Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843

 
"Nudo ciascuno il pie calca il sentiero,
Ch'l'esempio de duci ogn' altromuove
Serico fregio d'or, piuma e criniero
Superbo dal suo capo ognon rimuove,
E d'insieme del cor l'abito altero
Depone, e calde e pie lagrime piove."
 

We now enter into the main object of the work, the condition of women in modern times; and the passage which introduces the subject is so luminous and eloquent, that we cannot resist the pleasure of laying it before our readers without mutilation.

"To pursue the history of woman through the ages of misrule and violence that corrupted the spirit of chivalry, would be useless. It is sufficiently evident, that in proportion as the vices of barbarism renewed their dominion, the condition of women would be more or less affected by their evils. But, on the whole, society was improving: two great events were preparing to engage the attention of Europe—the struggles for religious freedom and the revival of learning. These produced effects on the human mind very different from those of any revolutions that had taken place during the age of barbarism.

"While the opinion reigned absolute, that war was the most important affair of life and the most honourable pursuit, the tendency of society was towards destruction. All the virtue consistent with so false a principle was, perhaps, brought forth by chivalry; but in the long run, the false principle overruled the force of the generous spirit, and chivalry sank like a meteor that owed its splendour to surrounding darkness. Its spirit gave an impulse to opinion and sentiment, but its errors and ignorance disabled it from supplying any corrective to the bad institutions and mistaken policy which fostered barbarism. It was not every mind that was capable of imbibing the generous sentiments of chivalry, but ferocious passions could rarely fail to be stimulated by the idolatry of war, and the contempt for civil employments it produced. Among men, poor, restless, and to a great degree irresponsible, the craving for distinction excited by chivalry was a dangerous passion. No very general change over the face of society could be reasonably expected, from the attempts to engraft a spirit of gentleness and beneficence upon a principle of war and destruction. The spirit was right, but the principle was wrong. It was just the reverse in the next enthusiasm which seized the minds of mankind. In the struggles for religious freedom which followed, the principle was right, but it was pursued in the horrible spirit of persecution. Men, ready to die for the right of professing the truth, could not divest themselves of that persecuting spirit towards others, which was leading themselves to the stake. But there is a vigour in a right principle which gradually clears men's eyes of their prejudices. The dire and mistaken means by which successive reformers defended each his own opinion, were abandoned, and men began to perceive that civil and religious liberty were of more use to society than martial feats or extended conquests; and that it is still more important to learn how to reason than how to fight.

"The tendency of this principle was towards social improvement, and civilization began to make progress.

"Before the extinction of chivalry, the airy throne on which women had been raised was broken down; but the effects of her elevation were never obliterated. There remained on the surface of society a tone of gallantry which tended to preserve some recollection of the station she had once held. As civilization advanced, the idea that women might be disposed of like property, seemed to be nearly abandoned all over Europe; but their subsequent condition partook (as might be expected in the case of dependent beings) of the character prevailing in each country. The grave temper and morbid jealousy of the Spaniards, reduced them almost to Eastern seclusion."

We entreat the attention of our readers to the following remark, which explains, in some degree, the mediocrity that characterizes the present day:—

"In the first ages after the rise of literature, the very want of that multitude of second-rate books we now possess, had the effect of compelling those who learned any thing to betake themselves to studies of a solid nature; and there was consequently less difference then, between the education of the two sexes, than now. The reader will immediately recollect the instances of Lady Jane Grey, Mrs Hutchinson, and others of the same class, and will feel that it is quite fair to assume, that many such existed when a few came to be known."

It was during the reign of the last princes of the House of Valois, that the women of the French court began to exercise that malignant and almost universal influence, which, for a while, poisoned the well-springs of refinement and civility. Eclipsed for a while by the mighty luminaries which, during the life of Louis XIII., and the early part of Louis XIV.th's reign, were lords of the ascendant when they had sunk beneath the horizon, their constellation again blazed forth with greater force and more disastrous splendour. Hence the Dragonnades, the destruction of Port-Royal, the persecution of the Jansenists, the death of Racine, the disgrace of Fénélon. Hence, in the reign of Louis XV., orgies that Messalina would have blushed to share; while cruelties²⁵ of which Suwarrow would hardly have been the instrument, were employed to lash into a momentary paroxysm nerves withered by debauchery. Here let us pause for a moment, to remark upon the effect which false opinions may produce upon the happiness and well-being of distant generations. Nothing is so common as for trivial superficial men—the class to which the management of empires is for the most part entrusted—to ridicule theories, and, by a mode reasoning which would place any cabin boy far above Sir Isaac Newton, to insist upon the mechanical parts of government, and the routine of ordinary business, as the sole objects entitled to notice and consideration—

"O curvæ in terris animæ, et coelestium inanes!"

