MADAM,
AS I apprehend the object of this publication is no less the moral than the literary improvement of your sex, permit me, through the channel of this useful work, to point out to your fair readers the fatal consequences of an opinion too generally received among them.
The opinion I could wish to see corrected is, that grandeur and happiness signify one and the same thing. How far the same wrong notion prevails among men, is not my present purpose to examine; but I will venture, to affirm, that in the system of female logic, grandeur and happiness are convertible terms. It is not surprising that this notion should be extremely prevalent, when we consider, that the whole system of female education tends to promote and extend it. Whence is it, that many misses are instructed in accomplishments evidently above their rank, but in order to obtain a station in life to which they could not reasonably aspire.
In truth, it is more the vanity of being thought to possess such accomplishments than any pleasure arising from those attainments, that is the inducement to pursue them. I have been assured by the parents of many young ladies, that their daughters were perfect mistresses of French, musick, &c. when upon a better acquaintance, I plainly perceived, they had been at much expence only to say they had been learners.
I would not be thought to mean, that the polite accomplishments are not very useful and becoming to persons of a certain rank and character; but I would observe, that the promiscuous aim of all ranks of females, to acquire those elegant distinctions, evidently proves my first principle, namely, that an appetite for vanity and splendor pervades the whole system of modern education.
The polite attainments too frequently give young ladies of middling station an unhappy propensity to dissipation and pleasure, and indispose them to the ordinary and necessary occupations of life. It may be useful to consider what probability there is, that an appetite for distinction may be gratified, and then examine what superior happiness such envied distinctions necessarily confer.
I shall take it for granted, that a good establishment in marriage is the object of most women’s wishes. It has been computed that nineteen marriages in twenty, among persons of liberal condition, are concluded upon no great inequality of circumstances. It is plain then, that a lady who flatters herself, that she shall marry above her rank, runs no less a risk that twenty to one of a disappointment. In fact this is unavoidable; for persons of rank and opulence are not very numerous, and frequently intermarry with each other: yet upon so slender a prospect has many a poor lady tired both herself and the public with a repetition of her countenance for many years past at every place of amusement.
To these dazzling and delusive hopes are ease and contentment often sacrificed, from a mistaken opinion that grandeur and happiness are inseparable; or rather, that the latter was not possible without the former: hence anxious days and sleepless nights, not to mention that virtue is much endangered by pursuits giddy and fantastical. After years of vain expectation the point in view is at a greater distance than ever, to obtain which dancing-masters and milliners have assisted in vain. If it be said, that we hear sometimes of ladies, who from private stations have rose to great rank and riches, I answer, that particular exceptions conclude nothing against the general observation, that unreasonable expectation must almost always be disappointed.
Instances of surprising good fortune happen in all pursuits, and seeming accident will have its share in the happy events of matrimony, as well as in most others. But if young people inflame their imaginations with extraordinary occurrences, and soar upon the waxen wings of expectation to regions of imaginary bliss, they will quickly find, like Icarus, misfortune interrupting the dream of vanity, and may possibly pay almost as dear for the experiment.
With respect to the blessings of Providence, we rather lament the absence of things perhaps not necessary, than make a proper use of those we have. It sufficiently appears, that a passion for grandeur is not likely to be gratified; and that such wishes must, in the nature of things, much oftener miscarry than succeed.
But for once let us suppese the point obtained, and examine what happiness is annexed to that envied condition. Providence, for the wisest reasons, has made a great difference in the external circumstances of his creatures, but not in their happiness. In fact, the greatest blessings of life are proposed in common to us all. Health and an approving conscience are the grand satisfactions of our being, as sin and pain are almost the only evils: nor can we cease to adore that goodness who has made the best things in life attainable by all conditions, without a possibility of interfering with each other. In these two grand articles, it appears, that persons of wealth and station have no advantage over more moderate conditions. The former are more exposed to temptations, and a full tide of prosperity has been always reckoned dangerous to virtue.
Besides, those who have large possessions and connexions are much broader marks for misfortune than others. Socrates accounted those happiest who had fewest wants, as the happiest of all beings is he who wants nothing. The more our wants are enlarged, and our appetites indulged, they become more ungovernable, and exceed our powers of satisfying them. Such persons are exposed to perpetual disappointment, as it is much easier to imagine than obtain.
