Think not, O thou guide of my youth! that absence can impair my
respect, or interposing trackless deserts blot your reverend figure
from my memory. The further I travel I feel the pain of separation
with stronger force; those ties that bind me to my native country and
you are still unbroken. By every remove I only drag a greater length
of chain.
Could I find aught worth transmitting from so remote a region as this
to which I have wandered I should gladly send it; but, instead of
this, you must be contented with a renewal of my former professions
and an imperfect account of a people with whom I am as yet but
superficially acquainted. The remarks of a man who has been but three
days in the country can only be those obvious circumstances which
force themselves upon the imagination. I consider myself here as a
newly created being introduced into a new world; every object strikes
with wonder and surprize. The imagination, still unsated, seems the
only active principle of the mind. The most trifling occurrences give
pleasure till the gloss of novelty is worn away. When I have ceased to
wonder, I may possibly grow wise; I may then call the reasoning
principle to my aid, and compare those objects with each other, which
were before examined without reflection.
Behold me then in London, gazing at the strangers, and they at me; it
seems they find somewhat absurd in my figure; and had I been never
from home, it is possible I might find an infinite fund of ridicule in
theirs; but by long traveling I am taught to laugh at folly alone, and
to find nothing truly ridiculous but villainy and vice.
When I had quitted my native country, and crossed the Chinese wall, I
fancied every deviation from the customs and manners of China was a
departing from nature. I smiled at the blue lips and red foreheads of
the Tonguese; and could hardly contain when I saw the Daures dress
their heads with horns. The Ostiacs powdered with red earth; and the
Calmuck beauties, tricked out in all the finery of sheepskin, appeared
highly ridiculous: but I soon perceived that the ridicule lay not in
them, but in me; that I falsely condemned others for absurdity
because they happened to differ from a standard originally founded in
prejudice or partiality.
I find no pleasure therefore in taxing the English with departing from
nature in their external appearance, which is all I yet know of their
character: it is possible they only endeavor to improve her simple
plan, since every extravagance in dress proceeds from a desire of
becoming more beautiful than nature made us; and this is so harmless a
vanity that I not only pardon but approve it. A desire to be more
excellent than others is what actually makes us so; and as thousands
find a livelihood in society by such appetites, none but the ignorant
inveigh against them.
You are not insensible, most reverend Fum Hoam, what numberless
trades, even among the Chinese, subsist by the harmless pride of each
other. Your nose-borers, feet-swathers, tooth-stainers,
eyebrow-pluckers would all want bread should their neighbors want
vanity. These vanities, however, employ much fewer hands in China than
in England; and a fine gentleman or a fine lady here, drest up to the
fashion, seems scarcely to have a single limb that does not suffer
some distortions from art.
To make a fine gentleman, several trades are required, but chiefly a
barber. You have undoubtedly heard of the Jewish champion whose
strength lay in his hair. One would think that the English were for
placing all wisdom there. To appear wise nothing more is requisite
here than for a man to borrow hair from the heads of all his neighbors
and clap it like a bush on his own; the distributors of law and
physic stick on such quantities that it is almost impossible, even in
idea, to distinguish between the head and the hair.
Those whom I have been now describing affect the gravity of the lion;
those I am going to describe more resemble the pert vivacity of
smaller animals. The barber, who is still master of the ceremonies,
cuts their hair close to the crown, and then with a composition of
meal and hog's lard plasters the whole in such a manner as to make it
impossible to distinguish whether the patient wears a cap or a
plaster; but, to make the picture more perfectly striking, conceive
the tail of some beast, a greyhound's tail, or a pig's tail, for
instance, appended to the back of the head, and reaching down to that
place where tails in other animals are generally seen to begin; thus
betailed and bepowdered, the man of taste fancies he improves in
beauty, dresses up his hard-featured face in smiles, and attempts to
look hideously tender. Thus equipped, he is qualified to make love,
and hopes for success more from the powder on the outside of his head
than the sentiments within.
Yet when I consider what sort of a creature the fine lady is to whom
he is supposed to pay his addresses, it is not strange to find him
thus equipped in order to please. She is herself every whit as fond of
powder, and tails, and hog's lard, as he. To speak my secret
sentiments, most reverend Fum, the ladies here are horribly ugly; I
can hardly endure the sight of them; they no way resemble the beauties
of China: the Europeans have quite a different idea of beauty from
us. When I reflect on the small-footed perfections of an Eastern
beauty, how is it possible I should have eyes for a woman whose feet
are ten inches long? I shall never forget the beauties of my native
city of Nanfew. How very broad their faces! how very short their
noses! how very little their eyes! how very thin their lips! how very
black their teeth! the snow on the tops of Bao is not fairer than
their cheeks; and their eyebrows are small as the line by the pencil
of Quamsi. Here a lady with such perfections would be frightful; Dutch
and Chinese beauties, indeed, have some resemblance, but English women
are entirely different; red cheeks, big eyes, and teeth of a most
odious whiteness, are not only seen here, but wished for; and then
they have such masculine feet, as actually serve some for walking!
Yet uncivil as Nature has been, they seem resolved to outdo her in
unkindness; they use white powder, blue powder, and black powder; for
their hair, and a red powder for the face on some particular
occasions.
They like to have the face of various colors, as among the Tatars of
Koreki, frequently sticking on with spittle, little black patches on
every part of it, except on the tip of the nose, which I have never
seen with a patch. You'll have a better idea of their manner of
placing these spots, when I have finished the map of an English face
patched up to the fashion, which shall shortly be sent to increase
your curious collection of paintings, medals, and monsters.
But what surprizes more than all the rest is what I have just now been
credibly informed by one of this country. "Most ladies here," says
he, "have two faces; one face to sleep in, and another to show in
company. The first is generally reserved for the husband and family at
home; the other put on to please strangers abroad. The family face is
often indifferent enough, but the outdoor one looks something better;
this is always made at the toilet, where the looking-glass and
toadeater sit in council, and settle the complexion of the day."
I can't ascertain the truth of this remark; however, it is actually
certain that they wear more clothes within doors than without, and I
have seen a lady, who seemed to shudder at a breeze in her own
apartment, appear half-naked in the streets. Farewell.