In comparing modern with ancient manners, we are pleased to compliment
ourselves upon the point of gallantry; a certain obsequiousness, or
deferential respect, which we are supposed to pay to females, as
females.
I shall believe that this principle actuates our conduct, when I can
forget, that in the nineteenth century of the era from which we date
our civility, we are but just beginning to leave off the very frequent
practice of whipping females in public, in common with the coarsest
male offenders.
I shall believe it to be influential, when I can shut my eyes to the
fact, that in England women are still occasionally--hanged.
I shall believe in it, when actresses are no longer subject to be
hissed off a stage by gentlemen.
I shall believe in it, when Dorimant hands a fish-wife across the
kennel; or assists the apple-woman to pick up her wandering fruit,
which some unlucky dray has just dissipated.
I shall believe in it, when the Dorimants in humbler life, who would
be thought in their way notable adepts in this refinement, shall act
upon it in places where they are not known, or think themselves not
observed--when I shall see the traveller for some rich tradesman part
with his admired box-coat, to spread it over the defenceless shoulders
of the poor woman, who is passing to her parish on the roof of the
same stage-coach with him, drenched in the rain--when I shall no
longer see a woman standing up in the pit of a London theatre, till
she is sick and faint with the exertion, with men about her, seated
at their ease, and jeering at her distress; till one, that seems to
have more manners or conscience than the rest, significantly declares
"she should be welcome to his seat, if she were a little younger and
handsomer." Place this dapper warehouseman, or that rider, in a circle
of their own female acquaintance, and you shall confess you have not
seen a politer-bred man in Lothbury.
Lastly, I shall begin to believe that there is some such principle
influencing our conduct, when more than one-half of the drudgery and
coarse servitude of the world shall cease to be performed by women.
Until that day comes, I shall never believe this boasted point to be
any thing more than a conventional fiction; a pageant got up between
the sexes, in a certain rank, and at a certain time of life, in which
both find their account equally.
I shall be even disposed to rank it among the salutary fictions of
life, when in polite circles I shall see the same attentions paid
to age as to youth, to homely features as to handsome, to coarse
complexions as to clear--to the woman, as she is a woman, not as she
is a beauty, a fortune, or a title.
I shall believe it to be something more than a name, when a
well-dressed gentleman in a well-dressed company can advert to the
topic of _female old age_ without exciting, and intending to excite,
a sneer:--when the phrases "antiquated virginity," and such a one
has "overstoocl her market," pronounced in good company, shall raise
immediate offence in man, or woman, that shall hear them spoken.
Joseph Paice, of Bread-street-hill, merchant, and one of the Directors
of the South-Sea company--the same to whom Edwards, the Shakspeare
commentator, has addressed a fine sonnet--was the only pattern of
consistent gallantry I have met with. He took me under his shelter at
an early age, and bestowed some pains upon me. I owe to his precepts
and example whatever there is of the man of business (and that is not
much) in my composition. It was not his fault that I did not profit
more. Though bred a Presbyterian, and brought up a merchant, he was
the finest gentleman of his time. He had not _one_ system of attention
to females in the drawing-room, and _another_ in the shop, or at the
stall. I do not mean that he made no distinction. But he never lost
sight of sex, or overlooked it in the casualties of a disadvantageous
situation. I have seen him stand bare-headed--smile if you please--to
a poor servant girl, while she has been inquiring of him the way to
some street--in such a posture of unforced civility, as neither to
embarrass her in the acceptance, nor himself in the offer, of it. He
was no dangler, in the common acceptation of the word, after women:
but he reverenced and upheld, in every form in which it came before
him, _womanhood_. I have seen him--nay, smile not--tenderly escorting
a marketwoman, whom he had encountered in a shower, exalting his
umbrella over her poor basket of fruit, that it might receive no
damage, with as much carefulness as if she had been a Countess. To the
reverend form of Female Eld he would yield the wall (though it were to
an ancient beggar-woman) with more ceremony than we can afford to show
our grandams. He was the Preux Chevalier of Age; the Sir Calidore,
or Sir Tristan, to those who have no Calidores or Tristans to defend
them. The roses, that had long faded thence, still bloomed for him in
those withered and yellow cheeks.
He was never married, but in his youth he paid his addresses to the
beautiful Susan Winstanley--old Winstanley's daughter of Clapton--who
dying in the early days of their courtship, confirmed in him the
resolution of perpetual bachelorship. It was during their short
courtship, he told me, that he had been one day treating his mistress
with a profusion of civil speeches--the common gallantries--to which
kind of thing she had hitherto manifested no repugnance--but in
this instance with no effect. He could not obtain from her a decent
acknowledgment in return. She rather seemed to resent his compliments.
He could not set it down to caprice, for the lady had always shown
herself above that littleness. When he ventured on the following day,
finding her a little better humoured, to expostulate with her on her
coldness of yesterday, she confessed, with her usual frankness, that
she had no sort of dislike to his attentions; that she could even
endure some high-flown compliments; that a young woman placed in her
situation had a right to expect all sort of civil things said to
her; that she hoped she could digest a dose of adulation, short of
insincerity, with as little injury to her humility as most young
women: but that--a little before he had commenced his compliments--she
had overheard him by accident, in rather rough language, rating
a young woman, who had not brought home his cravats quite to the
appointed time, and she thought to herself, "As I am Miss Susan
Winstanley, and a young lady--a reputed beauty, and known to be a
fortune,--I can have my choice of the finest speeches from the mouth
of this very fine gentleman who is courting me--but if I had been poor
Mary Such-a-one (_naming the milliner_),--and had failed of bringing
home the cravats to the appointed hour--though perhaps I had sat up
half the night to forward them--what sort of compliments should I have
received then?--And my woman's pride came to my assistance; and I
thought, that if it were only to do _me_ honour, a female, like
myself, might have received handsomer usage: and I was determined
not to accept any fine speeches, to the compromise of that sex, the
belonging to which was after all my strongest claim and title to
them."
I think the lady discovered both generosity, and a just way of
thinking, in this rebuke which she gave her lover; and I have
sometimes imagined, that the uncommon strain of courtesy, which
through life regulated the actions and behaviour of my friend towards
all of womankind indiscriminately, owed its happy origin to this
seasonable lesson from the lips of his lamented mistress.
I wish the whole female world would entertain the same notion of these
things that Miss Winstanley showed. Then we should see something
of the spirit of consistent gallantry; and no longer witness the
anomaly of the same man--a pattern of true politeness to a wife--of
cold contempt, or rudeness, to a sister--the idolater of his female
mistress--the disparager and despiser of his no less female aunt, or
unfortunate--still female--maiden cousin. Just so much respect as a
woman derogates from her own sex, in whatever condition placed--her
handmaid, or dependent--she deserves to have diminished from herself
on that score; and probably will feel the diminution, when youth, and
beauty, and advantages, not inseparable from sex, shall lose of their
attraction. What a woman should demand of a man in courtship, or after
it, is first--respect for her as she is a woman;--and next to that--to
be respected by him above all other women. But let her stand upon
her female character as upon a foundation; and let the attentions,
incident to individual preference, be so many pretty additaments and
ornaments--as many, and as fanciful, as you please--to that main
structure. Let her first lesson be--with sweet Susan Winstanley--to
_reverence her sex_.