Previous Essay |
Index |
Next Essay |
|
|
|
In comparing modern with ancient manners,
we are pleased to compliment ourselves upon the point of gallantry;
a certain obsequiousness, or deferential respect, which we are
supposed to pay to females, as females.
I shall believe that this principle
actuates our conduct, when I can forget, that in the nineteenth
century of the era from which we date our civility, we are but
just beginning to leave off the very frequent practice of whipping
females in public, in common with the coarsest male offenders.
I shall believe it to be influential,
when I can shut my eyes to the fact, that in England women are
still occasionally -- hanged.
I shall believe in it, when actresses
are no longer subject to be hissed off a stage by gentlemen.
I shall believe in it, when Dorimant
hands a fish-wife across the kennel; or assists the apple-woman
to pick up her wandering fruit, which some unlucky dray has just
dissipated. I shall believe in it, when the Dorimants in humbler
life, who would be thought in their way notable adepts in this
refinement, shall act upon it in places where they are not known,
or think themselves not observed -- when I shall see the traveller
for some rich tradesman part with his admired box-coat, to spread
it over the defenceless shoulders of the poor woman, who is passing
to her parish on the roof of the same stage-coach with him, drenched
in the rain -- when I shall no longer see a woman standing up
in the pit of a London theatre, till she is sick and faint with
the exertion, with men about her, seated at their ease, and jeering
at her distress; till one, that seems to have more manners or
conscience than the rest, significantly declares "she should
be welcome to his seat, if she were a little younger and handsomer."
Place this dapper warehouseman, or that rider, in a circle of
their own female acquaintance, and you shall confess you have
not seen a politer-bred man in Lothbury.
Lastly, I shall begin to believe that
there is some such principle influencing our conduct, when more
than one-half of the drudgery and coarse servitude of the world
shall cease to be performed by women.
Until that day comes, I shall never
believe this boasted point to be any thing more than a conventional
fiction; a pageant got up between the sexes, in a certain rank,
and at a certain time of life, in which both find their account
equally.
I shall be even disposed to rank it
among the salutary fictions of life, when in polite circles I
shall see the same attentions paid to age as to youth, to homely
features as to handsome, to coarse complexions as to clear --
to the woman, as she is a woman, not as she is a beauty, a fortune,
or a title.
I shall believe it to be something more
than a name, when a well-dressed gentleman in a well-dressed company
can advert to the topic of female old age without exciting,
and intending to excite, a sneer: -- when the phrases "antiquated
virginity," and such a one has "overstood her market,"
pronounced in good company, shall raise immediate offence in man,
or woman, that shall hear them spoken.
Joseph Paice, of Bread-street-hill,
merchant, and one of the Directors of the South-Sea company --
the same to whom Edwards, the Shakspeare commentator, has addressed
a fine sonnet -- was the only pattern of consistent gallantry
I have met with. He took me under his shelter at an early age,
and bestowed some pains upon me. I owe to his precepts and example
whatever there is of the man of business (and that is not much)
in my composition. It was not his fault that I did not profit
more. Though bred a Presbyterian, and brought up a merchant, he
was the finest gentleman of his time. He had not one system of
attention to females in the drawing-room, and another in the shop,
or at the stall. I do not mean that he made no distinction. But
he never lost sight of sex, or overlooked it in the casualties
of a disadvantageous situation. I have seen him stand bare-headed
-- smile if you please -- to a poor servant girl, while she has
been inquiring of him the way to some street -- in such a posture
of unforced civility, as neither to embarrass her in the acceptance,
nor himself in the offer, of it. He was no dangler, in the common
acceptation of the word, after women: but he reverenced and upheld,
in every form in which it came before him, womanhood. I
have seen him -- nay, smile not --tenderly escorting a market-woman,
whom he had encountered in a shower, exalting his umbrella over
her poor basket of fruit, that it might receive no damage, with
as much carefulness as if she had been a Countess. To the reverend
form of Female Eld he would yield the wall (though it were to
an ancient beggarwoman) with more ceremony than we can afford
to show our grandams. He was the Preux Chevalier of Age; the Sir
Calidore, or Sir Tristan, to those who have no Calidores or Tristans
to defend them. The roses, that had long faded thence, still bloomed
for him in those withered and yellow cheeks.
He was never married, hut in his youth
he paid his addresses to the beautiful Susan Winstanley -- old
Winstanley's daughter of Clapton -- who dying in the early days
of their courtship, confirmed in him the resolution of perpetual
bachelorship. It was during their short courtship, he told me,
that he had been one day treating his mistress with a profusion
of civil speech -- the common gallantries -- to which kind of
thing she had hitherto manifested no repugnance -- but in this
instance with no effect. He could not obtain from her a decent
acknowledgment in return. She rather seemed to resent his compliments.
He could not set it down to caprice, for the lady had always shown
herself above that littleness. When he ventured on the following
day finding her a little better humoured, to expostulate with
her on her coldness of yesterday, she confessed, with her usual
frankness, that she had no sort of dislike to his attentions;
that she could even endure some high-flown compliments; that a
young woman placed in her situation had a right to expect all
sort of civil things said to her; that she hoped she could digest
a dose of adulation, short of insincerity, with as little injury
to her humility as most young women: but that -- a little before
he had commenced his compliment -- she had overheard him by accident,
in rather rough language, rating a young woman, who had not brought
home his cravats quite to the appointed time, and she thought
to herself, "As I am Miss Susan Winstanley, and a young lady
-- a reputed beauty, and known to be a fortune, -- I can have
my choice of the finest speeches from the mouth of this very fine
gentleman who is courting me -- but if I had been poor Mary Such-a-one
(naming the milliner), -- and had failed of bringing home
the cravats to the appointed hour -- though perhaps I had sat
up half the night to forward them -- what sort of compliments
should I have received then? -- And my woman's pride came to my
assistance; and I thought, that if it were only to do me
honour, a female, like myself, might have received handsomer usage:
and I was determined not to accept any fine speeches, to the compromise
of that sex, the belonging to which was after all my strongest
claim and title to them."
I think the lady discovered both generosity,
and a just way of thinking, in this rebuke which she gave her
lover; and I have sometimes imagined, that the uncommon strain
of courtesy, which through life regulated the actions and behaviour
of my friend towards all of womankind indiscriminately, owed its
happy origin to this seasonable lesson from the lips of his lamented
mistress.
I wish the whole female world would
entertain the same notion of these things that Miss Winstanley
showed. Then we should see something of the spirit of consistent
gallantry; and no longer witness the anomaly of the same man --
a pattern of true politeness to a wife -- of cold contempt, or
rudeness, to a sister -- the idolater of his female mistress --
the disparager and despiser of his no less female aunt, or unfortunate
-- still female -- maiden cousin. Just so much respect as a woman
derogates from her own sex, in whatever condition placed -- her
handmaid, or dependent -- she deserves to have diminished from
herself on that score; and probably will feel the diminution,
when youth, and beauty, and advantages, not inseparable from sex,
shall lose of their attraction. What a woman should demand of
a man in courtship, or after it, is first -- respect for her as
she is a woman; -- and next to that -- to be respected by him
above all other women. But let her stand upon her female character
as upon a foundation; and let the attentions, incident to individual
preference, be so many pretty additaments and ornaments -- as
many, and as fanciful, as you please -- to that main structure.
Let her first lesson -- with sweet Susan Winstanley -- to reverence
her sex.
|
|