the opinion of such an authority on such a subject as Lord Chesterfield,
but still we think that no woman is so hideous that she may not, if her
vanity happens to take this turn, be told with perfect safety that she
is a beauty. Her vanity is, indeed, not so likely to take this turn as
it would be if she were really pretty. She will probably plume herself
upon her abilities or accomplishments, and therefore Chesterfield's
excellent fatherly advice was, on the whole, tolerably safe. But still,
if any hereditary bias or unlucky accident--such, for instance, as that
of being brought up among people with whom brains are nothing, and
beauty everything--does give an ugly woman's vanity an impulse in the
direction of good looks, no excess of hideousness makes it unsafe to
extol her beauty. On the contrary, she is more likely to be imposed upon
than a moderately good-looking woman, from her greater eagerness to
clutch at every straw that may help to keep up the darling delusion. No
philosopher is, accordingly, surprised at finding that a woman is vain
where he can discover not the slightest rational foundation even for
female vanity.
But it certainly is surprising, now and then, to find how long the most
intense female vanity will lie, in some out-of-the-way corner of
character, hidden from the eye. Perhaps we ought to say, the male eye,
for women seem to discover each other's weak points by a power of
intuition that amounts almost to instinct. But a man is amazed to find
that a woman whose vanity he believed himself to have tracked into all
its channels has it, after all, most strongly in some channel of which
he previously knew nothing. He has perhaps considered her a sensible
matter-of-fact woman, vain perhaps, though not unpardonably, of her
capacity for business and knowledge of the world, but singularly free
from the not uncommon female tendency to believe that every man who sees
her is in love with her; and he unexpectedly discovers that she has for
years considered herself the object of a desperate passion on the part
of the parish rector, a prosaic middle-aged gentleman of ample waistcoat
and large family, and is a little uneasy about being left alone in the
same room with the butler.
Unexpected discoveries of some such kind as this not unnaturally
popularize the theory already mentioned, that such a being as a woman
without vanity does not exist--that, no matter how securely the weakness
may lie hidden from observation, it does somewhere or other exist, and
some day will out. But we are inclined, notwithstanding, to hold that,
here and there, but happily very seldom, there are to be found women
really without vanity; and most unpleasant women they seem to us, as a
rule, to be. They get on tolerably well with their own sex, for they are
rarely pretty or affected, and they have usually certain solid,
serviceable qualities which make up for not being attractive by standing
wear and tear. But in their relations with men--as soon, that is, as
they have secured a husband, and fascination has therefore ceased to be
a matter of business, a practical question of bread-and-butter, to be
grappled with in the spirit in which they would, if necessary, go out
charing, or keep a mangle--they are painfully devoid of that eagerness
to please and that readiness to be pleased which, in the present
imperfect state of civilization, are among woman's chief charms.
Even men cannot, as a rule, get on very well without these qualities;
but still to please is not man's mission in the sense in which it is
generally considered to be woman's, and probably will continue to be
considered, until Dr. Mary Walkers are not the exception, but the rule.
One now and then has the misfortune to come upon a specimen of
womanhood, good and solid enough perhaps, making a most exemplary and
respectable wife and mother, but nevertheless dull, heavy, and
unattractive to an extent that fills the wretched man who takes it in to
dinner with desperation. And then to think that one ounce of vanity
might have leavened this lump, and converted it, as by magic, into a
pleasant, palatable, convivial compound, good everywhere, but especially
good at the dinner-table! For, where vanity exists at all, it can
scarcely fail to influence the natural desire of one sex to please the
other; and a woman must be singularly devoid of all charms, physical and
mental, if she fails when she is really anxious to please. That women
should be fascinating, as they sometimes are, in spite of some
positively painful deformity, is a proof of what such anxiety can alone
accomplish.
