Part 9

I will go further upon this subject. The very voice of an individual, the tone she assumes in speaking to strangers, or even familiarly to her friends, will lead a keen observer to discover what elements her temper is made of. The low key belongs to the sullen, sulky, obstinate, the shrill note to the petulant, the pert, the impatient; some will pronounce the common and trite question “how _do_ you _do_?” with such harshness and raucity, that they seem positively angry with you that you should ever _do_ at all. Some effect a lispingness, which at once betrays childishness and downright nonsense; others will bid their words to gallop so swiftly, that the ablest ear is unable to follow the rapid race, and gathers nothing but confused and unmeaning sounds. All these extremes are to be avoided; and, although nature has differently formed the organs of speech for different individuals, yet there is a mode to correct nature’s own aberrations. I have heard of sensible men, who, merely for the tone of voice which did not quite harmonize with their ears, have dropped their connexion with women, who, in all other points were unexceptionable.

Admit this, and another salutary truth will be made manifest. If good-breeding and graceful refinement are ever _most proper_, they are always so. It is not sufficient that Amaryllis is amiable and elegant in her whole deportment to strangers and to her acquaintance; she must be undeviatingly so to her most intimate friends, to nearest relations, to father, mother, brothers, sisters, husband. She must have no _dishabille_ for them, either of mind or person.

This last word inclines me to pursue the hint further; to exhort my fair readers, while I plead for consistency in manners, also to carry the analogy to dress. If they would always appear amiable, elegant, and endearing to the beings with whom they are to spend their lives, let them always make those beings the first objects for whose pleasure their accomplishments, their manners, and their dress are to be cultivated. Let them never appear before these tender relatives in the disgusting negligence of disordered and soiled clothes. By this has many a lovely girl lost her lover; and by this has many an amiable wife alienated the affections of her husband.

Let me, then, in concluding this chapter, again repeat, that consistency is the soul of female power, the charm of her fascination, the bond of her social happiness.

CONTINUATION OF THE SAME SUBJECT.

“Observe the just gradation of degree.”

The carriage of a woman to her equals being founded on a just appreciation of their merits, and a proper respect to herself, the same sentiment will be found to pervade her conduct to her superiors in rank.

With regard to men, when they occupy a higher station than herself, she must proportion reverential courtesy to them, according to the rules of court ceremony. If she knows them merely as officers high in authority under the king, or as nobles distinguished by their honors, her manner must then be of calm, dignified respect. But when she finds that merit is yet higher in any of these men than his titles, then, let her show the homage of the soul, as well as that of the body; for real greatness ennobles the head which bows.

With regard to her own sex, the same rule must be observed. There are certain regulations in society which are called Laws of Precedence. They are of as much use in maintaining a due and harmonious order amongst civilized men and women, as the law of attraction is to preserve the heavenly bodies in their proper orbits. As one star differs from another in magnitude and splendor, in proportion to the destiny it hath to fulfil; so do the talents and degrees of men vary according to the allotted duties they have to perform. Hence, as in astronomy, we think not of despising Mercury, because he is not as large as Saturn, nor of speaking of our own Earth as a planet of no account, because she has not four moons like Jupiter; so, by parity of reasoning, we do not esteem our inferiors or equals the less, because they do not fill the first orders in society. All ranks have their proper place, the station in which they can be the most useful; and it is in proportion as they perform their respective duties, that we must respect the individuals.

We, therefore, regard society as a grand machine, in which each member has the place best fitted for him; or, to make use of a more common illustration, as a vast drama, in which every person has the part allotted to him most appropriate to his abilities. One enacts the King, others the Lords, others the Commons; but all obey the Great Director, who best knows what is in man. Regarding things in this light, all arrogance, all pride, all envyings and contempt of others, from their relative degrees, disappear, as emotions to which we have no pretensions. We neither endowed ourselves with high birth or eminent talents. We are altogether beings of a creation independent of our own will; and, therefore, bearing our own honors as a gift, not as a right, we should condescend to our inferiors, (whose place it might have been our lot to fill,) and regard with deference our superiors, whom Heaven, by so elevating, has intended that we should respect.

This sentiment of order in the mind, this conviction of the beautiful harmony in a well-organized civil society, gives us dignity with our inferiors, without alloying it with the smallest particle of pride; by keeping them at a due distance, we merely maintain ourselves and them in the rank in which a higher Power has placed us; and the condescension of our general manners to them, and our kindness in their exigencies, and generous approbation of their worth, are sufficient acknowledgments of sympathy, to show that we avow the same nature with themselves, the same origin, the same probation, the same end.

