delicate and quick _sense of propriety_; or, in other words, one should
be able to form an instantaneous judgment of what is fittest to be said
or done, on every occasion as it offers. I have known one or two
persons, who seemed to owe this advantage to nature only, and to have
the peculiar happiness of being born, as it were, with another sense, by
which they had an immediate perception of what was proper and improper,
in cases absolutely new to them: but this is the lot of very few; in
general, propriety of behaviour must be the fruit of instruction, of
observation, and reasoning; and is to be cultivated and improved like
any other branch of knowledge or virtue. A good temper is a necessary
groundwork of it; and, if to this is added a good understanding, applied
industriously to this purpose, I think it can hardly fail of attaining
all that is essential in it. Particular modes and ceremonies of
behaviour vary in different countries, and even in different parts of
the same town. These can only be learned by observation on the manners
of those who are best skilled in them, and by keeping what is called
good company. But the principles of politeness are the same in all
places. Wherever there are human beings, it must be impolite to hurt the
temper or to shock the passions of those you converse with. It must
every where be good-breeding, to set your companions in the most
advantageous point of light, by giving each the opportunity of
displaying their most agreeable talents, and by carefully avoiding all
occasions of exposing their defects;--to exert your own endeavours to
please, and to amuse, but not to outshine them;--to give each their due
share of attention and notice--not engrossing the talk, when others are
desirous to speak, nor suffering the conversation to flag, for want of
introducing something to continue or renew a subject;--not to push your
advantages in argument so far that your antagonist cannot retreat with
honour:--In short, it is an universal duty in society to consider others
more than yourself--"in honour preferring one another." Christianity, in
this rule, gives the best lesson of politeness; yet judgment must be
used in the application of it: our humility must not be strained so far
as to distress those we mean to honour; we must not quit our proper
rank, nor force others to treat us improperly; or to accept, what we
mean as an advantage, against their wills. We should be perfectly easy,
and make others so, if we can. But this happy ease belongs perhaps to
the last stage of perfection in politeness, and can hardly be attained
till we are conscious that we know the rules of behaviour, and are not
likely to offend against propriety. In a very young person, who has
seen little or nothing of the world, this cannot be expected; but a real
desire of obliging, and a respectful attention, will in a great measure
supply the want of knowledge, and will make every one ready to overlook
those deficiencies, which are owing only to the want of opportunities to
observe the manners of polite company. You ought not therefore to be too
much depressed by the consciousness of such deficiencies, but endeavour
to get above the shame of wanting what you have not had the means of
acquiring. Nothing heightens this false shame, and the awkwardness it
occasions, so much as vanity. The humble mind, contented to be known for
what it is, and unembarrassed by the dread of betraying its ignorance,
is present to itself, and can command the use of understanding, which
will generally preserve you from any great indecorum, and will secure
you from that ridicule, which is the punishment of affectation rather
than of ignorance. People of sense will never despise you, whilst you
act naturally; but, the moment you attempt to step out of your own
character, you make yourself an object of just ridicule.
Many are of opinion, that a very young woman can hardly be too silent
and reserved in company; and, certainly, nothing is so disgusting in
youth as pertness and self-conceit. But modesty should be distinguished
from an awkward bashfulness, and silence should be only enjoined, when
it would be forward and impertinent to talk. There are many proper
opportunities for a girl, young even as you are, to speak in company,
with advantage to herself; and, if she does it without conceit or
affectation, she will always be more pleasing than those, who sit like
statues, without sense or motion. When you are silent, your looks should
show your attention and presence to the company: a respectful and
earnest attention is the most delicate kind of praise, and never fails
to gratify and please. You must appear to be interested in what is said,
and endeavour to improve yourself by it: if you understand the subject
well enough to ask now and then a pertinent question, or if you can
mention any circumstances relating to it that have not before been taken
notice of, this will be an agreeable way of showing your willingness to
make a part of the company; and will probably draw a particular
application to you, from some one or other. Then, when called upon, you
must not draw back as unwilling to answer, nor confine yourself merely
to _yes_, or _no_, as is the custom of many young persons, who become
intolerable burdens to the mistress of the house, whilst she strives in
vain to draw them into notice, and to give them some share in the
conversation.
