Would we conceive properly of that simplicity which is the sweetest
expression of a well-informed and well-meaning mind, which every where
diffuses tenderness and delicacy, sweetens the relations of life, and
gives a zest to the minutest duties of humanity, let us contemplate
every perceptible operation of nature, the twilight of the evening, the
pearly dew-drops of the early morning, and all that various growth which
indicates the genial return of spring. The same principle from which all
that is soft and pleasing, amiable or exquisite, to the eye or to the
ear, in the exterior frame of nature, produces that taste for true
simplicity, which is one of the most useful, as well as the most elegant
lessons, that _ladies_ can learn.
Infancy, is perhaps, the finest and most perfect illustration of
simplicity. It is a state of genuine nature throughout. The feelings of
children are under no kind of restraint, but pure as the fire, free as
the winds, honest and open as the face of heaven. Their joys incessantly
flow in the thickest succession, and their griefs only seem fleeting and
evanescent. To the calls of nature they are only attentive. They know no
voice but hers. Their obedience to all her commands is prompt and
implicit. They never anticipate her bounties, nor relinquish her
pleasures. This situation renders them independent of artifice.
Influenced only by nature, their manners, like the principle that
produces them, are always the same.
Genuine simplicity is that peculiar quality of the mind, by which some
happy characters are enabled to avoid the most distant approaches to any
thing like affectation, inconstancy, or design, in their intercourse
with the world. It is much more easily understood, however than defined;
and consists not in a specific tone of the voice, movement of the body,
or mode imposed by custom, but is the natural and permanent effect of
real modesty and good sense on the whole behavior.
This has been considered in all ages, as one of the first and most
captivating ornaments of the sex. The savage, the plebeian, the man of
the world, and the courtier, are agreed in stamping it with a preference
to every other female excellence.
Nature only is lovely, and nothing unnatural can ever be amiable. The
genuine expressions of truth and nature are happily calculated to
impress the heart with pleasure. No woman, whatever her other qualities
may be, was ever eminently agreeable, but in proportion as
distinguished by these. The world is good-natured enough to give a lady
credit for all the merit she can possess or acquire, without
affectation. But the least shade or coloring of this odious foible
brings certain and indelible obloquy on the most elegant
accomplishments. The blackest suspicion inevitably rests on every thing
assumed. She who is only an ape of others, or prefers formality in all
its gigantic and preposterous shapes, to that plain, unembarassed
conduct which nature unavoidably produces, will assuredly provoke an
abundance of ridicule, but never can be an object either of love or
esteem.
The various artifices of the sex discover themselves at a very early
period. A passion for expense and show is one of the first they exhibit.
This gives them a taste for refinement, which divests their young hearts
of almost every other feeling, renders their tempers desultory and
capricious, regulates their dress only by the most fantastic models of
finery and fashion, and makes their company rather tiresome and awkward,
than pleasing or elegant.
No one perhaps can form a more ludicrous contrast to every thing just
and graceful in nature, than the woman whose sole object in life is to
pass for a _fine lady_. The attentions she every where and uniformly
pays, expects, and even exacts, are tedious and fatiguing. Her various
movements and attitudes are all adjusted and exhibited by rule. By a
happy fluency of the most eloquent language, she has the art of
imparting a momentary dignity and grace to the merest trifles. Studious
only to mimic such peculiarities as are most admired in others, she
affects a loquacity peculiarly flippant and teazing because scandal,
routs, finery, fans, china, lovers, lap-dogs, or squirrels, are her
constant themes. Her amusements, like those of a magpie, are only
hopping over the same spots, prying into the same corners, and devouring
the same species of prey. The simple and beautiful delineations of
nature, in her countenance, gestures and whole deportment, are
habitually arranged, distorted, or concealed, by the affected adoption
of whatever grimace or deformity is latest or most in vogue.
She accustoms her face to a simper, which every separate feature in it
belies. She spoils, perhaps, a blooming complexion with a profusion of
artificial coloring, she distorts the most exquisite shape by loads or
volumes of useless drapery. She has her head, her arms, her feet, and
her gait, equally touched by art and affectation, into what is called
the _taste_, the _ton_, or the _fashion_.
She little considers to what a torrent of ridicule and sarcasm this mode
of conduct exposes her; or how exceedingly cold and hollow that ceremony
must be, which is not the language of a warm heart. She does not reflect
how insipid those smiles are, which indicate no internal pleasantry; nor
how awkward those graces, which spring not from habits of good-nature
and benevolence. Thus, pertness succeeds to delicacy, assurance to
modesty, and all the vagaries of a listless to the sensibilities of an
ingenuous mind.
With her, punctilio is politeness; dissipation, life; and levity,
spirit. The miserable and contemptible drudge of every tawdry innovation
in dress or ceremony, she incessantly mistakes extravagance for taste,
and finery for elegance.
Her favorite examples are not those persons of acknowledged sincerity,
who speak as they feel, and act as they think; but such only as are
formed to dazzle her fancy, amuse her senses, or humor her whims. Her
only study is how to glitter or shine, how to captivate and gratify the
gaze of the multitude, or how to swell her own pomp and importance. To
this interesting object all her assiduities and time are religiously
devoted.
How often is debility of mind, and even badness of heart concealed under
a splendid exterior! The fairest of the species, and of the sex, often
want sincerity; and without sincerity every other qualification is
rather a blemish, than a virtue, or excellence. Sincerity operates on
the moral, somewhat like the sun on the natural world; and produces
nearly the same effects on the dispositions of the human heart, which he
does on inanimate objects. Wherever sincerity prevails and is felt, all
the smiling and benevolent virtues flourish most, disclose their
sweetest lustre, and diffuse their richest fragrance.
Heaven has not a finer or more perfect emblem on earth than a woman of
genuine simplicity. She affects no graces which are not inspired by
sincerity. Her opinions result not from passion and fancy, but from
reason and experience. Candor and humility give expansion to her heart.
She struggles for no kind of chimerical credit, disclaims the appearance
of every affectation, and is in all things just what she seems, and
others would be thought. Nature, not art, is the great standard of her
manners; and her exterior wears no varnish, or embellishment, which is
not the genuine signature of an open, undesigning, and benevolent mind.
It is not in her power, because not in her nature, to hide, with a
fawning air, and a mellow voice, her aversion or contempt, where her
delicacy is hurt, here temper ruffled, or her feelings insulted.
In short, whatever appears most amiable, lovely, or interesting in
nature, art, manners, or life, originates in simplicity. What is
correctness in taste, purity in morals, truth in science, grace in
beauty, but simplicity? It is the garb of innocence. It adorned the
first ages, and still adorns the infant state of humanity. Without
simplicity, woman is a vixen, a coquette, a hypocrite; society a
masquerade, and pleasure a phantom.
The following story, I believe, is pretty generally known. A lady, whose
husband had long been afflicted with an acute but lingering disease,
suddenly feigned such an uncommon _tenderness_ for him, as to resolve on
dying in his stead. She had even the address to persuade him not to
outlive this extraordinary instance of her conjugal fidelity and
attachment. It was instantaneously agreed they should mutually swallow
such a quantity of arsenic, as would speedily effect their dreadful
purpose. She composed the fatal draught before his face and even set him
the desperate example of drinking first. By this device, which had all
the appearance of the greatest affection and candor, the dregs only were
reserved for him, and soon put a period to his life.
It then appeared that the dose was so tempered, as, from the weight of
the principal ingredient, to be deadly only at the bottom, which she had
artfully appropriated for his share. Even after all this finesse, she
seized, we are told, his inheritance, and insulted his memory by a
second marriage.