Part 6

(42.) I have deferred it for a long time, but after all I have suffered it must come out at last; and I hope my frankness may be of some service to those ladies who, not deeming one confessor sufficient to guide them, show no discrimination in the choice of their directors. I cannot help admiring and being amazed on beholding some people who shall be nameless; I open my eyes wide when I see them; I gaze on them; they speak and I listen; then I inquire, and am told certain things, which I do not forget. I cannot understand how people, who appear to me the very reverse of intelligent, sensible, or experienced, and without any knowledge of mankind, or any study of religion and morality, can presume that Heaven, at the present time, should renew the marvels of an apostolate, and perform a miracle on them, in rendering such simple and little minds fit for the ministry of souls, the most difficult and most sublime of all vocations. It is to me still more incomprehensible if, on the contrary, they fancy themselves predestined to fill a function so noble and so difficult, and for which but few people are qualified, and persuade themselves that in undertaking it they do but exercise their natural talents and follow an ordinary vocation.

I perceive that an inclination of being intrusted with family secrets, of being useful in bringing about reconciliations, of obtaining various appointments, or of procuring places to people,[171] of finding all doors of noblemenʼs houses open, of eating frequently at good tables, of driving about the town in private carriages, of making pleasant excursions to charming country-seats, of seeing several persons of rank and quality concern themselves about our life and health, and of employing for others and ourselves every worldly interest,—I perceive, I say so again, that for the sake of those things solely has been invented the specious and inoffensive pretence of the care of souls, and an inexhaustible nursery of spiritual directors planted in this world.

(43.) Devotion[172] with some people, but especially with women, is either a passion, or an infirmity of age, or a fashion which must be followed. Formerly such women divided the week in days for gambling, for going to a theatre, a concert, a fancy-dress ball, or a nice sermon. On Mondays they went and lost their money at Ismenaʼs; on Tuesdays their time at Climèneʼs, and on Wednesday their reputation at Célimèneʼs; they knew overnight what amusements were going on the next day, and the day after that; they thus enjoyed the present, and knew what pleasures were in store for them; they wished it were possible to unite them all in one day, for this was then the sole cause of their uneasiness and all they had to think about; and if they sometimes went to the Opera, they regretted they had not gone to any other theatre. But with other times came other manners; now, they exaggerate their austerity and their solitude; they no longer open their eyes, which were given them to see; they do not make any use of their senses, and what is almost incredible, but little of their tongues; and yet they think, and that pretty well of themselves and ill enough of others; they compete with each other in virtue and reformation in a jealous kind of way; they do not dislike being first in their new course of life, as they were in the career they lately abandoned out of policy or disgust. They used gaily to damn themselves through their intrigues, their luxury and sloth, and now their presumption and envy will damn them, though not so merrily.[173]

(44.) Hermas, were I to marry a stingy woman, she will be sure not to ruin me; if a woman fond of gambling, she may enrich me; if a woman fond of learning, she may teach me; or if prim and precise, she will not fly into a rage; if a passionate one, she will exercise my patience; if a coquette, she will endeavour to please me; if a woman of gallantry, she will perhaps be so gallant as to love me; but tell me, Hermas, what can I expect if I were to marry a devout woman[174] who would deceive Heaven, and who really deceives herself?

(45.) A woman is easily managed if a man will only give himself the trouble. One man often manages a great many; he cultivates their understanding and their memory, settles and determines their religious feelings, and undertakes even to regulate their very affections. They neither approve nor disapprove, commend or condemn, till they have consulted his looks and his countenance. He is the confidant of their joys and of their sorrows, of their desires, jealousies, hatred, and love; he makes them break with their gallants, embroils and reconciles them with their husbands, and is useful during the intervals. He looks after their business, solicits for them when they have lawsuits, and goes and sees the judges;[175] he recommends them his physician, his tradesmen, his workmen; he tries to find them a residence, to furnish it, and he orders also their carriages. He is seen with them when they drive about in the streets, and during their walks, as well as in their pew at church and their box at the theatre; he goes the same round of visits as they do, and attends on them when they go to the baths, to watering-places, and on their travels; he has the most comfortable apartment at their country-seat. He grows old, but his authority does not decline; a small amount of intelligence and the spending of a good deal of leisure time suffice to preserve it; the children, the heirs, the daughter-in-law, the niece, and the servants, are all dependent on him. He began by making himself esteemed, and ends by making himself feared. This old and necessary friend dies at last without being regretted, and about half a score of women he tyrannised over recover their liberty at his death.

(46.) Some women have endeavoured to conceal their conduct under a modest exterior; but the most any one of them has obtained by the closest and most constant dissimulation has been to have it said, “One would have taken her for a Vestal virgin.”

(47.) It is a proof positive that a woman has an unstained and established reputation if it is not even sullied by the familiar intercourse with some ladies who are unlike her, and if, with all the inclination people have to make slanderous observations, they ascribe a totally different reason to this intimacy than similarity of morals.

