To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall.
Quebec, July 1.
'Tis very true, Jack; I have no relish for _the Misses_; for
puling girls in hanging sleeves, who feel no passion but vanity, and,
without any distinguishing taste, are dying for the first man who tells
them they are handsome. Take your boarding-school girls; but give me
_a woman_; one, in short, who has a soul; not a cold inanimate form,
insensible to the lively impressions of real love, and unfeeling as the
wax baby she has just thrown away.
You will allow Prior to be no bad judge of female merit; and you may
remember his Egyptian maid, the favorite of the luxurious King
Solomon, is painted in full bloom.
By the way, Jack, there is generally a certain hoity-toity
inelegance of form and manner at seventeen, which in my opinion is not
balanc'd by freshness of complexion, the only advantage girls have to
boast of.
I have another objection to girls, which is, that they will
eternally fancy every man they converse with has designs; a coquet and
a prude _in the bud_ are equally disagreeable; the former expects
universal adoration, the latter is alarm'd even at that general
civility which is the right of all their sex; of the two however the
last is, I think, much the most troublesome; I wish these very
apprehensive young ladies knew, their _virtue_ is not half so
often in danger as they imagine, and that there are many male creatures
to whom they may safely shew politeness without being drawn into any
concessions inconsistent with the strictest honor. We are not half such
terrible animals as mammas, nurses, and novels represent us; and, if my
opinion is of any weight, I am inclin'd to believe those tremendous
men, who have designs on the whole sex, are, and ever were, characters
as fabulous as the giants of romance.
Women after twenty begin to know this, and therefore converse with
us on the footing of rational creatures, without either fearing or
expecting to find every man a lover.
To do the ladies justice however, I have seen the same absurdity in
my own sex, and have observed many a very good sort of man turn pale at
the politeness of an agreeable woman.
I lament this mistake, in both sexes, because it takes greatly from
the pleasure of mix'd society, the only society for which I have any
relish.
Don't, however, fancy that, because I dislike _the Misses_, I
have a taste for their grandmothers; there is a golden mean, Jack, of
which you seem to have no idea.
You are very ill inform'd as to the manners of the Indian ladies;
'tis in the bud alone these wild roses are accessible; liberal to
profusion of their charms before marriage, they are chastity itself
after: the moment they commence wives, they give up the very idea of
pleasing, and turn all their thoughts to the cares, and those not the
most delicate cares, of domestic life: laborious, hardy, active, they
plough the ground, they sow, they reap; whilst the haughty husband
amuses himself with hunting, shooting, fishing, and such exercises only
as are the image of war; all other employments being, according to his
idea, unworthy the dignity of man.
I have told you the labors of savage life, but I should observe that
they are only temporary, and when urg'd by the sharp tooth of
necessity: their lives are, upon the whole, idle beyond any thing we
can conceive. If the Epicurean definition of happiness is just, that it
consists in indolence of body, and tranquillity of mind, the Indians of
both sexes are the happiest people on earth; free from all care, they
enjoy the present moment, forget the past, and are without solicitude
for the future: in summer, stretch'd on the verdant turf, they sing,
they laugh, they play, they relate stories of their ancient heroes to
warm the youth to war; in winter, wrap'd in the furs which bounteous
nature provides them, they dance, they feast, and despise the rigors of
the season, at which the more effeminate Europeans tremble.
War being however the business of their lives, and the first passion
of their souls, their very pleasures take their colors from it: every
one must have heard of the war dance, and their songs are almost all on
the same subject: on the most diligent enquiry, I find but one love
song in their language, which is short and simple, tho' perhaps not
inexpressive:
"I love you,
I love you dearly,
I love you all day long."
An old Indian told me, they had also songs of friendship, but I
could never procure a translation of one of them: on my pressing this
Indian to translate one into French for me, he told me with a haughty
air, the Indians were not us'd to make translations, and that if I
chose to understand their songs I must learn their language. By the
way, their language is extremely harmonious, especially as pronounced
by their women, and as well adapted to music as Italian itself. I must
not here omit an instance of their independent spirit, which is, that
they never would submit to have the service of the church, tho' they
profess the Romish religion, in any language but their own; the women,
who have in general fine voices, sing in the choir with a taste and
manner that would surprize you, and with a devotion that might edify
more polish'd nations.
The Indian women are tall and well shaped; have good eyes, and
before marriage are, except their color, and their coarse greasy black
hair, very far from being disagreeable; but the laborious life they
afterwards lead is extremely unfavorable to beauty; they become coarse
and masculine, and lose in a year or two the power as well as the
desire of pleasing. To compensate however for the loss of their charms,
they acquire a new empire in marrying; are consulted in all affairs of
state, chuse a chief on every vacancy of the throne, are sovereign
arbiters of peace and war, as well as of the fate of those unhappy
captives that have the misfortune to fall into their hands, who are
adopted as children, or put to the most cruel death, as the wives of
the conquerors smile or frown.
A Jesuit missionary told me a story on this subject, which one
cannot hear without horror: an Indian woman with whom he liv'd on his
mission was feeding her children, when her husband brought in an
English prisoner; she immediately cut off his arm, and gave her
children the streaming blood to drink: the Jesuit remonstrated on the
cruelty of the action, on which, looking sternly at him, "I would have
them warriors," said she, "and therefore feed them with the food of
men."
This anecdote may perhaps disgust you with the Indian ladies, who
certainly do not excel in female softness. I will therefore turn to the
Canadian, who have every charm except that without which all other
charms are to me insipid, I mean sensibility: they are gay, coquet, and
sprightly; more gallant than sensible; more flatter'd by the vanity of
inspiring passion, than capable of feeling it themselves; and, like
their European countrywomen, prefer the outward attentions of unmeaning
admiration to the real devotion of the heart. There is not perhaps on
earth a race of females, who talk so much, or feel so little, of love
as the French; the very reverse is in general true of the English: my
fair countrywomen seem ashamed of the charming sentiment to which they
are indebted for all their power.
Adieu! I am going to attend a very handsome French lady, who allows
me the honor to drive her _en calache_ to our Canadian Hyde Park,
the road to St. Foix, where you will see forty or fifty calashes, with
pretty women in them, parading every evening: you will allow the
apology to be admissible.
Ed. Rivers.