We would fain ask these practical people—for such is the eminently inappropriate metaphor by which they rejoice to be distinguished—we would fain ask them (if it be consistent with their profound respect for practice to pay some attention to experience) to cast their eyes upon the proceedings and manners of the French court (wild and chimerical as such an appeal will no doubt appear to them) during the dominion of Catharine of Medicis and her offspring, those execrable deceivers, corrupters, and executioners of their people. To what are the almost incredible abominations, familiar as household words to the French court of that day, to be ascribed? To what are the persecutions, perjuries, the massacres that pollute the annals of France during that period, to be attributed? To a false theory. Catharine of Medicis brought into France the practical atheism of Machiavelli's prince—the Bible, as she blasphemously called it, of her class. The maxims which, when confined to the petty courts of Italy, did not undermine the prosperity of any considerable portion of the human race, when disseminated among a valiant, politic, and powerful nation, brought Iliads of desolation in their train. We subjoin Jeanne d'Allrep's account of the private manners of the court of Charles IX:—

"J'ai trouvé votre lettre fort à mon gré—je la montrerai à madame, si je puis; quant à la peinture, je l'enverrai querir à Paris; elle est belle et bien avisée, et de bonne grâce, mais nourrie en la plus maudite et corrompue compagnie qui fut jamais, car je n'en vois point qui ne s'en sente. Votre cousine la marquise (l'épouse du jeune Prince de Condé) en est tellement changée qu'il n'y a apparence de religion en elle; si non d'autant qu'elle ne va point à la messe; car au reste de sa façon de vivre, hormis l'idolâtrie, elle fait comme les Papistes; et ma soeur la Princesse (de Condé) encore pis. Je vous l'écris privément, le porteur vous dira comme le roi s'émancipe—c'est pitié; je ne voudrois pour chose du monde que vous y fussiez pour y demeurer. Voilà pourquoi je désire vous marier, et que vous et votre femme vous vous retiriez de cette corruption; car encore que je la croyois bien grande, je la trouve encore davantage. Ce ne sont pas les hommes ici qui prient les femmes—ce sont les femmes qui prient les hommes; si vous y étiez, vous n'en échapperiez jamais sans une grande grâce de Dieu."

Thus women were alternately tools and plotters, idols and slaves. The ornaments of a court became the scourges of a nation; their influence was an influence made up of falsehood, made up of cruelty, made up of intrigue, of passions the most unbridled, and of vices the most detestable, and it seems to the student of history, in this wild and dreadful era as if all that was generous, upright, noble, and benevolent—as if faith and honour, and humanity and justice, were foreign and unnatural to the heart of man. But let us turn to our author.

"But the times were about to change. The great and stirring contests in religion and politics, which had given such scope to the deep fervour of the British character, subsided, as if the actors were breathless from their past exertions. The struggle for freedom sank into acquiescence in the dominion of the most worthless of mankind; and zeal for religion fled before the spirit of banter and sneer. The enthusiasm of 'fierce wars and faithful loves,' of piety and of freedom, were succeeded by the reign of profligacy and levity.

 

"During that disastrous period, the sordid and servile vices seem to have kept pace with the wildest licentiousness; and the dark and stern persecutions in Scotland form a fearful contrast with the bacchanalian revels of the court. The effects on the character and estimation of the female sex, sustain all that has been said upon the connexion of their interests with the elevation of morals. It became the habit to satirize and despise them, and on this they have never entirely recovered. The demoralization which led to it was, indeed, too much opposed to the temper of the English to be permanent; but women, for a long time after, ceased to keep pace with their age. Notwithstanding the numerous exceptions which must always have existed in a free and populous country like England, where literature had made progress, it is certain, that in the days of Pope and Addison, the women, in general, were grossly ignorant.