In your father's house it is certainly proper for you to pay civility to
the guests, and to talk to them in your turn--with modesty and
respect--if they encourage you to it. Young ladies of near your own age,
who visit there, fall of course to your share to entertain. But, whilst
you exert yourself to make their visit agreeable to them, you must not
forget what is due to the elder part of the company, nor, by whispering
and laughing apart, give them cause to suspect, what is too often true,
that they themselves are the subjects of your mirth. It is so shocking
an outrage against society, to talk of, or laugh at, any person in his
own presence, that one would only think it could be committed by the
vulgar. I am sorry however to say, that I have too often observed it
amongst young ladies, who little deserved that title whilst they
indulged their overflowing spirits in defiance of decency and
good-nature. The desire of laughing will make such inconsiderate young
persons find a subject of ridicule, even in the most respectable
character. Old age, which--if not disgraced by vice or affectation--has
the justest title to reverence, will be mimicked and insulted; and even
personal defects and infirmities will too often excite contempt and
abuse, instead of compassion. If you have ever been led into such an
action, my dear girl, call it seriously to mind, when you are confessing
your faults to Almighty God; and be fully persuaded, that it is not one
of the least which you have to repent of. You will be immediately
convinced of this, by comparing it with the great rule of justice, that
of doing to all as you would they should do unto you. No person living
is insensible to the injury of contempt, nor is there any talent so
invidious, or so certain to create ill-will, as that of ridicule. The
natural effects of years, which all hope to attain, and the infirmities
of the body, which none can prevent, are surely of all others the most
improper objects of mirth. There are subjects enough that are innocent,
and on which you may freely indulge the vivacity of your spirits; for I
would not condemn you to perpetual seriousness; on the contrary, I
delight in a joyous temper, at all ages, and particularly at your's.
Delicate and good-natured raillery amongst equal friends, if pointed
only against such trifling errors as the owner can hardly join to laugh
at, or such qualities as they do not pique themselves upon, is both
agreeable and useful; but then it must be offered in perfect kindness
and sincere good-humour; if tinctured with the least degree of malice,
its sting becomes venomous and detestable. The person rallied should
have liberty and ability to return the jest, which must be dropped upon
the first appearance of its affecting the temper.
You will wonder, perhaps, when I tell you, that there are some
characters in the world, which I would freely allow you to laugh
at--though not in their presence. Extravagant vanity and affectation are
the natural subjects of ridicule, which is their proper punishment. When
you see old people, instead of maintaining the dignity of their years,
struggling against nature to conceal them, affecting the graces, and
imitating the follies of youth--or a young person assuming the
importance and solemnity of old age--I do not wish you to be insensible
to the ridicule of such absurd deviations from truth and nature. You
are welcome to laugh, when you leave the company, provided you lay up a
lesson for yourself at the same time; and remember that, unless you
improve your mind whilst you are young, you also will be an
insignificant fool in old age; and that, if you are presuming and
arrogant in youth, you are as ridiculous as an old woman with a
head-dress of flowers.
In a young lady's behaviour towards gentlemen, great delicacy is
certainly required: yet, I believe, women oftener err from too great a
consciousness of the supposed views of men, than from inattention to
those views, or want of caution against them. You are at present rather
too young to want rules on this subject; but I could wish that you
should behave almost in the same manner three years hence as now; and
retain the simplicity and innocence of childhood, with the sense and
dignity of riper years. Men of loose morals or impertinent behaviour
must always be avoided: or, if at any time you are obliged to be in
their company, you must keep them at a distance by cold civility. But,
with regard to those gentlemen whom your parents think it proper for you
to converse with, and who give no offence by their own manners, to them
I wish you to behave with the same frankness and simplicity as if they
were of your own sex. If you have natural modesty, you will never
transgress its bounds, whilst you converse with a man, as one rational
creature with another, without any view to the possibility of a lover or
admirer, where nothing of that kind is professed; where it is, I hope
you will ever be equally a stranger to coquetry and prudery; and that
you will be able to distinguish the effects of real esteem and love from
idle gallantry and unmeaning fine speeches: the slighter notice you take
of these last, the better; and that, rather with good-humoured contempt
than with affected gravity: but the first must be treated with
seriousness and well-bred sincerity; not giving the least encouragement,
which you do not mean, nor assuming airs of contempt, where it is not
deserved. But this belongs to a subject, which I have touched upon in a
former letter. I have already told you, that you will be unsafe in every
step which leads to a serious attachment, unless you consult your
parents, from the first moment you apprehend any thing of that sort to
be intended: let them be your first confidants, and let every part of
your conduct, in such a case, be particularly directed by them.
With regard to accomplishments, the chief of these is a competent share
of reading, well chosen and properly regulated; and of this I shall
speak more largely hereafter. Dancing and the knowledge of the French
tongue are now so universal, that they cannot be dispensed with in the
education of a gentlewoman; and indeed they both are useful as well as
ornamental; the first, by forming and strengthening the body, and
improving the carriage; the second, by opening a large field of
entertainment and improvement for the mind. I believe there are more
agreeable books of female literature in French than in any other
language; and, as they are not less commonly talked of than English
books, you must often feel mortified in company, if you are too ignorant
to read them. Italian would be easily learnt after French, and, if you
have leisure and opportunity, may be worth your gaining, though in your
station of life it is by no means necessary.
