Coelebs In Search of a Wife Part 23

"It must, however, be confessed," replied Mr. Stanley, "that such instances are so rare, that the exceptions barely serve to establish the rule. I have known twenty women mismanage their affairs, through a bad education, through ignorance, especially of arithmetic, that grand deficiency in the education of women, through a multiplicity of vain accomplishments, through an excess of dissipation, through a devotedness to personal embellishments, through an absorption of the whole soul in music, for one who has made her husband metaphysically miserable."

"What marks the distinction," said Mr. Carlton, "between the judicious and the vulgar economist is this: the narrow-minded woman succeeds tolerably in the filling up, but never in the outline. She is made up of detail but dest.i.tute of plan. Petty duties demand her whole grasp of mind, and, after all, the thing is incomplete. There is so much bustle and evident exertion in all she does! she brings into company a mind exhausted with her little efforts! overflowing with a sense of her own merits! looking up to her own performance as the highest possible elevation of the human intellect, and looking down on the attainments of more highly gifted women, as so many obstructions to their usefulness; always drawing comparisons to her own advantage, with the cultivated and the refined, and concluding that because she possesses not their elegance they must necessarily be deficient in her art. While economists of a higher strain--I draw from living and not absent instances," added he, looking benignantly round him--"execute their well ordered plan, as an indispensable duty, but not as a superlative merit. They have too much sense to omit it, but they have too much taste to talk of it. It is their business, not their boast. The effect is produced, but the hand which accomplishes it is not seen. The mechanism is set at work, but it is behind the scenes. The beauty is visible, the labor is kept out of sight."

"The misfortune is," said Mr. Stanley, "that people are apt to fancy that judgment is a faculty only to be exercised on great occasions; whereas it is one that every hour is calling into exercise. There are certain habits which, though they appear inconsiderable when examined individually, are yet of no small importance in the aggregate.

Exactness, punctuality, and other minor virtues, contribute more than many are aware, to promote and to facilitate the exercise of the higher qualities. I would not erect them into a magnitude beyond their real size; as persons are too apt to do who are _only_ punctual, and are deficient in the higher qualities; but by the regular establishment of these habits in a family, it is inconceivable to those who have not made the experiment, how it saves, how it amplifies time, that canvas upon which all the virtues must be wrought. It is incredible how an orderly division of the day gives apparent rapidity to the wings of time, while a stated devotion of the hour to its employment really lengthens life.

It lengthens it by the traces which solid occupation leaves behind it: while it prevents tediousness by affording, with the successive change, the charm of novelty, and keeping up an interest which would flag, if any one employment were too long pursued. Now all these arrangements of life, these divisions of time, and these selections and appropriations of the business to the hour, come within the department of the lady. And how much will the cares of a man of sense be relieved, if he choose a wife who can do all this for him!"

"In how many of my friends' houses," said Mr. Carlton, "have I observed the contrary habits produce contrary effects! A young lady bred in total ignorance of family management, transplanted from the house of her father, where she has learned nothing, to that of her husband, where she is expected to know every thing, disappoints a prudent man: his affection may continue, but his esteem will be diminished; and with his happiness, his attachment to home will be proportionably lessened."

"It is perfectly just," said Sir John, "and this comfortless deficiency has naturally taught men to inveigh against that higher kind of knowledge which they suppose, though unjustly, to be the cause of ignorance in domestic matters. It is not entirely to gratify the animal, as Miss Sparkes supposes, that a gentleman likes to have his table well appointed; but because his own dignity and his wife's credit are involved in it. The want of this skill is one of the grand evils of modern life. _From the heiress of the man of rank, to the daughter of the opulent tradesman, there is no one quality in which young women are so generally deficient as in domestic economy._ And when I hear learning contended for on one hand, and modish accomplishments on the other, I always contend for this intermediate, this valuable, this neglected quality, so little insisted on, so rarely found, and so indispensably necessary."

"Besides," said Mr. Carlton, addressing himself to Miss Sparkes, "you ladies are apt to consider versatility as a mark of genius. She, therefore, who can do a great thing well, ought to do a small one better; for, as Lord Bacon well observes, he who can not contract his mind as well as dilate it, wants one great talent in life."