We must admit that we have to postulate, on behalf of the female vanity
whose cause we are espousing, that it should not derive its inspiration
solely from self-love. However anxious a woman may be to please, if her
anxiety is on her own account, and simply to secure admiration, she must
be a very Helen if her vanity continues attractive. She is lucky if it
does not take the most odious of all forms, and, from always revolving
round self and dwelling upon selfish considerations, degenerate into a
habit of perpetual postures and stage tricks to gain applause. And this
tendency naturally connects itself with the wish to please the opposite
sex, its success being in inverse proportion to its strength. Just as
one occasionally meets with men who are perfectly unaffected and
sensible fellows in men's society, but whose whole demeanor becomes
absurdly changed if any woman, though it be only the housemaid with a
coal-scuttle, enters the room, so there are, more commonly, to be found
women whose whole character seems to vary, as if by magic, according to
the sex of the person whom they find themselves with. Before their own
sex they are natural enough; before men they are eternally
attitudinizing. We should be sorry to say that this repulsive form of
vanity always takes its root in excessive self-love, but still a tinge
of unselfishness seems to us the best antidote against it.
It is marvellous with how much vanity, and that too of a tolerably
ostentatious kind, a woman may be thoroughly agreeable even to her own
sex, if her eagerness to please is accompanied by genuine kindliness, or
is free from excessive selfishness. It may be easy enough to see that
all her little courtesies and attentions are at bottom really
attributable to vanity; that, when she does a kind act, she is thinking
less of its effect upon your comfort and happiness than of its effect
upon your estimate of her character. She would perhaps rather you got
half the advantage with her aid than the whole advantage without it. Her
motive is, primarily, vanity--clearly not kindness--however amicably
they may in general work together. But still it is the kindness that
makes the vanity flow into pleasant, friendly forms. In a selfish woman
the very same vanity would degenerate into posturing or dressing. And,
odd as it may seem, and as much as it may reflect upon the common sense
of poor humanity, we believe that kind acts done out of genuine,
unadulterated benevolence are less appreciated by the recipient than
kind acts done out of benevolence stimulated by vanity. The latter are
pleasant because they spring out of the desire to please, and soothe our
self-love, whereas the former appeal to our self-interest.
There are few things in this world more charming than the kindly
courtesy of a pretty woman, not ungracefully conscious of her power to
please, and showing courtesy because she enjoys the exercise of this
power. Strictly speaking, she is acting less in your interest than in
her own. Although she feels at once the pleasure of pleasing and the
pleasure of doing a kindly action, the second is quite subordinate to
the first, and is perhaps, more or less, sacrificed to it. Yet who is
strong-minded enough to wish that the kindliness of a pretty woman
should be dictated by simple benevolence, untinged by vanity? If we knew
that her kindliness arose rather from a wish to benefit us than to
conciliate our good opinion, it is perhaps possible that we should
esteem her more, but we fear it is quite certain that we should like her
less.
Before we conclude, we ought perhaps to make one more postulate on
behalf of female vanity, not less important than our postulate that it
should be pleasantly tinged by unselfishness. To be agreeable, it must
have fair foundation. A woman may be forgiven for over-estimating her
charms, but there is no forgiveness on this side of the grave for a
woman who recklessly credits herself with charms that do not exist. All
the lavish cheques she draws upon her male neighbor's admiration are
silently dishonored, and in half an hour after the moment they sit down
to table together she is a hopeless bankrupt in his estimation, even
though he may have courtesy and skill enough to conceal the collapse.
As there are few, if any, pleasanter objects than a pretty woman,
gracefully conscious of her beauty, and radiantly fulfilling its
legitimate end, the power of pleasing, so are there few, if any, more
unpleasant objects than a vain woman, ungracefully conscious of
imaginary charms, and secretly disgusting those she strives to attract.
An ugly woman who gives herself the airs of a beauty, or a silly woman
who believes herself a genius, is not a spectacle upon which a man of
healthy imagination and appetite likes to dwell. It is perhaps only in
accordance with the theory that this life is a state of trial and
probation that the tastes can be explained. Happily, it is not very
common. Most women know their strong from their weak points, and marshal
them on the whole well in the encounter with their lawful oppressor and
great enemy, man. And until they have won the victory to which Dr. Mary
Walker is now leading them on, may they never lack the female vanity
which makes it one of their great objects in life to please!
