_For the benefit of all whom they may concern_.
Affectation, as defined by Johnson, is "an artificial show, an
elaborate appearance, a false pretence,"--"affected, studied with
overmuch care, or with hypocritical appearance." The terms of this
definition are so revolting, that the justice of its ascription to any
individual, however felt, can scarcely be expected to be acknowledged
by such, because it too deeply wounds self-love, its natural parent.
Studiously disguised from ourselves, it is vainly believed to be so
from others. Let us compare the utmost advantages to be derived from
its adoption, with its peril and its loss. Do we really hope to
improve by it, those qualities, moral, intellectual or physical, with
which the bounty of nature has distinctively gifted us? Or do we hope
by "an artificial show, an elaborate appearance, a false pretence," to
obtain credit with others for attributes which do not belong to us?
and with the deceitful appearance of which, (_provided_ it deceive,)
we shall be basely content; thus falsely laboring for the attainment
of a vain shadow, when the same labor honestly bestowed, would give us
the real substance of all we ought to desire, viz: that solid
improvement of the heart and mind, around which ever play, as their
natural consequences, the most captivating of all graces--_simplicity
and truth_. Viewed simply as matter of taste, can any thing short of
its vilest corruption, its lowest degradation, induce a preference for
a clumsy counterfeit, a hand-maiden, who impudently usurping the place
of her mistress, presumes to play high life below stairs, over her
noble mistress, arrayed in her simple majesty? What monstrous
perversion can prompt us to turn the latter out of doors, and hug to
our bosoms so vile an intruder? With what bribes does she corrupt the
loyalty of her fair advocates? With what store of "quips and quirks,
and wreathed smiles?" with what rich caskets of bright gems,
counterfeit or stolen; with what rare graces, unmatched by those even
of her injured and abused mistress, which she boldly pronounces _fade
and obsolete_? Alas! how often do such meretricious lures prove
resistless to the infatuated fair one! Behold her arrayed in all the
paraphernalia of the despicable traitress,--henceforth sole promptress
of the drama in which she proposes to act a conspicuous part, and
which she vainly flatters herself to act with that last degree of art
which conceals it. Not reflecting that the whole history of dramatic
art affords few such adepts, she aspires at her very first debut, to
surpass even a Siddons. Discarding nature, and not sufficiently wedded
to art,--what becomes of her witchery? Her smiles are grimaces--her
laughter discord--her movements ridiculous antics. Her tones speak to
any thing but the heart;--all is foreign to nature,--whose modesty she
outrages and oversteps. She is mocked and hissed by all the world
with whom she would cordially unite, were the actress other than her
own _dear_ self, whom alone self-love has blinded to herself. Hers is
the delusion of the silly ostrich, which in the concealment of his
head, thinks to elude pursuit. But granting her the utmost success of
long and carefully practised art--and that her airs and graces, her
soft _languishments_, killing glances, heavenly smiles, and soul
thrilling laughter, have all the witchery that such art can give, and
have called forth the applause of the crowd of vulgar admirers,--will
it compensate for the obvious disgust of those who have learned to
detect and to despise their empty and heartless display? Will it
compensate for the lowering of that proud self-esteem, which is the
bright reward of truth, and the best security of virtue? Would she
flourish in the empire of the heart, that bright dominion of her sex?
Would she, by her look, manner and words, inspire respect, confidence
and love? And shall each betray that they have been practised but to
deceive? Shall she hope to speak to the heart in tones which come not
from the heart? Shall she hope to engage interest for the subject of
her conversation, when full not of it but of herself? For what is it
that she would challenge the affections? For a being pure, single
hearted, and identical,--or for one whose very identity is almost lost
amidst the perpetually varying aspects and phases, under which, in her
inflated vanity, she pleases to exhibit herself. How shall our love
continue to pursue, and cling to that, of whose very form and essence
we have no abiding assurance? In the disruption of feeling produced by
such changes, we cannot but feel that we have almost lost the beloved
object, and exclaim in bitterness,--alas! she is no longer what I have
loved.
"Why _affectation_,--why this mock grimace?
Go silly thing, and hide that simp'ring face;
Thy lisping prattle, and thy mincing gait--
All thy false mimic fooleries I hate:
For thou art Folly's counterfeit--and she,
Altho' right foolish, hath the better plea;--
Nature's true idiot I prefer to thee.
"Why that soft languish,--why that drawling tone?
Art sick? art sleepy? Get thee hence; begone--
I laugh at all thy pretty baby tears,
Those flutterings, faintings, and unreal fears.
"Can they deceive us? Can such mum'ries move?
Touch us with pity, or inspire with love?
No! affectation--vain is all thy art;
Those eyes may wander over every part,
They'll never find their passage to the heart."
Of all the diseases of the mind or the heart, affectation is the
fittest subject of ridicule,--since we are ridiculous not for what we
are, but for what we pretend to be. One of the arguments of the
apologists for this mean and pitiful vice is,--that the ordinary
conventional forms of politeness necessarily involve its commission,
and that all the tutored and refined graces of polished life, are but
its varying forms. Of the former, benevolence should be, if it be not
always, the genuine and captivating source; and if we have it not, the
assumption of a virtue which inculcates a sacrifice to the feelings of
others of our own, may find a sufficient apology, perhaps, for a
semblance to which society has learned to affix its value. With regard
to the latter, _la belle nature_ is loveliest when embellished, not
prostituted, by art, in its most vulgar form, viz: _affectation_.
Neither wealth nor fashion can divest it of its character of
vulgarity. One should, indeed, be too proud to be _vain_, when vanity
leads to affectation,--which in its milder form, is the meanness of
asking credit for what we do not possess--and in its deeper die,
impels us to obtain it by dissimulation, hypocrisy and fraud. In its
approaches, few vices are more insidious. Having its germ in the
indiscriminate love of imitation natural to youth, vanity prompts an
eager exchange of our native attributes, for what we deem attractive
in others--and artifice is speedily resorted to, to give the
acquisition the semblance of an original possession. One cherished
appropriation is added to another, until the product becomes a
complete bundle of fancied charms and perfections, entailing, however,
all that anxiety of concealment, whose only tendency is to betray the
theft. If the original effects of affectation have been correctly
assigned, the mode and importance of prevention will sufficiently
suggest themselves. Let parents beware how they suffer their children
to be exposed to the contagion of this vile leprosy. Let them
carefully remove from them, as from a pestilence, those infected
subjects, whose resemblance they would shudder to see them. The
garment of affectation once put on, like that of the fated Nessus,
grows to the wearer. Should her complacency ever be so far alarmed as
to make her attempt to doff it, may vainly fancy she has succeeded, by
simply pulling it around, and exhibiting it under a different aspect.
Should she be so fortunate as to have the most invaluable, because the
rarest of friends,--one who will neither flatter, nor shrink from the
task of the faithful anatomy of her heart, and the development of the
fatal poison which lurks at its core, and be brought sincerely to
desire its removal,--let her, while she earnestly applies to it her
own rigid examinations, fervently invoke the aid of a mightier
physician, who cleansing her heart, will restore her to a place a
little less than the angels, of whom I am an