Miss Sparkes, condescending at length to break a silence which she had maintained with evident uneasiness, said, "All these plodding employments cramp the genius, degrade the intellect, depress the spirits, debase the taste, and clip the wings of imagination. And this poor, cramped, degraded, stinted, depressed, debased creature is the very being whom men, men of reputed sense too, commonly prefer to the mind of large dimensions, soaring fancy, and aspiring tastes."

"Imagination," replied Mr. Stanley, "well directed, is the charm of life; it gilds every object, and embellishes every scene; but allow me to say, that where a woman abandons herself to the dominion of this vagrant faculty it may lead to something worse than a disorderly table; and the husband may find that the badness of his dinner is not the only ill consequence of her super-lunary vagaries."

"True enough," said Mr. Flam, who had never been known to be so silent, or so attentive; "true enough, I have not heard so much sense for a long time. I am sure 'tis sense, because 'tis exactly my own way of thinking.

There is my Bell now. I have spent seven hundred pounds, and more money, for her to learn music and whimwhams, which all put together are not worth sixpence. I would give them all up to see her make such a tansy pudding as that which the widow in the Spectator helped Sir Roger to at dinner; why I don't believe Bell knows whether pie-crust is made with b.u.t.ter or cheese; or whether a venison pastry should be baked or boiled.

I can tell her, that when her husband, if she ever gets one, comes in sharp set from hunting, he won't like to be put off with a tune instead of a dinner. To marry a singing girl, and complain she does not keep you a good table, is like eating nightingales, and finding fault that they are not good tasted. They sing, but they are of no further use--to _eat_ them, instead of listening to them, is applying to one sense, the gratification which belongs to another."

In the course of conversation, Miss Sparkes a little shocked the delicate feelings of the ladies, of Lucilla especially, by throwing out some expressions of envy at the superior advantages which men possess for distinguishing themselves. "Women," she said, "with talents not inferior were allowed no stage for display, while men had such a reach for their exertions, such a compa.s.s for exercising their genius, such a range for obtaining distinction that they were at once the objects of her envy for the means they possessed, and of her pity for turning them to no better account. There were indeed," she added, "a few men who redeemed the credit of the rest, and for their sakes she gloried, since she could not be of their s.e.x, that she was at least of their species."

"I know, madam," said Mr. Stanley, "your admiration of heroic qualities and manly virtues: courage for instance. But there are still n.o.bler ways of exercising courage than even in the field of battle. There are more exalted means of showing spirit than by sending or accepting a challenge. To sustain a fit of sickness may exhibit as true heroism as to lead an army. To bear a deep affliction well calls for as high exertion of soul as to storm a town; and to meet death with Christian resolution is an act of courage in which many a woman has triumphed, and many a philosopher, and even some generals, have failed."

I thought I saw in Miss Sparkes's countenance a kind of civil contempt, as if she would be glad to exchange the patient sickness and heroic death-bed for the renown of victory and the glory of a battle; and I suspected that she envied the fame of the challenge, and the spirit of the duel, more than those meek and pa.s.sive virtues which we all agreed were peculiarly Christian, and peculiarly feminine.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

In the afternoon, when the company were a.s.sembled in the drawing-room, the conversation turned on various subjects. Mr. Flam, feeling as if he had not sufficiently produced himself at dinner now took the lead. He was never solicitous to show what he called his learning, but when Miss Sparkes was present, whom it was his grand delight to _set down_ as he called it. Then he never failed to give broad hints that if he was now no great student, it was not from ignorance, but from the pressure of more indispensable avocations.

He first rambled into some desultory remarks on the absurdity of the world, and the preposterousness of modern usages, which perverted the ends of education, and exalted things which were of least use into most importance.

"You seem out of humor with the world, Mr. Flam," said Mr. Stanley. "I hate the world," returned he. "It is indeed," replied Mr. Stanley, "a scene of much danger, because of much evil."

"I don't value the danger a straw," rejoined Mr. Flam; "and as to the evil, I hope I have sense enough to avoid that: but I hate it for its folly, and despise it for its inconsistency."

"In what particulars, Mr. Flam?" said Sir John Belfield.