THE ABUSE OF MATCH-MAKING.
It is a pity that when, by some train of ill-luck, a word of respectable
parentage, and well brought up, is led astray, it cannot adopt
Goldsmith's recipe and die. It has not even the more prosaic alternative
of being made an honest word by marriage, and escaping the name under
which it stooped to folly, and was betrayed. It drags on a dishonored
life, with little or no chance of recovering its character, inflicting
cruel disgrace upon the unlucky family of ideas, no matter what their
own innocence and respectability, to which it happens to belong. Thus
Casuistry, if not a very useful, was at least a perfectly harmless,
member of society, and moved in the best circles, until in an evil hour
she became too intimate with the unpopular Jesuits.
A few years ago, when high feeding and sermonizing proved too much for
the virtue of garotters, and, waxing fat, they not only kicked society,
but danced hornpipes in hobnailed boots upon its head and stomach, even
Philanthropy, at once the most fashionable and popular word of this
century, was all but compromised by Sir Joshua Jebb and Sir George Grey.
Baron Bramwell fortunately came to the rescue, and saved it from
permanent loss of character. But still to this day the word is sometimes
used in a sense by no means complimentary. If the battue-system
continues long enough, "good sport" will become a synonym for
cold-blooded clumsy butchery, and thus all sport whatsoever will be more
or less discredited. The _faux pas_ of one member disgraces the whole
family. A few men may be the lords of language, but the great majority
are its slaves. They can no more disconnect the innocent idea from the
soiled word that accompanies it than they can see a blue landscape
through green glass. Let us hope that one of the first acts of Mr.
Bright's millennial Parliament will be the establishment of a tribunal
empowered to take a word when it arrives at this pitiable condition, and
either in mercy knock it on the head altogether, or else formally
readmit it into good society, and give it all the advantages of a fresh
start.
We take an early opportunity of inviting their special attention to the
much-injured word "Match-making." The practice which it describes is not
only harmless, but, in the present state of society, highly useful and
meritorious. Yet there can be no doubt, that there is a powerful
prejudice against it. Although all women--or rather, perhaps, as
Thackeray said, all good women--are at heart match-makers, there are
very few who own the soft impeachment. Many repudiate it with
indignation. It is on the whole about as safe to charge a lady with
Fenianism as facetiously to point out a young couple in her
drawing-room, whose flirtation has a suspicious businesslike look about
it, and to hint that she has deliberately brought them together with a
view to matrimony. It may be true that she has no selfish interest
whatever in the matter. The criminal conspiracy in which she so
strenuously repudiates any concern is, after all, nothing worse than the
attempt to make two people whom she likes, and who she thinks will suit
each other, happy for life. By any other name such an action ought, one
would think, to smell sweet in the nostrils of gods and men.
But, whatever the gods think of it, men cannot forget that the practice,
whether harmless or not, goes by the objectionable name of match-making.
So the lady replies, not, perhaps, without the energy of conscious
guilt, that "things of this sort are best left to themselves," and
piously begs you to remember that marriages are made in Heaven, not in
her drawing-room. The melancholy truth is that the gentle craft of
match-making has been so vulgarized by course and clumsy professors, and
its very name has in consequence been brought into such disrepute, that
few respectable women have the courage openly to recognise it. They are
haunted by visions of the typical match-maker who does work for
fashionable novels and social satires, and who is a truly awful
personage. To her alone of mortals is it given to inspire, like the
Harpies, at once contempt and fear. Keen-eyed and hook-nosed, like a
bird of prey, she glowers from the corner of crowded ball-rooms upon the
unconscious heir, hunts him untiringly from house to house, marries him
remorselessly to her eldest daughter, and then never loses sight of him
till his spirit is broken, his old friends discarded, and his segar-case
thrown away.
