Page images
PDF
EPUB

Let them look for a moment at the condition of woman wherever this high tone of character has been wanting, where she has been identified merely with material things, and, as a necessary consequence, regarded as a soulless and degraded being, essential to society only in her ministration to the general good of man. But we close the scene ere it is fully unfolded. The Daughters of England must feel within themselves that a higher and a nobler destiny is theirs.

CHAPTER V.

TASTE, TACT, AND OBSERVATION.

In the cursory survey we have now taken of what may properly be called the intellectlectual groundwork of the female character, our attention has been directed not only to those scholastic attainments which are generally comprehended in a good education, but to that general knowledge, which can only be acquired by after-study, by observation, by reading, and by association with good society.

All these, however, are but the materials of character, materials altogether useless, and sometimes worse than useless, without the operation of a master-power to select, improve, and turn them to the best account. With men, this power is most frequently selfinterest-with women it is that bias of feeling towards what they are most inclined to love, which is generally recognised under the name of taste; and both these principles begin to exercise their influence long before the mind has attained any high degree of intellectual cultivation, and long before we are aware of our own motives. I have called this principle in woman, taste, because so far as it is biassed by the affections, taste involves a moral; and it is a peculiar feature in the female character, that few things are esteemed which do not recommend themselves in some way or other to the affections.

Thus, women are often said to be deficient

in judgment, simply from this reason, that judgment is the faculty by which we are enabled to decide what is intrinsically best, while taste only influences us so far as to choose what is most agreeable to our own feelings.

It is no uncommon thing among young women, to hear them say, they like a thing they do not know why-nay, so warm are their expressions, one would be led to suppose their preference arose from absolute love, and yet,

"The reason why, they cannot tell."

It is that habitual tendency of feeling or tone of mind, which I have called taste, that decides their choice; and it is thus that our moral worth or dignity depends upon the exercise of good taste, in the selection we make of the intellectual materials we work with in the formation of character, and the general arrangement of the whole, so as to render the trifling subservient to the more important, and each estimable according to the purpose for which it is used.

I am aware that religious principle is the only certain test by which character can be tried; but I am speaking of things as they are, not as they ought to be; and I wish to prove the great importance of taste, by showing that it is a principle busily at work in directing the decisions of the female mind on points supposed to be too trifling for the operation of religious feeling, and often before any definite idea of religion has been formed. It is strictly in subservience to religion, that I would speak of good taste as being of extreme importance to woman; because it serves her purpose in all those little variations of human life, which are too sudden in their occurrence, and too minute in themselves, for the operation of judgment; but which at the same time constitute so large a sum of woman's experience.

It may be said, that the rules of good taste are so arbitrary, that no one can fully understand them. I can only repeat, what I have said on this subject in "The Poetry of Life," and I think the rule is sufficient for women

in general. It is, that the majority of opinion among those who are best able to judge, may safely be considered as most in accordance with good taste. Thus, when your taste has received from your parents a particular bias, which you are afterwards led to suspect is not a correct one, inquire with all respect, whether, on that particular subject, your parents are the persons best qualified to judge. Or when you find in society that any thing is universally approved or condemned, before accommodating your own taste to this exhibition of popular feeling, ask whether the judges who pronounce such sentence are competent ones, and if there be a higher tribunal at which the question can be tried-or in other words, judges who understand the subject better, let it be referred to them, before you finally make up your mind.

Perhaps it may be objected that this is a tedious process, and that taste is a thing of sudden conclusion. But let it be remembered, I am now speaking of the formation of a good taste, as a part of the character; not of the operation of taste where it has been formed. Nor, indeed, is the suddenness with which some young persons decide in matters of taste, any proof of their good sense. So far from this, we often find them, under the influence of better judges, reduced to the mortifying necessity of changing their opinions to the direct opposite of what they have too hastily expressed.

Still, though the process of forming the taste upon right principles, may at first be slow; and though it may sometimes appear too tedious for juvenile impetuosity, the exercise of good taste will in time become so easy, and habitual, as to operate almost like an instinct; and, until it is so, the process I have recommended, will have the great advantage of preventing young ladies from being too forward in expressing their sentiments; and what is of far greater importance, they will be cautious in making their selection of what they admire, and what they condemn.

Have we not all seen in society the ridiculous spectacle of a young and forward girl

exhibiting all the extravagance of juvenile importance in her condemnation of a book, which has not happened to please her fancy; when, had she waited a few minutes longer, the conversation would have taken such a turn, as would have convinced her that among wise men, and enlightened women, the work was considered justly worthy of high commendation? With what grace could she, then, after having thus committed herself, either defend, or withdraw her own opinions? or with what complacency could she reflect upon the exposure she had made of her bad taste, before persons qualified to judge? Far wiser is the part, perhaps, of her more diffident companion, who having equally failed in discovering the merits of the work in question, goes home and reads it again, with her attention more directed to its beauties; and who, even if she fails at last in deriving that pleasure from the book which she had hoped, has the humility to conclude that the fault is in her own taste, which she then begins to regulate upon a new principle, and with a determination to endeavor to admire what the best judges pronounce to be really excellent.