"The tone of gallantry and deference which had arisen from chivalry, still remained on the surface, but its language was that of cold, unmeaning flattery; and, from being the arbiters of honour, they became the mere ministers of amusement. They were again consigned to that frivolity, into which they relapse as easily as men do into ferocity. The respect they inspired, was felt individually or occasionally, but not for their sex. Any thing serious addressed to them, was introduced with an apology, or in the manner we now address children whom we desire to flatter. They were treated and considered as grown children. In the writings addressed to them expressly for their instruction in morals, or the conduct of life, though with the sincerest desire for their welfare, nothing is proposed to them that can either exalt their sentiments, invigorate their judgment, or give them any desire to leave the world better than they found it. They inculcated little beyond the views and the duties of a decent servant. Views and duties, indeed, very commendable as far as they go, but lamentable when offered as the standard of morals and thought for half the human species; that half too, on whom chiefly depends the first, the often unalterable, bent given to the character of the whole."

The dignity of character which rivets our attention on the "high dames and gartered knights" of the days of Elizabeth, the simplicity and earnestness and lofty feeling, which lent grace to prejudice and chastened error into virtue, were exchanged, in the days of Charles II., for undisguised corruption and insatiable venality, for license without generosity, persecution without faith, and luxury without refinement. Grammont's animated Mémoires are a complete, and, from the happy unconsciousness of the writer to the vices he portrays, a faithful picture of the court, to which the description Polydore Virgil gives of a particular family, "nec vir fortis nec foemina casta," was almost literally applicable.

Various as are the beauties of style with which this work abounds—beauties which, to borrow the phrase of Cicero, rise as naturally from the subject as a flower from its stem—we doubt whether it contains a more felicitous illustration than that which we are about to quote. The reader must bear in mind that the object of the writer is to establish the proposition, that there is an average inferiority of women to men in certain qualities, which, slight as it may appear, or altogether as it may vanish, in particular instances, is, on the whole, incontestable, and according to which the transactions of daily life are distributed.

"All inconvenience is avoided by a slight inferiority of strength and abilities in one of the sexes. This gradually develops a particular turn of character, a new class of affections and sentiments that humanize and embellish the species more than any others. These lead at once, without art or hesitation, to a division of duties, needed alike in all situations, and produce that order without which there can be no social progression. In the treatise of The Hand, by Sir Charles Bell, we learn that the left hand and foot are naturally a little weaker than the right; the effect of this is, to make us more prompt and dexterous than we should otherwise be. If there were no difference at all between the right and left limbs, the slight degree of hesitation which hand to use or which foot to put forward, would create an awkwardness that would operate more or less every moment of our lives, and the provision to prevent it seems analogous to the difference nature has made between the strength of the sexes."

The domain of woman is the horizon where heaven and earth meet—a sort of land debatable between the confines where positive institutions end and intellectual supremacy begins. It includes the whole region over which politeness should extend, as well as a large portion of the territories over which the fine arts hold their sway.

Those lighter and more shifting features which elude the grasp of the moralist, and escape the pencil of the historian, though they impress upon every age a countenance and expression of its own, it is her undoubted province to survey. Consequently, if not for the

 
"Troublous storms that toss
The private state, and render life unsweet,"
 