To write a free and legible hand, and to understand common arithmetic,
are indispensable requisites.
As to music and drawing, I would only wish you to follow as Genius
leads: you have some turn for the first, and I should be sorry to see
you neglect a talent, which will at least afford you an innocent
amusement, though it should not enable you to give much pleasure to your
friends. I think the use of both these arts is more for yourself than
for others: it is but seldom that a private person has leisure or
application enough to gain any high degree of excellence in them; and
your own partial family are perhaps the only persons who would not much
rather be entertained by the performance of a professor than by your's:
but, with regard to yourself, it is of great consequence to have the
power of filling up agreeably those intervals of time, which too often
hang heavily on the hands of a woman, if her lot be cast in a retired
situation. Besides this, it is certain that even a small share of
knowledge in these arts will heighten your pleasure in the performances
of others: the taste must be improved before it can be susceptible of an
exquisite relish for any of the imitative arts: an unskilful ear is
seldom capable of comprehending _harmony_, or of distinguishing the most
_delicate_ charms of _melody_. The pleasure of seeing fine paintings, or
even of contemplating the beauties of Nature, must be greatly heightened
by our being conversant with the rules of drawing, and by the habit of
considering the most picturesque objects. As I look upon taste to be an
inestimable fund of innocent delight, I wish you to lose no opportunity
of improving it, and of cultivating in yourself the relish of such
pleasures as will not interfere with a rational scheme of life, nor lead
you into dissipation, with all its attendant evils of vanity and luxury.
As to the learned languages, though I respect the abilities and
application of those ladies who have attained them, and who make a
modest and proper use of them, yet I would by no means advise you--or
any other woman who is not strongly impelled by a particular genius--to
engage in such studies. The labour and time which they require are
generally incompatible with our natures and proper employments: the real
knowledge which they supply is not essential, since the English, French,
or Italian tongues afford tolerable translations of all the most
valuable productions of antiquity, besides the multitude of original
authors which they furnish: and these are much more than sufficient to
store your mind with as many ideas as you will know how to manage. The
danger of pedantry and presumption in a woman--of her exciting envy in
one sex and jealousy in the other--of her exchanging the graces of
imagination for the severity and preciseness of a scholar, would be, I
own, sufficient to frighten me from the ambition of seeing my girl
remarkable for learning. Such objections are perhaps still stronger with
regard to the abstruse sciences.
Whatever tends to embellish your fancy, to enlighten your understanding,
and furnish you with ideas to reflect upon when alone, or to converse
upon in company, is certainly well worth your acquisition. The wretched
expedient, to which ignorance so often drives our sex, of calling in
slander to enliven the tedious insipidity of conversation, would alone
be a strong reason for enriching your mind with innocent subjects of
entertainment, which may render you a fit companion for persons of sense
and knowledge, from whom you may reap the most desirable improvements;
for, though I think reading indispensably necessary to the due
cultivation of your mind, I prefer the conversation of such persons to
every other method of instruction: but this you cannot hope to enjoy,
unless you qualify yourself to bear a part in such society, by, at
least, a moderate share of reading.
Though _religion_ is the most important of all your pursuits, there are
not many _books_ on that subject which I should recommend to you at
present. Controversy is wholly improper at your age, and it is also too
soon for you to enquire into the evidence of the truth of revelation, or
to study the difficult parts of scripture: when these shall come before
you, there are many excellent books, from which you may receive great
assistance. At present, practical divinity--clear of superstition and
enthusiasm, but addressed to the heart, and written with a warmth and
spirit capable of exciting in it pure and rational piety--is what I wish
you to meet with.
The principal study, I would recommend, is _history_. I know of nothing
equally proper to entertain and improve at the same time, or that is so
likely to form and strengthen your judgment, and, by giving you a
liberal and comprehensive view of human nature, in some measure to
supply the defect of that experience, which is usually attained too late
to be of much service to us. Let me add, that more materials for
conversation are supplied by this kind of knowledge, than by almost any
other; but I have more to say to you on this subject in a future letter.