"In every thing," replied he. "In the first place, don't people educate their daughters entirely for holidays, and then wonder that they are of no use? Don't they charge them to be modest, and then teach them every thing that can make them bold? Are we not angry that they don't attend to great concerns, after having instructed them to take the most pains for the least things? There is my Fan, now, they tell me she can dance as well as a posture mistress, but she slouches in her walk like a milkmaid. Now as she seldom dances, and is always walking, would it not be more rational to teach her to do that best which she is to do the oftenest? She sings like a siren, but 'tis only to strangers. I, who paid for it, never hear her voice. She is always warbling in a distant room, or in every room where there is company; but if I have the gout and want to be amused, she is as dumb as a dormouse."

"So much for the errors in educating our daughters," said Sir John, "now for the sons."

"As to our boys," returned Mr. Flam, "don't we educate them in one religion, and then expect them to practice another? Don't we cram them with books of heathen philosophy, and then bid them go and be good Christians? Don't we teach them to admire the heroes and G.o.ds of the old poets, when there is hardly one hero, and certainly not one G.o.d, who would not in this country have been tried at the Old Bailey, if not executed at Tyburn? And as to the G.o.ddesses, if they had been brought before us on the bench, brother Stanley, there is scarcely one of them but we should have ordered to the house of correction. The queen of them, indeed, I should have sent to the ducking-stool for a scold.

"Then again, don't we tell our sons when men that they must admire a monarchical government, after every pains have been taken, when they were boys, to fill them with raptures for the ancient republics?"

"Surely, Mr. Flam," said Sir John, "the ancient forms of government may be studied with advantage, were it only to show us by contrast the superior excellence of our own."

"We might," said Miss Sparkes, in a supercilious accent, "learn some things from them which we much want. You have been speaking of economy.

These republicans, whom Mr. Flam is pleased to speak of with so much contempt, he must allow, had some good, clever contrivances to keep down the taxes, which it would do us no harm to imitate. Victories were much better bargains to them than they are to us. A few laurel leaves or a sprig of oak was not quite so dear as a pension."

"But you will allow, madam," said Sir John, smiling, "that a triumph was a more expensive reward than a t.i.tle?"

Before she had time to answer, Mr. Flam said: "Let me tell you, Miss Sparkes, that as to triumphs, our heroes are so used to them at sea, that they would laugh at them at home. Those who obtain triumphs as often as they meet their enemies, would despise such holiday play among their friends. We don't to be sure reward them as your ancients did. We don't banish them, nor put them to death for saving their country like your Athenians. We don't pay them with a trumpery wreath like your Romans. We English don't put our conquerors off with leaves; we give them fruits, as cheerfully bestowed as they are fairly earned. G.o.d bless them! I would reduce my table to one dish, my hall to one servant, my stable to one saddle-horse, and my kennel to one pointer, rather than abridge the preservers of old England of a feather."

"Signal exploits, if nationally beneficial," said Sir John, "deserve substantial remuneration; and I am inclined to think that public honors are valuable, not only as rewards but incitements. They are as politic as they are just. When Miltiades and his ill.u.s.trious ten thousand gained their immortal victory, would not a Blenheim erected on the plains of Marathon, have stimulated unborn soldiers more than the little transitory columns which barely recorded the names of the victors?"

"What warrior," said Mr. Carlton, "will hereafter visit the future palace of Trafalgar without reverence? A reverence, the purity of which will be in no degree impaired by contemplating such an additional motive to emulation."

In answer to some further observations of Miss Sparkes, on the superiority of the ancient to British patriotism, Mr. Flam, whose indignation now provoked him to display his whole stock of erudition, eagerly exclaimed: "Do you call that patriotism in your favorite Athenians, to be so fond of raree-shows, as not only to devote the money of the state to the play-house, but to make it capital to divert a little of it to the wants of the gallant soldiers who were fighting their battles? I hate to hear fellows called patriots who preferred their diversions to their country."