yet for whatever of elegance or simplicity is wanting in the intercourse of society, for all that is cumbrous in its proceedings, for any bad taste, and much for any coarseness that it tolerates, woman, as European manners are constituted, is exclusively responsible. The habits of daily intercourse represent her faults and virtues as naturally as a shadow is cast by the sun, or the image of the tree that overhangs the lake is reflected from its undisturbed and silent waters. Where the desire of wealth and respect for rank engross an excessive share of her thoughts, conversation will be insipid; and instead of that, "nature ondoyante," that disposition to please and be pleased, which is the essence of good nature and the foundation of good taste—instead of frankness and urbanity, youth will engraft on its real ignorance the dulness of affected stupidity—will assume an air of selfish calculation—of arrogance at one time and servility at another—debased itself, and debasing all around it. When, on the contrary, whatever may be their real sentiments, the external demeanour of men to each other is such as benevolence, gratitude, and equity would dictate—and we do mean this phrase to include Russian manners—where, whatever may be the principles that ferment within, the surface of society is brilliant and harmonious—where, if the better politeness which dwells in the heart be wanting, the imitation of it which springs from the head is habitual—women are entitled to the praise of exact taste and skilful discrimination. There are women whom the world elevates, only afterwards the more effectually to humble. For a time the best and wisest submit to their caprices, study their humour, are governed by their wishes—every one avoids as a crime the slightest appearance of collision with any motive that, for the moment, it may suit their purpose to entertain—a smile upon their face is hailed with rapture, any faint proof that humanity is not dead within their breasts draws down the most enthusiastic applause. During their hour of empire, people are grateful to them for not being absolutely intolerable—when they deviate into the least appearance of courtesy or good nature, they are angels. Their sun sets, and they soon learn what it is to be a fallen tyrant. The woman who pleases at first, and as your acquaintance advances gains the more in your esteem, is the most charming of all companions; the countenance of such a person is the most agreeable of all sights, and her voice the most musical of all sounds. "Une belle femme qui a les qualités d'un honnête homme est-ce qu'il y a au monde d'un commerce plus delicieux; l'on trouve en elle tout le mérite des deux sexes."

"In the heart of the best woman," says a German writer, "there glows a shovelful, at least, of infernal embers; in that of the worst, there is a little corner of Paradise."

The real benefits which depend on the influence of the softer sex are thus described:—

"One of the peculiar offices of women is to refine society. They are very much shielded by their sex from the stern duties of men, and from that intercourse with the basest part of mankind which is opposed to the humanizing influence of mental cultivation. On them, the improvement of society in these respects chiefly depends; and they who consider the subject with the views here offered, will become more and more convinced of the service they might render. Manners are, in truth, of great importance. If real refinement be a merit, it is surely desirable that it should show itself in the general deportment. Real vulgarity is the expression of something mean or coarse in sentiments or habits. It betrays the want of fine moral perceptions. The peculiarities in manner and deportment, which proceed from the selfishness of the great world, when stripped of the illusory influence of their apparent refinement, become grossly offensive. A cold repulsive manner, such as is commonly assumed by persons in high life, is sometimes a necessary shield against the pushing familiarity of underbred persons. Their tasteless imitations of habits and manners which do not belong to their station or character, deserve the ridicule they meet with. The most offensive form vulgarity can take, is an affectation of the follies and vices of high life. It is true that the notion of vulgarity is affixed, in the fine world, to many trifling modes of dress and deportment, which in themselves have no demerit whatever, except that something opposed to them has acquired an ephemeral propriety from the fancy of the great. But in real good breeding there is always a reason. It is far too little attended to in England in any class, though, from acting as a continual corrective to selfish and unsocial affections, it is peculiarly requisite in all. Good manners consist in a constant maintenance of self-respect, accompanied by attention and deference to others; in correct language, gentle tones of voice, ease, and quietness in movements and action. They repress no gaiety or animation which keeps free of offence; they divest seriousness of an air of severity or pride. In conversation, good manners restrain the vehemence of personal or party feelings, and promote that versatility which enables people to converse readily with strangers, and take a passing interest in any subject that may be addressed to them."