(48.) An actor overdoes his part when on the stage; a poet amplifies his descriptions; an artist who draws from life heightens and exaggerates passions, contrasts, and attitudes; and he who copies him, unless he measures with a pair of compasses the dimensions and the proportions, will make his figures too big, and all parts of the composition of his picture by far larger than they were in the original. Thus an imitation of sagacity becomes pretentious affectation.

There is a pretended modesty which is vanity, a pretended glory which is levity, a pretended grandeur which is meanness, a pretended virtue which is hypocrisy, and a pretended wisdom which is affectation.

An affected and pretentious woman is all deportment and words; a sensible woman shows her sense by her behaviour. This one follows her inclination and disposition, that one her reason and her affections; the one is formal and austere, the other is on all occasions exactly what she ought to be. The first hides her weaknesses underneath a plausible outside; the second conceals a rich store of virtue underneath a free and natural air. Affectation and pretension shackle the mind, yet do not veil age or ugliness, but often imply them; common-sense, on the contrary, palliates the imperfections of the body, ennobles the mind, gives fresh charms to youth, and makes beauty more dangerous.

(49.) Why should men be blamed because women are not learned? What laws, edicts, or regulations prohibit them from opening their eyes, from reading and remembering what they have read, and from introducing this in their conversation and in their writings? Is their ignorance, on the contrary, not owing to a custom introduced by themselves; or to the weakness of their constitution, or to the indolence of their mind, or the care of their beauty, or to a certain flightiness which will not allow them to prosecute any continuous studies, or to a talent and aptitude they only have for needlework, or to an inattention caused by domestic avocations, or to a natural aversion for all serious and difficult things, or to a curiosity quite distinct from that which gratifies the mind, or to a wholly different pleasure from that of exercising the memory? But to whatever cause men may ascribe this ignorance of women, they may consider themselves happy that women, who rule them in so many things, are inferior to them in this respect.

We look on a learned woman as we do on a fine piece of armour, artistically chiselled, admirably polished, and of exquisite workmanship, which is only fit to be shown to connoisseurs, of no use whatever, and no more apt to be used for war or hunting than a horse out of a riding-school is, though it may be trained to perfection.

Whenever I find learning and sagacity united in one and the same person, I do not care what the sex may be, I admire; and if you tell me that a sensible woman hardly thinks of becoming learned, or that a learned woman is hardly ever a sensible woman, you have already forgotten what you have just read, namely, that women are prevented from studying science by certain imperfections. Now you can draw your own conclusions, namely, that those who have the fewest imperfections are most likely to have the greatest amount of common-sense, and that thus a sensible woman bids fairest to become learned; and that a learned woman could never be such without having overcome a great many imperfections, and this is the very best proof of her sense.[176]

(50.) It is very difficult to remain neutral when two women, who are both our friends, fall out through some cause or other in which we are not at all concerned; we must often side with one or lose both.

(51.) There are certain women who love their money better than their friends, and their lovers better than their money.

(52.) We are amazed to observe in some women stronger and more violent passions than their love for men, I mean ambition and gambling. Such women render men chaste, and have nothing of their own sex but the dress.[177]

(53.) Women run to extremes; they are either better or worse than men.

(54.) Most women have hardly any principles;[178] they are led by their passions, and form their morals and manners after those whom they love.

(55.) Women exceed the generality of men in love; but men are their superiors in friendship. Men are the cause that women do not love one another.

(56.) There is some danger in making fun of people. Lise, who is more or less in years, in trying to render a young woman ridiculous, has changed so much as to become frightful. She made so many grimaces and contortions in imitating her, and now has grown so ugly, that the person she mimicked cannot have a better foil.

(57.) In the city many male and female nincompoops have the reputation of being intelligent; at court many men who are very intelligent are considered dolts; and a beautiful woman who has some intelligence will hardly escape being called “foolish” by other women.

(58.) A man keeps another personʼs secret better than his own; a woman, on the contrary, keeps her own secrets better than any other personʼs.

(59.) There is no love, however violent, raging in the heart of a young woman, but there is still some room left for interest and ambition.

(60.) There comes a time when the wealthiest women ought to marry; they seldom let slip the first opportunity without repenting it for many a day; it seems that the reputation of their wealth diminishes in the same proportion as their beauty does. On the contrary, every thing is favourable to young girls, even menʼs opinions, for they attribute to them every accomplishment, to render them still more desirable.

(61.) To how many girls has a great beauty been of no other use but to make them expect a large fortune!

(62.) Handsome girls are apt to gratify the revenge of the lovers they have ill-treated, by giving their hand to ugly, old, or unworthy husbands.

(63.) Most women judge of the merits and good looks of a man by the impression he makes on them, and very rarely allow either of those qualities to a person who is indifferent to them.

(64.) A man who is anxious to know whether his appearance is changed, and if he begins to grow old, needs only to consult the eyes of any fair one he addresses, and the tone of her voice as she converses with him, and he will then learn what he dreads to know. But it will be a severe lesson to him!

(65.) A woman who always stares at one and the same person, or who is for ever avoiding to look at him, makes us conclude but one and the same thing of her.

(66.) Women are at little trouble to express what they do not feel; but men are still at less to express what they do feel.

(67.) It sometimes happens that a woman conceals from a man the love she feels for him, while he only feigns a passion he does not feel.

