The diligence with which you endeavour to cultivate the knowledge of
nature, manners, and life, will perhaps incline you to pay some regard
to the observations of one who has been taught to know mankind by
unwelcome information, and whose opinions are the result, not of solitary
conjectures, but of practice and experience.
I was born to a large fortune, and bred to the knowledge of those arts
which are supposed to accomplish the mind, and adorn the person of a
woman. To these attainments, which custom and education almost forced
upon me, I added some voluntary acquisitions by the use of books, and
the conversation of that species of men whom the ladies generally mention
with terrour and aversion under the name of scholars, but whom I have
found a harmless and inoffensive order of beings, not so much wiser than
ourselves, but that they may receive as well as communicate knowledge,
and more inclined to degrade their own character by cowardly submission,
than to overbear or oppress us with their learning or their wit.
From these men, however, if they are by kind treatment encouraged to talk,
something may be gained, which, embellished with elegancy, and softened
by modesty, will always add dignity and value to female conversation; and
from my acquaintance with the bookish part of the world I derived many
principles of judgment and maxims of prudence, by which I was enabled
to draw upon myself the general regard in every place of concourse or
pleasure. My opinion was the great rule of approbation, my remarks were
remembered by those who desired the second degree of fame, my mien was
studied, my dress was imitated, my letters were handed from one family
to another, and read by those who copied them as sent to themselves; my
visits were solicited as honours, and multitudes boasted of an intimacy
with Melissa, who had only seen me by accident, and whose familiarity
had never proceeded beyond the exchange of a compliment, or return of
a courtesy.
I shall make no scruple of confessing that I was pleased with this
universal veneration, because I always considered it as paid to my
intrinsick qualities and inseparable merit, and very easily persuaded
myself that fortune had no part in my superiority. When I looked upon my
glass, I saw youth and beauty, with health that might give me reason to
hope their continuance; when I examined my mind, I found some strength
of judgment, and fertility of fancy; and was told that every action was
grace, and that every accent was persuasion.
In this manner my life passed like a continual triumph, amidst
acclamations, and envy, and courtship, and caresses: to please Melissa
was the general ambition, and every stratagem of artful flattery was
practised upon me. To be flattered is grateful, even when we know that
our praises are not believed by those who pronounce them; for they prove,
at least, our power, and show that our favour is valued, since it is
purchased by the meanness of falsehood. But, perhaps, the flatterer is
not often detected, for an honest mind is not apt to suspect, and no one
exerts the power of discernment with much vigour when self-love favours
the deceit.
The number of adorers, and the perpetual distraction of my thoughts by new
schemes of pleasure, prevented me from listening to any of those who crowd
in multitudes to give girls advice, and kept me unmarried and unengaged
to my twenty-seventh year, when, as I was towering in all the pride of
uncontested excellency, with a face yet little impaired, and a mind
hourly improving, the failure of a fund, in which my money was placed,
reduced me to a frugal competency, which allowed little beyond neatness
and independence.
I bore the diminution of my riches without any outrages of sorrow, or
pusillanimity of dejection. Indeed I did not know how much I had lost,
for having always heard and thought more of my wit and beauty, than of
my fortune, it did not suddenly enter my imagination, that Melissa could
sink beneath her established rank, while her form and her mind continued
the same; that she could cease to raise admiration but by ceasing to
deserve it, or feel any stroke but from the hand of time.
It was in my power to have concealed the loss, and to have married,
by continuing the same appearance, with all the credit of my original
fortune; but I was not so far sunk in my own esteem, as to submit to the
baseness of fraud, or to desire any other recommendation than sense and
virtue. I, therefore, dismissed my equipage, sold those ornaments which
were become unsuitable to my new condition, and appeared among those with
whom I used to converse with less glitter, but with equal spirit.