The faculty, in which women usually most excel, is that of imagination;
and, when properly cultivated, it becomes the source of all that is most
charming in society. Nothing you can read will so much contribute to the
improvement of this faculty as _poetry_; which, if applied to its true
ends, adds a thousand charms to those sentiments of religion, virtue,
generosity, and delicate tenderness, by which the human soul is exalted
and refined. I hope you are not deficient in natural taste for this
enchanting art, but that you will find it one of your greatest pleasures
to be conversant with the best poets, whom our language can bring you
acquainted with, particularly those immortal ornaments of our nation,
_Shakspeare_ and _Milton_. The first is not only incomparably the
noblest genius in dramatic poetry, but the greatest master of nature,
and the most perfect characterizer of men and manners: in this last
point of view, I think him inestimable; and I am persuaded that, in the
course of your life, you will seldom find occasion to correct those
observations on human nature, and those principles of morality, which
you may extract from his capital pieces. You will at first find his
language difficult; but, if you take the assistance of a friend, who
understands it well, you will by degrees enter into his manner of
phraseology, and perceive a thousand beauties, which at first lay buried
in obsolete words and uncouth constructions. The admirable _Essay on
Shakespeare_, which has lately appeared, so much to the honour of our
sex, will open your mind to the peculiar excellences of this author, and
enlighten your judgment on dramatic poetry in general, with such force
of reason and brilliancy of wit, as cannot fail to delight as well as
instruct you.
Our great English poet, Milton, is as far above my praise as his
_Paradise Lost_ is above any thing which I am able to read, except the
sacred writers. The sublimity of his subject sometimes leads him into
abstruseness; but many parts of his great poem are easy to all
comprehensions, and must find their way directly to every heart by the
tenderness and delicacy of his sentiments, in which he is not less
strikingly excellent than in the richness and sublimity of his
imagination. Addison's criticism in the Spectators, written with that
beauty, elegance, and judgment, which distinguish all his writings, will
assist you to understand and to relish this poem.
It is needless to recommend to you the translations of Homer and Virgil,
which every body reads that reads at all. You must have heard that Homer
is esteemed the father of poetry, the original from whence all the
moderns--not excepting Milton himself--borrow some of their greatest
beauties, and from whom they extract those rules for composition, which
are found most agreeable to nature and true taste. Virgil, you know, is
the next in rank among the classics: you will read his Eneid with
extreme pleasure, if ever you are able to read Italian, in Annibal
Caro's translation; the idiom of the Latin and Italian languages being
more alike, it is, I believe, much closer, yet preserves more of the
spirit of the original than the English translations.
For the rest, fame will point out to you the most considerable of our
poets; and I would not exclude any of name among those whose morality is
unexceptionable: but of poets, as of all other authors, I wish you to
read only such as are properly recommended to you--since there are many
who debase their divine art by abusing it to the purposes of vice and
impiety. If you could read poetry with a judicious friend, who could
lead your judgment to a true discernment of its beauties and defects, it
would inexpressibly heighten both your pleasure and improvement. But,
before you enter upon this, some acquaintance with the _Heathen
Mythology_ is necessary. I think that you must before now have met with
some book under the title of _The Pantheon_[28]: and, if once you know
as much of the gods and goddesses as the most common books on the
subject will tell you, the rest may be learned by reading Homer: but
then you must particularly attend to him in this view. I do not expect
you to penetrate those numerous mysteries--those amazing depths of
morality, religion, and metaphysics--which some pretend to have
discovered in his mythology, but to know the names and principal offices
of the gods and goddesses, with some idea of their moral meaning, seems
requisite to the understanding almost any poetical composition. As an
instance of the _moral meaning_ I speak of, I will mention an
observation of Bossuet. That Homer's poetry was particularly recommended
to the Greeks by the superiority which he ascribes to them over the
Asiatics: this superiority is shown in the Iliad, not only in the
conquest of Asia by the Greeks, and in the actual destruction of its
capital, but in the division and arrangement of the gods, who took part
with the contending nations. On the side of Asia was _Venus_--that is,
sensual passion--pleasure--and effeminacy. On the side of Greece was
_Juno_--that is, matronly gravity and conjugal love; together with
_Mercury_--invention and eloquence--and _Jupiter_--or political wisdom.
On the side of Asia was _Mars_, who represents brutal valour and blind
fury. On that of Greece was _Pallas_--that is, military discipline, and
bravery, guarded by judgment.
This, and many other instances that might be produced, will show you how
much of the beauty of the poet's art must be lost to you, without some
notion of these allegorical personages. Boys, in their school learning,
have this kind of knowledge impressed on their minds by a variety of
books: but women, who do not go through the same course of instruction,
are very apt to forget what little they read or hear on the subject: I
advise you, therefore, never to lose an opportunity of enquiring into
the meaning of any thing you meet with in poetry, or in painting,
alluding to the history of any of the heathen deities, and of obtaining
from some friend an explanation of its connection with true history, or
of its allegorical reference to morality or to physics.