It is scarcely necessary to say that this fearful being exists only in
fiction. In real life she has not only to marry her daughters, but also,
like other human beings, to eat, drink, sleep, and otherwise dispose of
the twenty-four hours of the day. She cannot therefore very well devote
herself, from morning to night, to the one occupation of heir-hunting,
with the precision of a machine, or one of Bunyan's walking vices. But
still there must be some truth even in a caricature, and a man sometimes
finds a girl "thrown at his head," as the process is forcibly termed,
with a coarse-mindedness quite worthy of the typical match-maker, though
also with a clumsiness which she would heartily despise.
He goes as a stranger to some place, and is astonished to find himself
at once taken to the bosom and innermost confidence of people whose very
name he never heard before, as if he were their oldest and most familiar
friend. He is asked to dinner one day, to breakfast the next, and warmly
assured that a place is always kept for him at lunch. Charmed and
flattered to find his many merits so quickly discovered and thoroughly
appreciated by strangers, he votes them the cleverest, most genial, most
hospitable people he ever met; and everything goes on delightfully until
he begins to think it odd that he should be constantly left alone with,
and now and then delicately chaffed about, some _passee_, ill-favored
woman, whom he no more connects with any thought of marriage than he
would a female rhinoceros. And then slowly dawns upon him the cruel
truth that his kind hosts have had their appreciation of his merits
considerably sharpened by the fact that there is an ugly daughter or
sister-in-law in the house whom they are sick to death of, whom they are
always imploring "to marry or do something," and who, having for years
ogled and angled for every marriageable pair of whiskers and pantoloons
within ten miles, has gradually become so well known in the neighborhood
that her one forlorn hope is to carry off some innocent stranger with a
rush.
"_Quere peregrinum, vicinia rauca reclamat;_" and if the _peregrinus_
happens to be young and verdant, and, having just been given a good
appointment, feels, with the Vicar of Wakefield, that one of the three
greatest characters on earth is the father of a family, he is possibly
hooked securely before he discovers his danger. He discovers it to find
himself tied for life to a woman with whom he has not a sympathy in
common, and for whom every day increases his disgust. And the people who
have ruined his life have not even the sorry excuse that they wished to
better hers. Their one thought was to get rid of her as speedily as
possible, no matter to whom; and they would rather have had Bluebeard at
a two-months' engagement than any other man at one of six. There is
something so coarse and revolting, so brutal, in the notion of bringing
two people together into such a relation as that of marriage on purely
selfish grounds, and without the slightest regard to their future
happiness, that any one who has seen the snare laid for himself or his
friends may well shudder at the mere sound of match-making. Mezentius
was more merciful, for of the two bodies which he chained together only
one had life.
The clumsy match-maker is a scarcely less dangerous, though a far more
respectable, enemy to the gentle craft than the coarse one. She makes it
ridiculous, while the latter makes it odious, and it is ridicule that
kills. She is, perhaps, a well-meaning woman, who would be sorry to
marry two people unless she thought them suited to each other; but the
moment she has made up her mind that they ought to marry, she sets to
work with a vigor which, unless she has a very young man to deal with,
is almost sure to spoil her plans. This would not be surprising in a
silly woman; but it is odd that the more energetic, and, in some
respects, the more able a woman is, the more likely sometimes she is to
fall into this error.
A woman may be the life and soul of a dozen societies, write admirable
letters, get half her male relatives into Government offices, and yet be
the laughing-stock of the neighborhood for the absurd way in which she
goes husband-hunting for her daughters. The very energy and ability
which fit her for other pursuits disqualify her for match-making. She is
too impatient and too fond of action to adopt the purely passive
expectant attitude, the masterly inactivity, which is here the great
secret of success. She is always feeling that something should be said
or done to help on the business, and prematurely scares the shy or
suspicious bird. Many a promising love-affair has been nipped in the bud
simply because the too eager mother has drawn public attention to it
before it was robust enough to face publicity, by throwing the two
lovers conspicuously together, or by some unguarded remark.
