CAST your eyes upon paper, madam; there you may lock innocently, said a polite old gentleman of my acquaintance to me, one day, in the words of a wit to a fine lady. A compliment is no unpleasing way of conveying advice to a young woman, and when that advice may be so construed, as to become perfectly agreeable to her own inclinations, it is certain to be well received, and quickly complied with. It is indeed very clear to me, that my friend in this borrowed admonition recommended reading to eyes which he probably thought were too intent upon pleasing; but I, with a small deviation from the sense, applied it, to what is I freely own my predominant passion; and therefore resolved to write, still pursuing the same darling end, though by different means.
So frankly to acknowledge the desire of pleasing to be my predominant passion, is in other words, to confess myself, one of that ridiculous species of beings, called a coquet.—This will be said by some, and thought by others, for all do not say what they think on such occasions.
Yet to that laudable principle, in women mistaken for coquetry, we owe the thunder of eloquence in the senate, as well as the glitter of dress in the
drawing-room. An animated speech, and a well-chosen silk, are equally the effects of a desire to please, both in the patriot and the beauty: and if the one is ever observed to be silent, and the other without ornaments, it is because he is persuaded, that silence is most expressive; and she, that negligence is most becoming.
But for this active principle, the statesman would be no politician, and the general no warrior. The desire of fame, or the desire of pleasing, which, in my opinion, are synonimous terms, produces application in one and courage in the other. It is the poet’s inspiration, the patriot’s zeal, the courtier’s loyalty, and the orator’s eloquence. All are coquets, if that be coquetry, and those grave personages and the fine lady are alike liable to be charged with it.
But it will be objected, that the distinguishing characteristic of a coquet is to use her powers of pleasing to the ungenerous purpose of giving pain; the same may be said of each of the others. All human excellence, as well as human happiness, is comparative. We are admired but in proportion as we excel others, and whoever excels is sure to give pain, to his inferiors in merit, either from envy or emulation; passions which produce sensations nearly alike, although their consequences are very different.
I hope I have now fully proved, that I, tho’ a woman, young, single, gay, and ambitious of pleasing, deserve not the odious appellation of coquet; I say, I hope, I have proved it, for I am
but eighteen, and not used to be contradicted in an argument.
“If seldom your opinions err;
“Your eyes are always in the right,”
says the gallant Prior. Hence it follows that we always triumph in a dispute, though I cannot help allowing, that we often triumph without victory.
Universally as I could wish to please in this paper, yet I shall be contented, if it finds only a favourable acceptance with my own sex, to whose amusement it is chiefly designed to contribute.
To introduce it to them under the denomination of a trifle may be thought an affront to their understandings. But in the choice of my title, I remembered the fable of the mountain that brought forth a mouse. That I have promised little is my security from censure; if I give more it will be my best claim to praise. I should indeed have thought some apology necessary for an undertaking of this kind, had I not been persuaded, it was a mighty easy one, from its being so frequently attempted, and by persons too of my own sex.
The subjects I propose to treat of will be such as reading and observation shall furnish me with; for, with a strong passion for intellectual pleasures, I have likewise a taste for many of the fashionable amusements, and in the disposition of my time, I have contrived to gratify both these inclinations; one I thought too laudable to be restrained, the other I found too pleasing to be wholly subdued.
I am already aware that I have talked too much of myself: it is indeed a subject one cannot easily quit, and perhaps I am not sorry, that in introductory papers of this sort, the writers have generally given some account of themselves. Every one knows that long custom has the force of a law; and, in obedience to this, I shall fill up my first paper with a short history of myself.
I am the daughter of a gentleman remarkable only in this, that during the course of a pretty long life, he never lost a friend, or made an enemy. From which singular circumstance I leave the reader to collect his character. My mother was generally allowed to be a well bred-woman, and an excellent economist. In her youth she was extremely indulged by her parents, who, on account of a slight disorder in her eyes, would not suffer her to use her needle, or look into a book, except on Sundays or holidays, when she was permitted to read two or three verses of a chapter in the Bible.
My mother therefore grew up, not only without any taste, but with a high contempt for reading; and those of her female acquaintance who had made any proficiency that way were sure to be distinguished by her, with the opprobrious term of being book-learned, which my mother always pronounced with a look and accent of ineffable scorn.
My sister, who is a year younger than myself, so entirely engrossed her affection, that I was wholly neglected by her. My fondness for reading, which I discovered very early, encreased her dislike of me. As she seldom chose to have me in her sight, I had opportunities sufficient to indulge myself in this favourite amusement, for I had taken possession of all the books my brother left behind him, when he went to the university; but having great sensibility of soul, I was so affected with my mother’s partial fondness for my sister, and neglect of me, that young as I then was, I often past whole nights in tears, lamenting my misfortune.
But this sensibility entirely ruined me with my mother; for, being one day excessively shocked at some new instance of her partiality, I went up sobbing to the nursery, and had recourse to a book for my relief. It happened to be Aesop’s Fables: I opened it at the following one, which striking my imagination, then full of the preference given by my mother to my sister, I followed a sudden impulse, and sent it to my mother, desiring she would be pleased to read it; for I did not doubt but she would make a proper application of it.
An ape had twins: she doated upon one of them, and did not much care for the other. She took a sudden fright one day, and in a hurry whips up her darling under her arm, and took no heed of the other, which therefore leaped astride upon her shoulders. In this haste down she comes, and beats out her favourite’s brains upon a stone, while that which she had on her back came off safe and sound.
My mother, surprised at the novelty of the request, read the fable, and immediately afterwards came up to the nursery in great wrath, and corrected me severely, for calling her an ape, prophetically declaring that a girl who at nine years old could be so wicked, as to compare her mother to an ape, would never come to good.
Every one who came to the house was told the horrid crime I had been guilty of, the servants held me in the utmost detestation for comparing my mother to an ape, never mentioning it, without lifted up hands and eyes, in abhorrence of such early undutifulness.
My father, who had loved me with great tenderness, was dead when this incident happened; and the most effectual way of paying court to my mamma being to caress my sister, and take no notice of me, I met with very few friends, either at home or abroad.
In this state of humiliation and disgrace my brother found me, at his return from the university. When my sister and I were presented to him, my mother did not fail to relate the crime for which I had suffered so much, shewing him the book, which she had kept carefully ever after, with the leaf doubled down, at the fatal fable, declaring she thought herself very unhappy in having given birth to a child who was likely to prove so great an affliction to her; ‘for may not every thing that is bad, said she, be expected from a girl who at her years could compare her mother to an ape?’
My brother read the fable, and my mother leaving the room to give some necessary orders, he ran eagerly to me, snatched me up in his arms, and gave me a hundred kisses. My little heart was so sensibly affected with a tenderness to which I had not been accustomed, that I burst into tears.
My mother at her return found me sobbing, with the violence of my emotions, and did not doubt but my brother had been chiding me. He told her gravely, that since I was so fond of reading, he would regulate my studies himself, and take care I should read no books which might teach me to be undutiful.
To this dear brother I owe the advantage of a right education, which I had like to have missed. After my mother’s death he took me entirely under his own care. My sister chose to reside with an aunt, whose heir she expects to be; and while she is a slave to the caprices of an old woman, I have the pleasure of being the mistress of a well-ordered family, for I keep my brother’s house; and by endeavouring to make him an useful as well as agreeable companion, enjoy the sweet satisfaction of shewing every day my gratitude for obligations it can never be in my power to return.