(68.) Suppose a man indifferent, but intending to declare to a woman a passion he does not feel, it may be doubted whether it would not be easier for him to deceive[179] a woman who loves him than one to whom he is indifferent.

(69.) A man may deceive a woman by a pretended inclination, but then he must not have a real one elsewhere.

(70.) A man storms and rails at a woman who no longer cares for him, but he finds consolation; a woman is not so vociferous when she is forsaken, but she remains unconsolable for a longer time.

(71.) Sloth in women is cured either by vanity or love; though, in vivacious women, it is an omen of love.

(72.) It is certain that a woman who writes letters full of passion is agitated, though it is not so sure that she is in love. A deep and tender passion is more likely to become dejected and silent; and the greatest and most stirring interest a woman can feel whose heart is no longer free, is less to convince her lover of her own affection than to be assured of his love for her.

(73.) Glycera[180] does not love her own sex; she hates their conversation and their visits; she gives orders to be denied to them, and often to her male friends, who are not many, whom she treats very abruptly, keeps within limits, and whom she never allows to transgress the bounds of friendship. She is absent-minded when they are present, answers them in monosyllables, and seems to seek every opportunity of getting rid of them; she dwells alone, and leads a very retired life in her own house; her gates are better guarded and her rooms are more inaccessible than those of Montauron or dʼEsmery.[181]

Only Corinna is expected and admitted at all hours, embraced several times, caressed, and addressed with bated breath, though they are alone in a small room; whatever she says is attentively listened to; complaints are poured into Corinnaʼs ears about another person; everything is told her, though nothing is new to her, for she possesses the confidence of that other person as well. Glycera is seen with another lady and two gentlemen at a ball, in the theatre, in the public gardens, on the road to Venouse,[182] where people eat fruit early in the season; sometimes alone in a sedan-chair on the way to the grand suburb,[183] where she has a splendid fruit-garden, or else at Canidiaʼs[184] door, who possesses so many rare secrets, promises second husbands to young wives, and tells them also when and under what circumstances they will obtain them. Glycera appears commonly in a low and unpretentious head-dress, in a plain morning gown, without any stays, and in slippers; she is charming in this dress, and wants nothing but a little colour. People remark, nevertheless, that she wears a splendid brooch, which she takes special care to conceal from her husbandʼs eyes. She cajoles and caresses him, and every day invents some new pretty names for him; the “dear husband” and his wife have but one bedroom, and would not sleep in any other room. The morning she spends at her toilet and in writing some urgent letters; a servant[185] enters, and speaks to her in private; it is Parmenion, her favourite, whom she upholds against his masterʼs dislike and his fellow-servantsʼ jealousy. Who, indeed, delivers a message or brings back an answer better than Parmenion? who speaks less of what should not be mentioned? who opens a private door with less noise? who is a more skilful guide up the back-stairs? or more cleverly leads a person out again the same way?

(74.) I cannot understand how a husband who gives way to his freaks and his temper, who, far from concealing his bad qualities, shows, on the contrary, only his worst, who is covetous, slovenly in his dress, abrupt in his answers, impolite, dull and taciturn, can expect to defend successfully the heart of a young wife against the attacks of a gallant who makes the most of dress, magnificence, complaisance, politeness, assiduity, presents, and flattery.[186]

(75.) A husband seldom has a rival who is not of his own making, and whom he has not introduced himself to his wife at one time or other; he is always praising him before her for his fine teeth and his handsome countenance; he encourages his civilities and allows him to visit at his house; and next to the produce of his own estate, he relishes nothing better than the game and the truffles his friend sends him. He gives a supper, and says to his guests: “Let me recommend this to you; it is sent by Leander and costs me nothing but thanks.”

(76.) A certain wife seems to have annihilated or buried her husband, for he is not so much as mentioned in this world;[187] it is doubted whether such a man be alive or dead. In his family his only use is to be a pattern of timid silence and of implicit submission. He has nothing to do with jointure or settlement; if it were not for that, and his not lying-in, one would almost take him for the wife and her for the husband. They are for months in the house together without any danger of meeting one another; in reality they are only neighbours. The master of the house pays the cook and his assistants, but the supper is always served in my ladyʼs apartment. Often they have nothing in common, neither bed, board, nor even the same name; they live in the Greek or Roman fashion; she keeps her name, and he has his; and it is only after some time, and when a man has been initiated in the tittle-tattle of the town, that at last he comes to know that Mr. B ... and Madam L ... have been man and wife these twenty years.[188]

(77.) Another wife, who does not give her husband any uneasiness on account of her disorderly behaviour, repays herself for it by worrying him about her high birth, her connections, the dowry she has brought him, her enchanting beauty, her merits, and by what some people call “her virtue.”

(78.) There are few wives so perfect as not to give their husbands at least once a day good reason to repent of ever having married, or at least of envying those who are unmarried.

(79.) Dumb and stupefied grief[189] is out of fashion; women weep, are garrulous, and so concerned about their husbandsʼ death that they do not forget to harp on every one of the details.

(80.) Is it impossible for a husband to discover the art of making his wife love him?