Our demeanor with our equals is more a matter of policy. To be indiscreetly familiar, to allow of liberties being taken with your good-nature; all this is likely to happen with people of the same rank with ourselves, unless we hold our mere acquaintance at a proper distance, by a certain reserve. A woman may be gay, ingenuous, perfectly amiable to her associates, and yet reserved. Avoid all sudden intimacies, all needless secret-telling, all closeting about nonsense, caballing, taking mutual liberties with each other in regard to domestic arrangements; in short, beware of familiarity! The kind of familiarity which is common in families, and amongst women of the same classes in society, is that of an indiscriminate gossiping; an interchange of thoughts without any effusion of the heart. Then an unceremonious way of reproaching each other, for a real or supposed neglect; a coarse manner of declaring your faults; a habit of jangling on trifles; a habit of preferring your own whims or ease before that of the persons about you; an indelicate way of breaking into each other’s privacy. In short, doing everything that declares the total oblivion of all politeness and decent manners.

This series of errors happens every day amongst brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, and female acquaintances: and what are the consequences? Distaste, disgust, everlasting quarrels, and perhaps total rupture in the end!

I have seen many families bound together by the tenderest affection; I have seen many hearts wrought into each other by the sweet amalgamation of friendship; but with none did I ever find this delicious foretaste of the society in Elysium, where a never-failing politeness was not mingled in all their thoughts, words, and actions, to each other.

Deportment to superiors must ever carry with it that peculiar degree of ceremony which their rank demands. No intimacy of intercourse with them, no friendship and affection from them, ought ever to make us forget the certain respect which their stations require. Thus, for a mere gentlewoman to think of arrogating to herself the same homage of courtesy that is paid to a lady of quality, or to deny the just tribute of precedence, in every respect, to that lady, would be as absurd as presumptuous. Yet we see it; and ridicule, from the higher circles, is all she derives from her vain pretensions. By the same rule, every woman of rank must yield due courtesy to those above her, in the just gradation, according to their elevation in the scale of nobility. The law of courts on this subject is soon understood, and, as a guide to my young readers, who may not yet have been sufficiently informed, I shall, beneath, give them a list of female titles, according to their precedence in the march of hereditary and other honors. I shall begin with the highest rank, as it is that which, in all public processions, or in private parties, has the right of standing or moving first.

As the crown of the whole, I set down a Queen. Then Princesses. Then follow, in regular order, Duchesses, Marchionesses, Countesses. The Wives of the eldest sons of Marquisses. The Wives of the younger sons of Dukes. Daughters of Dukes. Daughters of Marquisses. Viscountesses. Wives of the Eldest sons of Earls. Daughters of Earls. Wives of the younger sons of Marquisses. Baronesses. Wives of the eldest sons of Viscounts. Daughters of Viscounts. Wives of the younger sons of Earls. Wives of the eldest sons of Barons. Daughters of Barons. Wives of the younger sons of Viscounts. Wives of the younger sons of Barons. Wives of Baronets. Wives of Privy Counsellors. Commoners. Wives of Judges. Wives of Knights of the Garter. Wives of Knights of the Bath. Wives of Knights of the Thistle. Wives of Knights Bachelors. Wives of Generals. Wives of Admirals. Wives of the eldest sons of Baronets. Daughters of Knights, according to their fathers’ precedence. Wives of the younger sons of Baronets. Wives of Esquires and Gentlemen. Daughters of Esquires and Gentlemen. Wives of Citizens and Burgesses. The Wives of Military and Naval Officers of course take precedence of each other in correspondence with the rank of their husbands.

This scale, if every young lady would bear in mind and conform to it, is a sufficient guide to the mere ceremony of precedence; and would effectually prevent those dangerous disputes in ball-rooms about places, and those rude jostlings in going in and out of assemblies, which are not more disagreeable than ill-bred. It is the perfection of fine breeding to know your place, to be acquainted with that of others; and to fall gracefully into your station accordingly. While the gentlewoman is content to move in the train of female honors, the dignified decorum of step forms one graceful link in the chain of society; but if she struggles to get before, strikes one to her right, and the other to her left; treads down alike her equals and her superiors, in her eagerness for pre-eminence; we fly from the shrew, and declare her unworthy of fellowship with any class of well-ordered females.

The deference we pay to superiors, our inferiors will refund to us; and therefore, if we wish to maintain “that proud submission, that dignified obedience,” which binds the subject, through various gradations, to the sovereign, we must teach our untractable spirits to bend to the cogent reasons and salutary ordinances of high authority.

Women in every country have a greater influence than men choose to confess.

“Men’s earliest words are taught them from her lips.”

Though haughtiness of mind will not allow them always to acknowledge the truth, yet we see the proof in its effects; and, in consequence, must exhort women, by yielding their deference to the laws of honorary precedence, to teach men to obey them; and rather to emulate such distinctions, than seek to pull down the possessors to the level of the common herd.

