Mr Editor!--You have a great name with our sex! CHRISTOPHER NORTH is, in
our flowing cups--of Bohea--"freshly remembered." To you, therefore, as to
the Sir Philip Sidney of modern Arcadia, do I address the voice of my
bewailment. Not from any miserable coveting after the publicities of
printing. All I implore of you is, a punch of your crutch into the very
heart of a matter involving the best interests of my sex!
You, dear Mr Editor, who have your eyes garnished with Solomon's
spectacles about you, cannot but have perceived on the parlour-tables and
book-shelves of your fair friends--by whose firesides you are courted even
as the good knight, and the _Spectator_, by the Lady Lizards of the days
of Anne--a sudden inundation of tabby-bound volumes, addressed, in
supergilt letters, to the "Wives of England"--the "Daughters of
England"--the "Grandmothers of England." A few, arrayed in modest calf or
embossed linen, address themselves to the sober latitudes of the manse or
parsonage-house. Some treat, without _per_mission, of "Woman's
Mission"--some, in defiance of custom, of her "Duties." From exuberant 4to,
down to the fid-fad concentration of 12mo--from crown demy to diamond
editions--no end to these chartered documentations of the sex! The women
of this favoured kingdom of Queen Victoria, appear to have been
unexpectedly weighed in the balance, and found wanting in morals and
manners; or why this sudden emission of codes of morality?
No one denies, indeed, that woman has, of late, ris' wonderfully in the
market; or that the weaker sex is coming it amazingly strong. The sceptres
of three of the first kingdoms in Europe are swayed by female hands. The
first writer of young France is a woman. The first astronomer of young
England, _idem_. Mrs Trollope played the Chesterfield and the deuce with
the Yankees. Miss Martineau turned the head of the mighty Brougham.
Mademoiselle d'Angeville ascended Mont Blanc, and Mademoiselle Rachel has
replaced Corneille and Racine on their crumbling pedestals. I might waste
hours of your precious time, sir, in perusing a list of the eminent women
now competing with the rougher sex for the laurels of renown. But you know
it all better than I can tell you. You have done honour due, in your time,
to Joanna Baillie and Mrs Jamieson, to Caroline Southey and Miss Ferrier.
You praised Mrs Butler when she deserved it; and probably esteem Mary
Howitt, and Mary Mitford, and all the other Maries, at their just
value--to say nothing of the Maria of Edgworthstown, so fairly worth them
all. I make no doubt that you were even one of the first to do homage to
the Swedish Richardson, Frederika Bremer; though, having sown your wild
oats, you keep your own counsel anent novel reading.
You will, therefore, probably sympathize in the general amazement, that,
at a moment when the sex is signalizing itself from pole to pole--when a
Grace Darling obtains the palm for intrepidity--when the Honourable Miss
Grimston's _Prayer-Book_ is read in churches--when Mrs Fry, like hunger,
eats through stone walls to call felons to repentance--when a king has
descended from his throne, and a prince from royal highnesshood, to reward
the virtues of the fair partners to whom they were unable to impart the
rights of the blood-royal--when the fairest specimen of modern sculpture
has been supplied by a female hand, and woman, in short, is at a premium
throughout the universe, all this waste of sermonizing should have been
thrown, like a wet blanket, over her shoulders!
But this is not enough, dear Mr Editor. I wish to direct your attention
towards an exclusive branch of the grievance. I have no doubt that, in
your earlier years, instead of courting your fair friends, as Burns
appears to have done, with copies of your own works, you used to present
unto them the "_Legacy of Dr Gregory to his Daughters_"--or "_Mrs
Chapone's Letters_," or Miss Bowdler's, or Mrs Trimmer's, appropriately
bound and gilt; and thus apprized of the superabundance of prose provided
for their edification, are prepared to feel, with me, that if they have
not Mrs Barbauld and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded by the
frippery tomes which load the counters of our bazars. _This_ perception
has come of itself. If I could _only_ be fortunate enough to enlarge your
scope of comprehension!
Mr dear Mr Editor, I am what is called a lone woman. Shakspeare, through
whose recklessness originate half the commonplaces of our land's language,
thought proper to define such a condition as "SINGLE BLESSEDNESS"--though
he aptly enough engrafts it on a thorn! For my part, I cannot enough
admire the theory of certain modern poets, that an angel is an ethereal
being, composed by the interunion in heaven, of two mortals who have been
faithfully attached on earth--and as to "blessedness" being ever "single,"
either in this world or the next, I do not believe a word about the matter!
"Happiness," Lord Byron assures us, "was born a twin!"
I do not mean to complain of my condition--far from it. But I wish to say,
that since, from the small care taken by English parents to double the
condition of their daughters, it is clear the state of "single blessedness"
is of higher account in our own "favoured country" than in any other in
Europe; it certainly behoves the guardians of the public weal to afford
due protection and encouragement to spinsters.
Every body knows that Great Britain is the very fatherland of old maids.