When one thinks of all that a man has to go through in the course of a
love-affair--especially in a small society where everybody knows
everybody--of all the chaffing and grinning, and significant interchange
of glances when he picks up the daughter's fan, or hands the mother to
her carriage, or laughs convulsively at the old jokes of the father, one
is almost inclined to wonder how a Briton, of the average British
stiffness and shyness, ever gets married at all. The explanation
probably is, that he falls in love before he exactly knows what he is
about, and, once in love, is of course gloriously blind and deaf to all
obstacles between him and the adored one. But to subject a man to this
trying ordeal, as the too eager match-maker does, before he is
sufficiently in love to be proof against it, is like sending him into a
snow-storm without a great-coat.
The romantic match-maker is, in her way, as mischievous as the coarse or
the clumsy one. She is usually a good sort of woman, but with decidedly
more heart than head. She gets her notions of political economy from Mr.
Dickens' novels, and holds that, whenever two nice young people of
opposite sexes like each other, it is their business then and there to
marry. If Providence cannot always, like Mr. Dickens, provide a rich
aunt or uncle, it at least never sends mouths without hands to feed
them. Let every good citizen help the young people to marry as fast as
they can, and let there be lots of chubby cheeks and lots of Sunday
plum-pudding to fill them. There is no arguing with a woman of this
kind, and she is perhaps the most dangerous of all match-makers,
inasmuch as she is usually herself a warm-hearted pleasant woman, and
there is a courage and disinterestedness about her views very
captivating to young heads. There is no safety but in flight. Even a
bachelor of fair prudence and knowledge of the world is not safe in her
hands. We mean on the assumption that he is not in a position to marry.
If he is "an eligible," he cannot, of course, be considered safe
anywhere. But otherwise he knows that match-makers of the unromantic
worldly type will be only too glad to leave him alone.
And having, perhaps, been accustomed on this account to feel that he may
flirt in moderation with impunity, as a man with whom marriage is
altogether out of the question, he is quite unprepared for the new and
startling unconventional view which the romantic match-maker takes of
him. He is horrified to find that, ignoring the usual considerations as
to the length of his purse, she has discovered that he and the pretty
girl with whom he danced three consecutive dances last night must have
been made expressly for each other, and that she has somehow contrived,
by the exercise of that freemasonry in love-affairs which is peculiar to
women, to put the same ridiculous notion into the young lady's head. In
fact, he suddenly finds to his astonishment that he must either
propose--which is out of the question--or be considered a cold-blooded
trifler with female hearts. And so he has nothing to do but pack up his
portmanteau and beat an ignominious retreat, with an uncomfortable
consciousness that his amiable hostess and pretty partner have a very
poor opinion of him.
It is rather hard, however, that these and other abuses, which we have
not space to enumerate, of the great art of match-making should bring
the art itself into odium and contempt. In all of them there is a
violation of some one or more of what we take to be its three chief
canons. First, the objects to be experimented upon should be pecuniarily
in a position to marry. Secondly, care should be taken that they seem on
the whole not unlikely to suit each other. Thirdly, the artist should be
content, like a photographer, to bring the objects together, and leave
the rest of the work mainly to nature. We confess that we feel painfully
the unscientific vagueness of this last axiom, since so much turns upon
the way in which the objects are brought together. But, as we only
undertook to treat of the abuse of match-making, the reader must
consider these maxims for its proper use to be thrown into the bargain
_gratis_, and not therefore to be scrutinized severely. Some other day,
if we can muster up courage enough for so delicate and arduous a task,
we may perhaps attempt to show that, in the present state of society,
the art of match-making deserves and requires cultivation, and how, in
our humble opinion, this cultivation should be carried on.
FEMININE INFLUENCE.
All English ladies who are warmly devoted to the great cause of feminine
authority have got their eyes just now upon the Empress of the French.
It is understood in English domestic circles that the Empress has
decided to go to Rome, and that the Emperor has decided on her staying
at home, and the interest of the situation is generally thought to be
intense. The ocean race between the yachts was nothing to it. Every
woman of spirit has been betting heavily this Christmas upon the
Empress, and praying mentally for the defeat of the Emperor, and every
new telegram that bears upon the subject of the difficult controversy is
scanned by hundreds of dovelike eyes every morning with indescribable
eagerness.