The writer takes occasion to regret the narrow spirit which prevents our nobility, or, to speak more properly, our fashionable coteries, from acquiring a healthier tone, by mixing with societies in which habits of more vigorous thought predominate. In France, to whatever degree frivolity may be carried, a French lady would be ashamed not to affect an interest in the great writers by whom her country has been ennobled; and to betray an ignorance of their works, or an indifference to their renown, would be considered a proof not only of the greatest stupidity, but of bad taste and unrefined habits. Here we are distinguished unfavourably from our neighbours—exceptions, of course, there must always be—but in general to betray an acquaintance with any literature beyond the last novel, or the current trash and gossip of the day, might provoke the charge of pedantry, but at any rate would fail in exciting the slightest sympathy. Hence men of letters, and women of letters, form a caste by themselves much to their own disadvantage, and still more to the injury of those to the improvement of whom they might imperceptibly contribute; hence the statesman, or the lawyer, or the writer, generally keeps aloof from the great world, which he leaves to idle young men and aged coxcombs; or, if he enters it, takes care to abstain from those topics on which his conversation would be most natural, instructing, and entertaining. Instances, indeed, may be found, where men, eminent for science and literature, or of high professional reputation, inflamed with a distempered appetite for fashionable society, "drag their slow lengths along" among the guardsmen and dowagers who frequent such scenes; but they are rather tolerated than encouraged, and the sacrifices by which they purchase their admission into the dullest society of Europe are so numerous, their appearance is so mortifying, and the effect produced upon themselves so pernicious, that hitherto such instances have served not as models to imitate, but as bywords to deter. Instead of improving others, they degrade themselves; instead of inspiring the frivolous with nobler aims and better principles, they condescend to be the echoes of imbecility; instead of raising the standard of conversation, they yield implicitly to any signal, however corrupt, worthless, or utterly unreasonable may be the quarter from which it proceeds, that the most submissive votaries of fashion watch for and obey. The system is denounced by our author in the following vigorous and eloquent passage:—

"The assembly-room or dinner-table is the very focus of care and anxiety, so that a funereal dulness often overhangs it; and there, where there is the greatest amount of money, time, and contrivance expended on pleasure—there is least animation of spirits. For one who is pleased, a dozen are chewing the cud of some petty annoyance, and the flow of spirits excited and animated by rapid interchange of ideas is scarcely known. When it occurs, it is seldom owing to those who live for dissipation, but to men whom the duties of office compel to work very hard. Notwithstanding their wealth, the pursuits of ambition compel them to become men of business, and the elasticity of their minds is preserved. That languid and depressed condition which cankers the very heart of social enjoyment, loses its solemn character on occasions of disappointment and vexation. Its pleasures are not cheerful, but its distresses are ludicrous, and are felt to be so. Each laughs at his neighbour's mortifications, and the consciousness he is supplying the same malicious amusement in his turn, does not take the sting from his own griefs when they arise.

"Nor is it merely as destructive of social enjoyment, that the habits of the great world are unfriendly to happiness. It is not the place for those who have warm imaginations and tender hearts. There is scarcely any circumstance in which that sphere differs more from others, than in the deficiency of strong affections. The chances are many against their existence; and if a woman be born to move in the haunts of the worldly, it were almost cruel to snatch her from that immersion in their follies which may serve to stifle the pangs of disappointed affection. For after all that can be said of the misery of its empty pursuits and corrupted tastes, the disappointments that end its petty passions, and the mortifications that cling to its apparent splendours, sorrows like those bear no comparison with tears of anguish shed by the grave of love. Surrounding pleasures, even the tranquil and elevating beauty of external nature, seem but a mockery when offered in place of the one thing needful—perfect and overflowing affection. The exterior decorum and attention on the part of an altered husband, which betrays to the world no dereliction of morals but what its easy code passes over as a right, is no substitute for love. Not unfrequently there is something almost appalling in the sense of solitude, which on occasions of sickness or retirement oppresses a young woman, who to all appearance is overwhelmed with attendance. The hand is not there that would render every other superfluous. A voice is wanting, whose absence leaves the silence and horror of death. The eyes are missed, whose glances first called forth the fervour of her affections from their peaceful sleep; or, if looking on her for a moment, they express nothing but indifference. These are the occasions that dispel the laboured illusion, wherewith, under the garb of business, or cares, or natural manner, she had sought to disguise from herself the marks of an estranged heart. In these sad and desolate hours her memory retraces her early years, her mother's tender watchfulness, and the soft voices of sisters contending for their place by her bedside. The contrast with her present stately solitude bursts resistless through every effort to repel it; and life and youth, with their long futurity, present her with nothing but a frightful chasm."

 
"Alas! alas my song is sad;
How should it not be so,
When he, who used to make me glad,
Now leaves me in my woe?
With him my love, my graciousness,
My beauty, all are vain;
I feel as if some guiltiness
Had mark'd me with its stain.
 