CONCLUSION.

“Can comeliness of form, or shape, or air, With comeliness of words or deeds compare? No! those at first th’ unwary heart may gain, But these, these only, can the heart retain.”

GAY.

When so much has been said of the body and its accoutrements, I cannot but subjoin a few words on the intelligence which animates the frame, and of the organ which imparts its meaning.

Connected speech is granted to mankind alone. Parrots may prate, and monkeys chatter; but it is only to the reasonable being that power of combining ideas, expressing their import, and uttering, in audible sounds, in all its various gradations, the language of sense and judgment, of love and resentment, is awarded as a gift, that gives us a proud and undeniable superiority to all the rest of the creation.

To employ this faculty well and gracefully, is one grand object of education. The mere organ itself, as to sound, is like a musical instrument, to be modulated with elegance, or struck with the disorderly nerve of coarseness and vulgarity.

I must add to what has been said before on the subject, that excessive rapidity of speaking is, in general, even with a clear enunciation, very disagreeable; but, when it is accompanied with a shrill voice, the effect is inexpressibly discordant and hideous. The first orator the heathen world ever knew, so far remedied the natural defects of his speech, (and they were most embarrassing,) as to become the most easy and persuasive of speakers. In like manner, when a young woman finds any difficulty or inelegance in her organs, she ought to pay the strictest attention to rectify the fault.

Should she have too quick or encumbered an articulation, she ought to read with extreme slowness for several hours in the day, and even pay attention, in speaking, to check the rapidity or confusion of her utterance. By similar antidotal means, she must attack a propensity of talking in a high key. Better err in the opposite extreme, while she is prosecuting her cure, as the voice will gradually and imperceptibly attain its most harmonious pitch, than, by at first attempting the medium, most likely retain too much of the screaming key. A clear articulation, a tempered intonation, and in a moderate key, are essentials in the voice of an accomplished female. Her graceful peculiarities must be the gift of nature, or the effect of cultivated taste. Fine judgment and delicate sensibility are the best schoolmistresses on this subject. Indeed, where, in relation to man or woman, shall we find that an improved understanding, and enlightened mind, and a refined taste, are not the best polishers of manners, and in all respects the most efficient handmaids of the Muses?

Let me, then, in one short sentence, in one tender adieu, my fair readers and endeared friends! enforce upon your minds, that if Beauty be woman’s weapon, it must be feathered by the Graces, pointed by the eye of Discretion, and shot by the hand of Virtue!

Look, then, my sweet pupils, not merely to your mirrors, when you would decorate yourselves for conquest, but consult the _speculum_, which will reflect your hearts and minds. Remember that it is the affections of a sensible and reasonable soul you hope to subdue, and seek for arms likely to carry the fortress.

He that is worthy, must love corresponding excellence. Which of you all would wish to marry a man merely for the color of his eye, or the shape of his leg? Think not then worse of him than you would do of yourselves; and hope not to satisfy his better wishes with the possession of a merely handsome wife.

Beauty of person will ever be found a dead letter, unless it be animated with beauty of mind. “For ’tis the mind that makes the body rich.” We must, then, not only cultivate the shape, the complexion, the air, the attire, the manners, but most assiduously must our attention be devoted to teach “the young idea how to shoot,” and to fashion the unfolding mind to judgment and virtue. By such culture, it will not be merely the charming girl, the captivating woman we shall present to the world, but the dutiful daughter, affectionate sister, tender wife, judicious mother, faithful friend, and amiable acquaintance.

Let these, then, be fair images which will form themselves on the models drawn by my not inexperienced pen! Let me see Beauty, whose soul is virtue, approach me with the chastened step of Modesty; and, ere she advances from behind the heavenly cloud that envelops her, I shall behold Love, and all the graces, hovering in air to adorn and attend her charms.

This may be thy picture, lovely daughter of Albion! Make thyself, then worthy of the likeness, and thou wilt fulfil the fondest wish of thine unknown friend.

APPENDIX.

ON THE USE OF CORSETS.