Then erecting himself as if he felt the taller for being an Englishman, he added--"What, Madam Sparkes, would your Greeks have said to a PATRIOTIC FUND by private contribution, of nearly half a million, in the midst of heavy taxes and a tedious war, voluntarily raised and cheerfully given to the orphans, widows, and mothers of their brave countrymen, who fell in their defense? Were the poor soldiers who fought under your Cimons, and your ----, I forget their names, ever so kindly remembered? Make it out that they were--show me such a spirit among your ancients, and I'll turn republican to-morrow."

Miss Sparkes having again said something which he thought tended to exalt the ancient states at the expense of our own country, Mr. Flam indignantly replied--"Tell me, madam, did your Athens, or your Sparta, or your Rome, ever take in seven thousand starving priests driven from a country with which they were at war; a country they had reason to hate, of a religion they detested? Did they ever receive them, I say, maintain them like gentlemen, and caress them like friends? If you can bring me one such instance, I will give up Old England, and turn Greek, or Roman, or--any thing but Frenchman."

"I should be inclined," said Mr. Stanley, "to set down that n.o.ble deed to the account of our national religion, as well as of our national generosity."

Miss Sparkes said, "In one respect, however, Mr. Flam imitates the French whom he is abusing. He is very apt to triumph where he has gained no victory. If you hear his account of a defeat, you would take it, like theirs, for a conquest." She added, however, that there were ill.u.s.trious men in other countries beside our own, as their successes testified. For her part, she was a citizen of the world, and honored heroes wherever they were found, in Macedon, in Sweden, or even in France.

"True enough," rejoined Mr. Flam, "the rulers of other countries have gone about and delivered kingdoms as we are doing; but there is this difference: they free them from mild masters, to make them their own slaves; we neither get them for ourselves or our minions, our brothers, or cousins, our Jeromes, or Josephs. _We_ raise the weak, _they_ pull down the prosperous. If _we_ redeem kingdoms, 'tis to bestow them on their own lawful kings. If we help this nation, 'tis to recall one sovereign from banishment, if we a.s.sist that, 'tis to deliver him from captivity."

"What a scene for Spain," said Sir John, "to behold in us their own national Quixotism soberly exemplified, and rationally realized! The generous theory of their romantic knight-errant brought into actual practice. The fervor without the absurdity; the sound principle of justice without the extravagance of fancy! Wrongs redressed and rights restored, and upon the grandest scale! Deliverance wrought, not for imaginary princesses, but for deposed and imprisoned monarchs! Injuries avenged--not the ideal injuries of ridiculous individuals, but the substantial wrongs of plundered empires!"

Sir John, who was amused with the oddities of Mr. Flam, was desirous of still provoking him to talk; much effort indeed was not required to induce him to do what he was fond of doing, whenever there was an opportunity of contradicting Miss Sparkes.

"But, Mr. Flam," said Sir John, "you were interrupted as you began to enumerate the inconsistencies which you said had put you out of love with the world."

"Why, it makes me mad," replied he, "to hear men who make the loudest outcry about the dangers of the state, cramming their houses with French governesses, French cooks, and French valets; is not this adding flame to the fire? Then I have no patience to see people who pretend great zeal for the church, delighted that an Italian singer should have a larger revenue than the highest of our own bishops. Such patriots might have done well enough for Athenians," added he, looking exultingly at Miss Sparkes, "but they make miserable Englishmen. Then I hate to see fellows who pay least taxes, complaining most of the burden--those who most lament the hardness of the times, spending money in needless extravagance, and luxury increasing in exact proportion as means diminish.

"Then I am sick of the conceit of the boys and girls. Do but observe how their vanity imposes on their understanding, and how names disguise things. My son would start, if I were to desire him to go to London in the _stage coach_, but he _puts himself into the mail_ with great coolness. If I were to talk to Fan about living in a _small house_, she would not give me the hearing, whereas she is quite wild to live in a _cottage_."

"I do not quite agree with you, Mr. Flam," said Sir John, smiling, "as to the inconsistency of the world, I rather lament its dull uniformity.

If we may rely on those living chronicles, the newspapers, all is one faultless scene of monotonous perfection. Were it otherwise, I presume those frugal philologers would not keep a set of phrases ready cut and dried, in order to apply them universally in all cases. For instance, is not every public place from St. James's to Otaheite, or the Cape, invariably _crowded with beauty and fashion_? Is not every public sermon p.r.o.nounced to be _excellent_? Is not every civic speech, every provincial harangue, _neat and appropriate_? And is not every military corps, from the veteran regiment of regulars, to the volunteer company of a month's standing, always declared to be _in the highest state of discipline_?"