How many persons may we not presume, who are shining themselves, and shone on by fortune, that are inwardly miserable, and sick of life? Wealth and station may indeed procure a great variety of sensual gratifications, out of the reach of humbler fortunes: but of what nature are such pleasures? fleeting and dissatisfactory in the confession of all.
Let us reflect a little on the most exalted pleasures our nature is capable of. We shall find them attainable by private stations, and from some of the best of them the very lowest conditions not excluded. Even those who are condemned to the drudgery of manual labour may, and do often enjoy a healthful body and a tranquil mind. Though they are in a great measure excluded from intellectual enjoyments, yet even this view of their condition is not without its compensations. It will not be denied, that our best enjoyments here below arise from temperance, moderate desires, easy reflexions, and a consciousness of knowledge and virtue. I would ask my fair countrywomen, whether high rank and great riches are necessary to these attainments? The purest and most substantial pleasures are certainly those arising from religion and virtue; the pleasures of knowledge, and of friendship: which are attainable by the middling, if not all classes of life, depend much upon ourselves, and are little subject to accident or diminution. So far from being the constant companions of rank and riches, that perhaps they are seldomer found among persons of elevated stations than most others. It were easy to assign the reasons; as the necessaries of life are not difficult to obtain, so neither are its best comforts. A person must have reflected indeed to very little purpose who is not sensible, that the prospect of the divine favour in another life, is the grand foundation of contentment in this imperfect and probationary state.
It will be said, that a competency of the good things of life, is necessary to our happiness, and truly desirable. Most undoubtedly it is: but the misfortune is, our ideas of a competency are not taken from nature, or even from our proper station and character, but from our imaginations and wrong habits; and what is yet more preposterous, from our comparisons with others.
A competency is not to be defined, because it varies according to the station and necessities of individuals. To use a familiar comparison—Suppose a person undertakes a journey into a remote country, and has sufficient to defray his necessary expences, may he not enjoy the true pleasures of the scene equally with him who travels the same journey, attended with all the parade of equipage, and encumbered with a superfluity of wealth? May not as successful a voyage be made in a small, convenient bark, as in a galley no less splendid than Cleopatra’s?
Let nothing here advanced be supposed to mean, that wealth and station incapacitate their possessors from enjoying the truest happiness of their nature. Among other advantages in common with their fellow-creatures, they eminently enjoy the godlike power of doing good to others. It is the exercise of that power that gives rank and riches their true dignity, and is the constant employment of him who is the source of all excellence. But let not people mistake that which may be made the means of happiness for the necessary and never failing cause of it; nor repine at the want of those distinctions in the possession of which there occur so many examples extremely miserable.
I cannot conclude this letter without observing, that an appetite for grandeur very fatally predominates at a crisis in life, wherein, of all others, it behoves us to act with the truest wisdom: I mean at the time of marriage. Matches are now deemed good or bad, not from the qualities, but the external circumstances of the parties. The opinion of Themistocles, like many other old opinions, is quite exploded, who declared, ‘That he would rather marry his daughter to a man without an estate, than to an estate without a man.’
The candidates for the ladies affections, or more properly their fortunes, undergo the most exact scrutiny into their estates, expectations, and alliances; nor is any enquiry omitted, but into their sense and morals. If your fair readers please to extend this charge to their admirers, they have my consent, only remembering, that folly on one side, never excuses it on another; and that they are most likely to be greater sufferers by an ill choice, as their condition is more dependent.
It is agreed on all sides, that the sure supports of conjugal felicity are the unreserved friendship and mutual esteem of the parties: now it is an axiom, that friendship cannot exist but between virtuous minds; and surely no dreams of a lunatic were ever more visionary, than to suppose there can be any abiding pleasure without virtue, since in our system of being there is nothing durable but the consequences of it.
Many a thoughtless female, who despised all considerations but rank and riches, serves only to exhibit a wretched spectacle of their insufficiency. I doubt not but this essay may fall into the hands of some of your fair readers, who have dragged out an insipid length of days, doating about vain and perishable distinctions, and have sunk into utter contempt and oblivion, who, by a better conduct, might have enjoyed happy and comfortable establishments.
Let those whose cases are retrievable, consider that elevation must ever be the lot of very few; nor when it is attained does it invariably produce happiness. The truest satisfactions in life are not necessarily connected with great estates or coronets, but are to be found among persons of all conditions, whose lives are governed by sense and virtue. Of one thing they may be infallibly certain, that a life conducted by vanity cannot fail to end in misery.
I am, Madam, Your very Humble Servant, W.M.