The following pages are abridged by an eminent English physician from an Essay on the Use of Corsets, by Soemmerring, the German physiologist:

Fashion lives on novelty, and we have on this account much charity for its wanderings and eccentricities. Bonnets, with a snout as long as an elephant’s proboscis, or a margin as broad as a Winchester bushel, are merely ridiculous. Shoulders that look like wings, and sleeves as wide as a petticoat, we think are not particularly graceful; but they have at least the merit of being airy, and we take no offence. We cannot, however, extend our indulgence to the compressed waist, which is the rage at present. We know that as often as the waist is lengthened to its natural limits, this tendency to abridge its diameter appears; and we confess we are puzzled to account for the fact; for surely it is strange, that a permanent prepossession should exist in favor of a mode of dress which is at once ugly, unnatural, and pernicious. Were fashion under the guidance of taste, the principles of drapery in painting and sculpture would never be lost sight of in its changes. The clothes that cover us may be disposed in an infinite variety of forms, without violating those rules which the artist is careful to observe. The true form of the body ought to be disclosed to the eye, without the shape being exhibited in all its minutiæ, as in the dress of a harlequin; but in no case should the natural proportions (supposing the figure to be good) be changed. Ask the sculptor what he thinks of a fashionable waist, pinched till it rivals the lady’s neck in tenuity, and he will tell you it is monstrous. Consult the physician, and you will learn that this is one of those follies in which no female can long indulge with impunity; for health, and even life, are often sacrificed to it.

Corsets are used partly as a warm covering to the chest, and partly to furnish a convenient attachment to other parts of the female dress. This is all proper and correct; but to these uses fashion superadds others, originating in fantastical notions of beauty. Corsets are employed to modify the shape, to render the chest as small below, and as broad above, as possible, and to increase the elevation, fulness, and prominence of the bosom. To show how this affects the condition of the body, we must begin by giving a short description of the thorax or chest, which is the subject of this artificial compression.

Every one who has seen a skeleton, knows that the chest consists of a cavity protected by a curious frame-work of bones. These are, 1st, the back-bone, (consisting of _vertebræ_, or short bones jointed into one another,) which sustains the whole upper part of the trunk; 2d, the breast-bone, about seven or eight inches long, and composed of three pieces; and 3dly, the ribs, of which there are generally twentyfour. The twelve ribs on each side are all fixed to the back-bone behind; seven of these, the seven uppermost, are also attached to the breast-bone before, and are, therefore, called _true ribs_. The eighth rib has its end turned up, and rests on the seventh; the ninth rests in the same way on the eighth; but the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth are not connected with one another in front at all. The fore extremity of each rib consists not of bone, but of an elastic substance called cartilage. The elasticity of this substance, combined with the oblique position of the ribs, constitutes a beautiful provision, in consequence of which the chest enlarges and contracts its volume, to afford free play to the lungs.

We now wish to call attention to the form of this cavity, which, as we have seen, is surrounded and protected by the back-bone, ribs, and breast-bone, and is called the _thorax_, or chest. The uppermost pair of ribs, which lie just at the bottom of the neck, are very short; the next pair is rather longer; the third longer still; and thus they go on increasing in length to the seventh pair, or last _true_ ribs, after which the length diminishes, but without materially contracting the size of the cavity, because the false ribs only go round a part of the body. Hence the chest has a sort of conical shape, or it may be compared to the bee-hives used in this country, the narrow or pointed end being next the neck, and the broad end undermost. The natural form of the thorax, in short, is just the reverse of the fashionable shape of the waist. The latter is narrow below, and wide above; the former is narrow above, and wide below.

The lower part of the thorax is also much more compressible, and of course more easily injured by ligatures than the upper. In the upper part, the bones form a complete circle; and, from the small obliquity of the ribs, this circle presents a great power of resistance to external pressure. But the last five ribs, called the false ribs, besides being placed more obliquely, become weaker as they decrease in length, and having no support in front, their power of resisting external pressure is probably six times less than that of the true ribs. Hence ligatures applied to this part of the body may contract the natural size of the cavity perhaps one half. Nature, in this instance, has entrusted the belle with a discretionary power, guarding against its abuse, however, by severe penalties. If she chooses to _brave the consequences_, she may always, with the help of lace and cord, produce a great change on this part of her person.

From the great care nature has bestowed to strengthen the outer shell of the thorax, and to combine mobility with strength, we may judge of the importance of the organs within, and of the value of free motion to their healthy action. It is a further proof of this, as Soemmerring observes, that the ribs are the first part of the bony frame-work which nature forms; for, in the unborn child, no other bones except those of the ear are so perfect. The _contents_ of the thorax are,--first, the heart, which is the centre of the circulating system, and which, for the sake of its metaphorical offices, every lady must be anxious to keep from injury;--next, the lungs, which occupy by far the largest space, and of the delicacy of whose operations every one may judge. There are, besides, either within the thorax, or in juxtaposition with it, the stomach, liver, and kidneys, with the œsophagus, the trachea, or windpipe, part of the intestines, and many nerves, all intimately connected with the vital powers. Most of these organs are not only of primary importance in themselves, but, through the nerves, arteries, &c., their influence extends to the head, and the remotest parts of the limbs, so that when they are injured, _health is poisoned at its source_, and the mischief always travels to other parts of the system.