_A Sketch of Mangogul's moral Philosophy._
Mangogul, impatient to see the favorite again, slept little, arose
earlier than usual, and was in her appartment before sun-rising. She
had already rung the bell: a servant had just opened the curtains,
and her women were preparing to dress her. The Sultan look'd narrowly
around her, and seeing never a dog, he asked her the reason of this
oddity. "I see," answered Mirzoza, "that you think me singular in
this article, but there is nothing in it." "I assure you," replied
the Sultan, "that I see dogs about all the women of my court, and you
will oblige me in informing me why they have them, or why you have
none. Most of them have several, and not one of them but lavishes such
caresses on her own, as she seems not to bestow on her lover without
some difficulty. How come these beasts to deserve the preference? What
use is made of them?"
Mirzoza was puzzled at these questions: however, she made this answer.
"To be sure, one keeps a dog as a parrot or a canary bird. It may be
ridiculous to set one's heart on these animals; but there is nothing
wonderful in having them: they sometimes amuse, and never injure. If
they are caressed, 'tis because such caresses are of no consequence.
Besides, do you believe, prince, that a lover is satisfied with a kiss,
such as a woman bestows on her pug-dog?" "Doubtless, I believe it,"
says the Sultan. "By Jupiter the man must be very nice, who would not
be satisfied."
One of Mirzoza's women, who had gain'd the good will of the Sultan and
his favorite by sweetness of temper, good parts, and zeal, said: "These
animals are inconvenient and nasty: they dirty one's clothes, spoil the
furniture, tare laces, and do more mischief in a quarter of an hour,
than would be sufficient to throw the most faithful lady's woman into
disgrace: and yet they are kept."
"Tho', according to madam, they are good for nothing but that," added
the Sultan.
"Prince," said Mirzoza, "we stick to our fancies, and the keeping of
dogs must be one, like many others, which would be no longer fancies,
if we could give a reason for them. The reign of monkeys is past,
the parrots still support themselves. Dogs fell, and now they rise
again. Squirrels have had their time: and it is with animals, as it has
successively been with Italian, English, geometry, farthingales, and
furbela's."
"Mirzoza," replied the Sultan, shaking his head, "has not all the
knowledge that may be acquired on this subject; and the Toys----"
"Is not your highness going to imagine," said the favorite, "that you
will be inform'd by Haria's Toy, why that woman, who saw her son, one
of her daughters, and her husband, die without shedding a tear, wept
the loss of her lap-dog for a whole fortnight."
"Why not?" replied Mangogul.
"Truly," says Mirzoza, "if our Toys could explain all our whims, they
would be more knowing than ourselves."
"Pray, who disputes that with you?" replied the Sultan. "For my part
I believe that the Toy makes a woman do a hundred things, without her
perceiving it: and I have remark'd on more occasions than one, that a
woman, who thought she was following her head, was obeying her Toy. A
great philosopher placed the soul, I mean ours, in the pineal gland. If
I allowed women to have one, I well know where I would place it."
"I excuse you from informing me," rejoin'd Mirzoza hastily. "But you
will permit me at least," said Mangogul, "to communicate some notions
to you, which my ring has suggested to me concerning women, upon a
supposition that they have a soul. The experiments, which I have made
with my ring, have made me a great moralist. I have neither the wit
of La Bruyere, nor the logic of Port Royal, nor the imagination of
Montaigne, nor the wisdom of Charron: but I have collected facts, to
which perhaps they were strangers."
"Speak, prince," answered Mirzoza ironically, "I will hear you with
all my ears. Moral essays of a Sultan of your age must be something
curious."
"The system of Orcotomus is extravagant, with the leave of his fellow
academician Hiragu: yet I find some sense in the answers which he gave
to the objections started against it. If I allowed a soul to women,
I would willingly suppose with him, that Toys have spoken from the
beginning, but softly: and that the effect of the Genius Cucufa's ring
is reduced to raising their voice. Upon this foundation nothing can be
more easy than to define the whole sex.
"The sober woman, for example, would be she whose Toy is silent, or is
not attended to.
"The prude, she who pretends not to listen to her Toy.
"The intriguing woman, she whose Toy desires a great deal, and who
allows it too much.
"The voluptuous, she who gives ear to her Toy with complaisance.
"The courtezan, she on whom her Toy is making demands every moment, and
who refuses it nothing.
"The coquette, she whose Toy is mute, or is not attended to; but who
gives hopes to all the men that come near her, that her Toy will speak
one day or other, and it may happen that she will not lend it a deaf
ear.
"Well, delight of my soul, what do you think of my definitions?" "I
think," said the favorite, "that your highness has forgot the tender
woman."
"If I have not mentioned her," answered the Sultan, "'tis because I
don't know what the term means; and that some able men pretend, that
the word tender, abstracting from all connection with the Toy, is void
of sense."
"How, void of sense," cried Mirzoza. "What! there is no medium then;
and a woman must absolutely be a prude, an intriguer, a coquette, a
voluptuous woman, or a libertin."
"Delight of my soul," said the Sultan, "I am willing to own the
inaccuracy of my enumeration, and will add the tender woman to the
preceding characters; but on condition that you will furnish me with a
definition of her, which will not coincide with any of mine."
"Most willingly," said Mirzoza. "I hope to compass it without quitting
your system."
"Let us see," added Mangogul.
"Well then," replied the favorite--"a tender woman is she----"
"Courage, Mirzoza," said Mangogul.
"Oh! I beg you won't disturb me. The tender woman is she----who has
loved without a word utter'd by her Toy, or----whose Toy has never
spoke, but in favor of the single man whom she loved."
It would not have been polite in the Sultan to chicane the favorite,
and ask her what she understood by love: wherefore he avoided it.
Mirzoza took his silence for consent, and proceeded, proud of
having extricated herself from a difficulty, which to her appeared
considerable. "Ye men believe, because we do not argue in form, that
we do not reason. Know once for all, that we could as easily discover
the falsity of your paradoxes, as ye that of our reasonings, if we
would give ourselves the trouble. If your highness was less in a hurry
to satisfy your curiosity on the subject of lap-dogs, I would in my
turn give you a scrap of my philosophy. But it shall not be lost: I
will reserve it for one of those days, that you will have more time to
bestow on me."
Mangogul assured her that he had no better business, than to profit of
her philosophical notions; that the metaphysics of a Sultana of twenty
two, ought not to be less singular than the morals of a Sultan of his
age.
But Mirzoza apprehending that this was pure complaisance in Mangogul,
begg'd some time to prepare, and thus gave the Sultan a pretext for
flying whither his impatience might call him.