In Catholic countries, the superfluous daughters of a family are disposed
of in convents and _béguinages_, just as in Turkey and China they are,
still more humanely, drowned. In certain provinces of the east, pigs are
expressly kept, to be turned into the streets at daybreak, for the purpose
of devouring the female infants exposed during the night--thus
benevolently securing them from the after torments of single "blessedness."
But a far nobler arrangement was made by that greatest of modern
legislators, Napoleon--whose code entitles the daughters of a house to
share, equally with sons, in its property and bequeathments; and in France,
a woman with a dowery is as sure of courtship and marriage, as of death
and burial. Nay, so much is marriage regarded among the French as the
indispensable condition of the human species, that parents proceed as
openly to the task of procuring a proper husband for their daughter, as of
providing her with shoes and stockings. No false delicacy--no pitiful
manoeuvres! The affair is treated like any other negotiation. It is a mere
question of two and two making four, which enables two to make one. How
far more honest than the angling and trickery of English
match-making--which, by keeping men constantly on the defensive,
predisposes them against attractions to which they might otherwise give
way! However, as I said before, I do not wish to complain of my condition.
I only consider it hard that the interests of the wives of England are to
be exclusively studied, when the unfortunate females who lack the
consolations of matronhood are in so far greater want of sustainment; and
that all the theories of the perfectionizement of the fair sex now issuing
from the press, should purport to instruct young ladies how to qualify
themselves for wives, and wives how to qualify themselves for heaven; and
not a word addressed, either in the way of exhortation, remonstrance, or
applause, to the highly respectable order of the female community whose
cause I have taken on myself to advocate. Have not the wives of England
husbands to whisper wisdom into their ears? Why, then, are _they_ to be
coaxed or lectured by tabby-bound volumes, while _we_ are left neglected
in a corner? _Our_ earthly career, the Lord he knows, is far more
trying--_our_ temptations as much greater, as our pleasures are less; and
it is mortifying indeed to find our behavior a thing so little worth
interference. We may conduct ourselves, it seems, as indecorously as we
think proper, for any thing the united booksellers of the United Kingdom
care to the contrary!
Not that I very much wonder at literary men regarding the education of
wives as a matter of moment. The worse halves of Socrates, Milton, Hooker,
have been thorns in their sides, urging them into blasphemy against the
sex. But is this a reason, I only ask you, for leaving, like an
uncultivated waste, that holy army of martyrs, the spinsterhood of Great
Britain?
Mr Editor, act like a man! Speak up for us! Write up for us! Tell these
little writers of little books, that however they may think to secure
dinners and suppers to themselves, by currying favour with the rulers of
the roast, _the greatest of all women have been_ SINGLE! Tell them of our
Virgin Queen, Elizabeth--the patroness of their calling, the protectress
of learning and learned men. Tell them of Joan of Arc, the conqueror of
even English chivalry. Tell them of all the tender mercies of the _Soeurs
de Charité_! Tell them that, from the throne to the hospital, the spinster,
unharassed by the cares of private life, has been found most fruitful in
public virtue.
Then, perhaps, you will persuade them that we are worth our schooling; and
the "Old Maids of England" may look forward to receive a tabby-bound
manual of their duties, as well as its "Wives." I have really no patience
with the selfish conceit of these married women, who fancy their
well-doing of such importance. See how they were held by the
ancients!--treated like beasts of burden, and denied the privilege of all
mental accomplishment. When the Grecian matrons affected to weep over the
slain, after some victory of Themistocles, the Athenian general bade them
"dry their tears, and practise a single virtue in atonement of all their
weaknesses." It was to their single women the philosophers of the portico
addressed their lessons; not to the domestic drudges, whom they considered
only worthy to inspect the distaffs of their slaves, and produce sons for
the service of the country.
In Bath, Brighton, and other spinster colonies of this island, the demand
for such a work would be prodigious. The sale of canary-birds and poodles
might suffer a temporary depression in consequence; but this is
comparatively unimportant. Perhaps--who knows--so positive a recognition
of our estate as a definite class of the community, might lead to the long
desiderated establishment of a lay convent, somewhat similar to the
_béguinages_ of Flanders, though less ostensibly subject to religious
law--a convent where single gentlewomen might unite together in their
meals and devotions, under the government of a code of laws set forth in
their tabby-bound Koran.
Methinks I see it--a modern temple of Vesta, without its tell-tale
fires--square, rectangular, simple, airy, isolated--chaste as Diana and
quiet as the grave--the frescoed walls commemorating the legend of Saint
Ursula and her eleven thousand--the sacrifice of Jephtha's
daughter--Elizabeth Carter translating Epictetus--Harriet Martineau
revising the criminal code. In the hall, dear Editor, should hang the
portrait of Christopher North--in that locality, appropriately, a Kit-cat!
Ponder upon this! The distinction is worthy consideration. As the
newspapers say, it is an "unprecedented opportunity for investment!" For
the sole Helicon of the institution shall be--"Blackwood's Entire" its
lady abbess--
Your humble servant to command,
(for the old maids of England,)
TABITHA GLUM.
_1st Jan. 1844.
Lansdowne, Bath._
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