We must not, however, attach too much importance to good taste, nor require it to operate beyond its legitimate sphere. Taste, unquestionably, gives a bias to the character, in its tendency to what is elevated or low, refined or vulgar; but after all, the part of taste is only that of a witness called into a court of justice, to test the value of an article, which has some relation to the great and momentous decision in which the judge, the jury, and the court, are so deeply interested. As taste is that witness, religion is that judge; and it is only as the one is kept subservient to the other, that it can be rendered conducive to our happiness or our good.

The province of taste, then, includes all the minute affairs of woman's life-which belongs to all pleasurable feeling, held in subordination to religious principle—all which belongs to dress, manners, and social habits, so far as they may be said to be ladylike, or otherwise. Should any consideration, rela

easy, on first entering upon life, to maintain the page of thought unsullied, by closing it against every improper image; but when once such images are allowed to mingle with the imagination, so as to be constantly reviv

ting to one or all of these points, be allowed to interfere in the remotest degree with the requirements of religion, it is a proof, whenever they do so, that the standard of excellence is a wrong one; and the individual who commits so fatal an error, would do welled by memory, and thus to give their tone to to look to the consequences, and remedy the evil before it shall be too late. Religion never yet was injured by permitting good taste to follow in her train; but that lovely handmaid can deserve the name of taste no longer, if she attempts to step before religion, or in any respect to assume her place.

Above every other feature which adorns the female character, delicacy stands foremost whithin the province of good taste. Not that delicacy which is perpetually in quest of something to be ashamed of, which makes a merit of a blush, and simpers at the false construction its own ingenuity has put upon an innocent remark; this spurious kind of delicacy is as far removed from good taste, as from good feeling, and good sense; but that high-minded delicacy which maintains its pure and undeviating walk alike among women, as in the society of men; which shrinks from no necessary duty, and can speak, when required, with seriousness and kindness of things at which it would be ashamed indeed to smile or to blush-that delicacy which knows how to confer a benefit without wounding the feelings of another, and which understands also how and when to receive one that delicacy which can give alms without display, and advice without assumption; and which pains not the most humble or susceptible being in creation. This is the delicacy which forms so important a part of good taste, that where it does not exist as a natural instinct, it is taught as the first principle of good manners, and considered as the universal passport to good society.

Nor can this, the greatest charm of female character, if totally neglected in youth, ever be acquired in after life. When the mind has been accustomed to what is vulgar, or gross, the fine edge of feeling is gone, and nothing can restore it. It is comparatively

the habitual mode of thinking and conversing, the beauty of the female character may indeed be said to be gone, and its glory departed.

But we will no longer contemplate so unlovely-so unnatural a picture. Woman, happily for her, is gifted by nature with a quickness of perception, by which she is able to detect the earliest approach of any thing which might tend to destroy that high-toned purity of character, for which, even in the days of chivalry, she was more reverenced and adored, than for her beauty itself. This quickness of perception in minute and delicate points, with the power which woman also possesses of acting upon it instantaneously, has, in familiar phraseology, obtained the name of tact; and when this natural gift is added to good taste, the two combined are of more value to a woman in the social and domestic affairs of every-day life, than the most brilliant intellectual endowments could be without them.

When a woman is possessed of a high degree of tact, she sees, as if by a kind of second-sight, when any little emergency is likely to occur; or when, to use a more familiar expression, things do not seem likely to go right. She is thus aware of any sudden turn in conversation, and prepared for what it may lead to; but, above all, she can penetrate into the state of mind of those with whom she is placed in contact, so as to detect the gathering gloom upon another's brow, before the mental storm shall have reached any formidable height; to know when the tone of voice has altered, when an unwelcome thought has presented itself, and when the pulse of feeling is beating higher or lower in consequence of some apparently trifling circumstance which has just transpired.

In these and innumerable instances of a similar nature, the woman of tact not only

perceives the variations which are constantly taking place in the atmosphere of social life, but she adapts herself to them with a facility which the law of love enables her to carry out, so as to spare her friends the pain and annoyance which so frequently arise out of the mere mismanagement of familiar and apparently unimportant affairs. And how often do these seeming trifles

"The lightly uttered, careless word”--

the wrong construction put upon a right meaning the accidental betrayal of what there would have been no duplicity in concealing-how often do these wound us more than direct unkindness! Even the young feel this sometimes too sensitively for their own peace. But while the tears they weep in private attest the severity of their sorrow, let them not, like the misanthrope, turn back with hatred or contempt upon the world which they suppose to have injured them; but let them rather learn this wholesome lesson, by their own experience, so to meet the peculiarities of those with whom they associate, as to soften down the asperities of temper, to heal the wounds of morbid feeling, and to make the current of life run smoothly, so far as they have power to cast the oil of peace upon its waters.