 
"One sweet thought still has power o'er me,
In this my heart's great need;
'Tis, that I ne'er was false to thee,
Dear friend, in word or deed:
I own that nobler virtues fill
Thy heart, love only mine;
Yet why are all thy looks so chill
Till they on others shine?
 
 
"Oh! long-loved friend, I marvel much
Thy heart is so severe,
That it will yield not to the touch
Of love and sorrow's tear.
No, no! it cannot be, that thou
Should seek another's love;
Oh! think upon our early vow,
And thou wilt faithful prove.
 
 
"Thy virtues—pride, thy lofty fame,
Assures me thou art true,
Though fairer ones than I may claim
Thy hand, and deign to sue.
But think, beloved one, that, to bless
With perfect blessing, thou
Must seek for trusting tenderness:
Remember then our vow!"
 

"Collectively," says our author, "women might do much to remove the national stigma of leaving men of science and letters neglected. But their education is seldom such as enables them to know the great importance of science and literature to human improvement; and they are rarely brought up to regard it as any part of their duty to promote the interests of society. They would not, indeed, be able directly to reward men of talent by employment or honours, but they might make them acquainted with those who could; at all events, mere social distinction, the attention and approbation of our fellow creatures, is in itself an advantage to men who seldom possess that passport to English respect—wealth. Though learning is tacitly discouraged in women, yet the access to every species of knowledge requisite to direct their efforts wisely and well, is as open to them as to men. With this power of forming the mind of the rising generation, this influence over the opinions, the morals, and the tastes of society, this direct power in promoting objects both of private benevolence and national importance—with so many advantages, how is it that women are still exposed to so many sufferings, from dependence, oppression, mortification, and contempt? why are their opinions yet sneered at? why is their influence rather deprecated than sought? Is it not that they have never learnt even the selfish policy of connecting themselves with the spirit of moral and intellectual advancement? Is it not because their liberty, their privileges, their power, have proceeded in many respects, less from a spirit of justice in the other sex, or a sense of moral fitness, than from the love of pleasure and luxury, of which women are the best promoters?"

In England, these evils are peculiarly great; for in England they are without compensation. It is possible to imagine such brilliant conversation, such varied wit, such graceful manners, such apparent gentleness, that would stifle the complaints of the moralist, and cause the half-uttered expostulation to die away upon his lips. So we can conceive that Arnaud and Nicole may have listened to the enchanting discourse of Madame de Sevigne, and under an influence so irresistible, have forborne to scan with severity the faults, glaring as they were, of the system to which she belonged. But with us the case is different—compare the English lady in her country-house, hospitable to her guests, benevolent to her dependents, as a wife spotless, as a mother most devoted, caring for all around her, dispensing education, relieving distress, encouraging merit, the guard of innocence, the shame of guilt, active, contented, gracious, exemplary: and see the same person in London—her frame worn out with fatigue, her mind ulcerated with petty mortifications, her brow clouded, her look hardened, her eye averted from unprofitable friends, her tone harsh, her demeanour restless, her whole being changed: and were there no higher motive, were it a question of advantage and convenience only, were dignity, and the good opinion of others, and consideration in the world, alone at stake, can any one hesitate as to which situation a wife or daughter should prefer? We should, indeed, be sorry if our demeanour in those vast crowds where English people flock together, rather, as it would seem, to assert a right than to gratify an inclination, were to be taken as an index of our national character—the want of all ease and simplicity, those essential ingredients of agreeable society, which distinguish these dreary meetings, have been long unfortunately notorious. No nation is so careful of the great, or so indifferent to the lesser, moralities of life as the English; and in no country is society, indebted, perhaps, to polished idleness for its greatest charms, more completely misunderstood. Too busy to watch the feelings of others, and too earnest to moderate our own, that true politeness which pays respect to age, which strives to put the most insignificant person in company on a level with the most considerable—virtues which our neighbours possess in an eminent degree,—are, except in a few favoured instances, unknown among us; while affectation, in other countries the badge of ignorance and vulgarity, is in ours, even in its worst shape, when it borrows the mien of rudeness, and impertinence, and effrontery, the appanage of those whose station is most conspicuous, and whose dignity is best ascertained. There is more good breeding in the cottage of a French peasant than in all the boudoirs of Grosvenor Square.