I found myself received at every visit, with sorrow beyond what is
naturally felt for calamities in which we have no part, and was
entertained with condolence and consolation so frequently repeated, that
my friends plainly consulted rather their own gratification, than my
relief. Some from that time refused my acquaintance, and forbore, without
any provocation, to repay my visits; some visited me, but after a longer
interval than usual, and every return was still with more delay; nor
did any of my female acquaintances fail to introduce the mention of my
misfortunes, to compare my present and former condition, to tell me how
much it must trouble me to want the splendour which I became so well, to
look at pleasures which I had formerly enjoyed, and to sink to a level
with those by whom I had been considered as moving in a higher sphere,
and who had hitherto approached me with reverence and submission, which
I was now no longer to expect.
Observations like these, are commonly nothing better than covert insults,
which serve to give vent to the flatulence of pride, but they are now
and then imprudently uttered by honesty and benevolence, and inflict
pain where kindness is intended; I will, therefore, so far maintain my
antiquated claim to politeness, as to venture the establishment of this
rule, that no one ought to remind another of misfortunes of which the
sufferer does not complain, and which there are no means proposed of
alleviating. You have no right to excite thoughts which necessarily give
pain whenever they return, and which perhaps might not have revived but
by absurd and unseasonable compassion.
My endless train of lovers immediately withdrew, without raising any
emotions. The greater part had indeed always professed to court, as it is
termed, upon the square, had inquired my fortune, and offered settlements;
these had undoubtedly a right to retire without censure, since they had
openly treated for money, as necessary to their happiness, and who can
tell how little they wanted any other portion? I have always thought the
clamours of women unreasonable, who imagine themselves injured because
the men who followed them upon the supposition of a greater fortune,
reject them when they are discovered to have less. I have never known
any lady, who did not think wealth a title to some stipulations in her
favour; and surely what is claimed by the possession of money is justly
forfeited by its loss. She that has once demanded a settlement has
allowed the importance of fortune: and when she cannot shew pecuniary
merit, why should she think her cheapener obliged to purchase?
My lovers were not all contented with silent desertion. Some of them
revenged the neglect which they had formerly endured by wanton and
superfluous insults, and endeavoured to mortify me, by paying, in my
presence, those civilities to other ladies, which were once devoted only
to me. But, as it had been my rule to treat men according to the rank
of their intellect, I had never suffered any one to waste his life in
suspense, who could have employed it to better purpose, and had therefore
no enemies but coxcombs, whose resentment and respect were equally below
my consideration.
The only pain which I have felt from degradation, is the loss of that
influence which I had always exerted on the side of virtue, in the
defence of innocence, and the assertion of truth. I now find my opinions
slighted, my sentiments criticised, and my arguments opposed by those
that used to listen to me without reply, and struggle to be first in
expressing their conviction.
The female disputants have wholly thrown off my authority; and if I
endeavour to enforce my reasons by an appeal to the scholars that happen
to be present, the wretches are certain to pay their court by sacrificing
me and my system to a finer gown, and I am every hour insulted with
contradiction by cowards, who could never find till lately that Melissa
was liable to errour.
There are two persons only whom I cannot charge with having changed their
conduct with my change of fortune. One is an old curate that has passed
his life in the duties of his profession, with great reputation for his
knowledge and piety; the other is a lieutenant of dragoons. The parson
made no difficulty in the height of my elevation to check me when I was
pert, and instruct me when I blundered; and if there is any alteration,
he is now more timorous, lest his freedom should be thought rudeness. The
soldier never paid me any particular addresses, but very rigidly observed
all the rules of politeness, which he is now so far from relaxing, that
whenever he serves the tea, he obstinately carries me the first dish, in
defiance of the frowns and whispers of the table,
This, Mr. Rambler, is _to see the world_. It is impossible for those
that have only known affluence and prosperity, to judge of themselves
or others. The rich and the powerful live in a perpetual masquerade, in
which all about them wear borrowed characters; and we only discover in
what estimation we are held, when we can no longer give hopes or fears.