Before the company went away, I observed that Mrs. Carlton gave Lucilla a significant glance, and both withdrew together. In spite of my thorough belief of the injustice and absurdity of my suspicions, a pang darted through my heart at the bare possibility that Lord Staunton might be the subject of this secret conference. I was perfectly a.s.sured, that Miss Stanley would never accept him, while he retained his present character, but that character might be improved. She had rejected him for his principles; if these principles were changed, there was no other reasonable ground of objection. He might be reformed. Dare I own, even to myself, that I dreaded to hear of his reformation. I hate myself for the thought. I will, said I faintly, endeavor to rejoice if it be so. I felt a conflict in my mind, between my principles and my pa.s.sion, that distressed me not a little. My integrity had never before been so a.s.sailed. At length they returned; I earnestly examined their countenances. Both looked cheerful, and even animated; yet it was evident from the redness of their eyes that they had been weeping. The company immediately took their leave; all our party, as it was a fine evening, attended them out to their carriages, except Miss Stanley: she only pressed the hand of Mrs. Carlton, smiled, and looking as if she durst not trust herself to talk to her, withdrew to the bow window from whence she could see them depart. I remained in the room. As she was wiping her eyes to take away the redness, which was a sure way to increase it, I ventured to join her, and inquired with an earnestness I could not conceal, what had happened to distress her. "These are not tears of distress," said she, sweetly smiling. "I am quite ashamed that I have so little self-control; but Mrs. Carlton has given me so much pleasure! I have caught the infection of her joy, though my foolish sympathy looks more like sorrow." Surely, said I, indignantly to myself, she will not own Lord Staunton's love to my face?

All frank and open as Miss Stanley was, I was afraid to press her. I had not courage to ask what I longed to know. Though Lord Staunton's renewed addresses might not give them so much pleasure, yet his reformation, I knew, would. I now looked so earnestly inquisitive at Lucilla, that she said, "My poor friend is at last quite happy. I know you will rejoice with us. Mr. Carlton has for some time regularly read the Bible with her. He condescends to hear her and to invite her remarks, telling her, that if he is the better cla.s.sic, she is the better Christian, and that their a.s.sistance in the things which each understands must be reciprocal. If he is her teacher in human literature, he says, she must be his in that which is divine. He has been very earnest to get his mind imbued with scriptural knowledge; but this is not all.

"Last Sat.u.r.day he said to her, 'Henrietta, I have but one complaint to make of you; and it is for a fault which I always thought would be the last I should ever have to charge you with. It is selfishness.' Mrs.

Carlton was a little shocked, though the tenderness of his manner mitigated her alarm. 'Henrietta,' resumed he, 'you intend to go to heaven without your husband? I know you always retire to your dressing-room, not only for your private devotions, but to read prayers to your maids. What have your men-servants done, what has your husband done, that they should be excluded? Is it not a little selfish, my Henrietta,' added he, smiling, 'to confine your zeal to the eternal happiness of your own s.e.x? Will you allow me and our men-servants to join you? To-morrow is Sunday, we will then, if you please, begin in the hall. You shall prepare what you would have read; and I will be your chaplain. A most unworthy one, Henrietta, I confess; but you will not only have a chaplain of your own making, but a Christian also.'

"'Never, my dear Lucilla,' continued Mrs. Carlton, 'did I know what true happiness was till that moment. My husband, with all his faults, had always been remarkably sincere. Indeed, his aversion to all hypocrisy had made him keep back his right feelings and sentiments till he was a.s.sured they were well established in his mind. He has for some time been regular at church, a thing, he said, too much taken up as a customary form to be remarkable, and which therefore involved not much; but family prayer, adopted from conviction of its being a duty, rather pledged a man to consistent religion. Never, I hope, shall I forget the joy I felt, nor my grat.i.tude to that 'Being from whom all holy desires proceed,' when, with all his family kneeling solemnly around him, I heard my once unhappy husband with a sober fervor begin: