."
"Besides," said Mr. Carlton, addressing himself to Miss Sparkes, "you
ladies are apt to consider versatility as a mark of genius. She,
therefore, who can do a great thing well, ought to do a small one
better; for, as Lord Bacon well observes, he who can not contract his
mind as well as dilate it, wants one great talent in life."
Miss Sparkes, condescending at length to break a silence which she had
maintained with evident uneasiness, said, "All these plodding
employments cramp the genius, degrade the intellect, depress the
spirits, debase the taste, and clip the wings of imagination. And this
poor, cramped, degraded, stinted, depressed, debased creature is the
very being whom men, men of reputed sense too, commonly prefer to the
mind of large dimensions, soaring fancy, and aspiring tastes."
"Imagination," replied Mr. Stanley, "well directed, is the charm of
life; it gilds every object, and embellishes every scene; but allow me
to say, that where a woman abandons herself to the dominion of this
vagrant faculty it may lead to something worse than a disorderly table;
and the husband may find that the badness of his dinner is not the only
ill consequence of her super-lunary vagaries."
"True enough," said Mr. Flam, who had never been known to be so silent,
or so attentive; "true enough, I have not heard so much sense for a long
time. I am sure 'tis sense, because 'tis exactly my own way of thinking.
There is my Bell now. I have spent seven hundred pounds, and more money,
for her to learn music and whimwhams, which all put together are not
worth sixpence. I would give them all up to see her make such a tansy
pudding as that which the widow in the Spectator helped Sir Roger to at
dinner; why I don't believe Bell knows whether pie-crust is made with
butter or cheese; or whether a venison pastry should be baked or boiled.
I can tell her, that when her husband, if she ever gets one, comes in
sharp set from hunting, he won't like to be put off with a tune instead
of a dinner. To marry a singing girl, and complain she does not keep you
a good table, is like eating nightingales, and finding fault that they
are not good tasted. They sing, but they are of no further use--to _eat_
them, instead of listening to them, is applying to one sense, the
gratification which belongs to another."
In the course of conversation, Miss Sparkes a little shocked the
delicate feelings of the ladies, of Lucilla especially, by throwing out
some expressions of envy at the superior advantages which men possess
for distinguishing themselves. "Women," she said, "with talents not
inferior were allowed no stage for display, while men had such a reach
for their exertions, such a compass for exercising their genius, such a
range for obtaining distinction that they were at once the objects of
her envy for the means they possessed, and of her pity for turning them
to no better account. There were indeed," she added, "a few men who
redeemed the credit of the rest, and for their sakes she gloried, since
she could not be of their sex, that she was at least of their species."
"I know, madam," said Mr. Stanley, "your admiration of heroic qualities
and manly virtues: courage for instance. But there are still nobler ways
of exercising courage than even in the field of battle. There are more
exalted means of showing spirit than by sending or accepting a
challenge. To sustain a fit of sickness may exhibit as true heroism as
to lead an army. To bear a deep affliction well calls for as high
exertion of soul as to storm a town; and to meet death with Christian
resolution is an act of courage in which many a woman has triumphed, and
many a philosopher, and even some generals, have failed."
I thought I saw in Miss Sparkes's countenance a kind of civil contempt,
as if she would be glad to exchange the patient sickness and heroic
death-bed for the renown of victory and the glory of a battle; and I
suspected that she envied the fame of the challenge, and the spirit of
the duel, more than those meek and passive virtues which we all agreed
were peculiarly Christian, and peculiarly feminine.