Such then is the general use of tact. Particular instances of its operation would be too minute, and too familiar, to occupy, with propriety, the pages of a book; for, like many other female excellences, it is more valued, and better understood, by the loss a character sustains without it, than by any definite form it assumes, even when most influential upon the conversation and conduct. This valuable acquirement, however, can never be attained without the cultivation in early life of habits of close observation. It is not upon the notes of a piece of music only, not upon a pattern of fancy-work, nor even upon the pages of an interesting book, that the attention must alone be brought to bear; but upon things in general, so that the faculty of observation shall become so sharpened by constant use, that nothing can escape it.

Far be it from me to recommend that idle and vulgar curiosity, which peeps about without a motive, or, worse than that, with a view to collect materials for scandal. Observation is a faculty which may be kept perpetually at work, without intrusion or offence to others; and at the same time, with infinite benefit to ourselves. Every object in creation, every sound, every sensation, every production either of nature or of art, supplies food for observation, while observation in its turn supplies food for thought. I have been astonished in my association with young ladies, at the very few things they appear have to think about. Generally speaking, they might be all talked up in the course of a week. And what is the consequence? It is far beyond a jest, for the consequence too frequently is, that they grow weary of themselves, then weary of others, and lastly weary of life of life, that precious and immortal gift, which they share with angels, and which to them, as to the angelic host, has been bestowed in order that there with they may glorify the gracious Giver.

to

Now, this very weariness, which at the same time is the most prevalent disease, and the direst calamity, we find among young women; since it not only makes them useless and miserable, but drives them perpetually into excitement as a momentary reliefthis weariness arises out of various causes with which young people are not sufficiently made acquainted, and one of the most powerful of which is, a neglect of the habit of observation.

"I have seen nobody, and heard nothing to-day," is the vapid remark of one to whom the glorious heavens, and the fruitful earth, might as well be so much paint and patchwork. "What an uninteresting person!" exclaims another, who has never looked a second time at some fine expressive countenance, where deep feeling tells its own impassioned story. "I wish some one would come and invite us out to tea," says a third, whose household library is stored with books, and whose parents have within themselves a fund of intelligence, which they would be

but too happy to communicate, could they find an attentive listener in their child. "But my life is so monotonous," pleads a fourth, "and my range of vision so limited, that I have nothing to observe." With those who live exclusively in towns, I confess this argument might have some weight; and for this reason, I suppose it is, that town-bred young women are often more ignorant than those who spend a portion of their early life in the country-not certainly because there is really less to be observed in towns, but because the mind, in the midst of a multitude of moving images, is comparatively unimpressed by any. I confess, too, there is something in the noise and tumult of a crowded city, which stupifies the mind, and blunts its perception of individual things, until the whole shifting pageant assumes the character of some vast panorama, upon which we look, only with regard to the whole, and forgetful of each individual part.

"It is true, I have taken my accustomed walk in the city," observes a fifth young woman, "but I have found nothing to think about." What! was there nothing to think about in the squalid forms of want and misery which met you at every turn?—nothing in the disappointed look of the patient mendicant as you passed him by ?-nothing in the pale and half-clad mother, seated on the step at the rich man's door, folding her infant to her bosom, and shrouding it with the "wings of care?"--was there nothing in all that was doing among those busy thousands, for supplying the common wants of man; the droves of weary animals goaded, stupified, or maddened, none of which would ever tread again the greensward on the mountain's side, or slake its thirst beside the woodland brook? -was there nothing in the bold and beautiful charger, the bounding steed, or the sleek and well-fed carriage-horse, contrasted with the galled and lacerated victims of oppression, waiting for their round of agony to come again?—was there nothing in the vastness of man's resources, the variety of his inventions, the power of combined effort, as displayed in that perpetual succession of lux

uries both for the body and the mind?—was there nothing in that aspect of order and industry, so important to individual, as well as national prosperity ?-was there nothing, in short, in that mighty mass of humanity, or in the millions of pulses beating there, with health or sickness, weal or wo?-was there nothing in all this to think about? Why, one of our late poets was wont to weep as he walked along Fleet-street and the Strand; so intense were his sympathies with that moving host of fellow-beings. And can young and sensitive women be found to pass over the same ground, and say they find nothing to think about? Still less could we expect to meet with a being thus impervious in the country; for there, if human nature pleases not, she may find

-books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in every thing." Whether it arises from an intellectual, or a moral defect, that this happy experience is so seldom realized, is a question of some importance in the formation of character. If young ladies really do not wish to be close observers, the evil is a moral one, and I cannot but suspect that much truth lies here. They wish, undoubtedly, to enjoy every amusement which can be derived from observation, but they do not wish to observe; because they either have some little pet sorrow which they prefer brooding over to themselves, or some favorite subject of gossip, which they prefer talking over with their friends, or they think it more ladylike not to notice common things, or more interesting to be absorbed, to start when spoken to, and to spend the greatest portion of their time in a state of revery.

If such be the choice of any fair reader of these pages, I can only warn her that the punishment of her error will eventually come upon her, and that as surely as she neglects in youth to cultivate the expansive and pleasure-giving faculty of observation, so surely will life become wearisome to her in old age, if not before. There are, however, many whose error on this point arises solely out of

« PreviousContinue »