 | CHAPTER VIII. Errata, or, The works of Will. Adams |  |
8. CHAPTER VIII.
Treachery....Sentence begun—never ended....Modesty....Men
and Women...Ribaldry...Advice....Apostrophe...Reflections
on Women.
It is now my intention to pass rapidly over a series
of little adventures, that happened to me, in my boyhood,
in a somewhat regular manner; after which, I
shall proceed with my story, just as my humour urges
me, regardless of aught but my own amusement. And
here, let me begin with an affair, that occurred to me
while I was quite a boy. I have never forgotten it:—
hardly, for a moment, has it been absent from my thought,
I ought to say, from the day that it happened; and then,
I was quite a child. I tell it now, lest I may forget it;
although I hardly know how to introduce it. But, why
make any apology? Is'nt the book full of such episodes?
Enough for me, that this one had some influence
on my whole future life.
While I was a mere child, though I do not recollect
my age, I remember that there was a wedding at one of
the neighbours. I lay and thought a good deal about
it, the night before, without well understanding what
was meant by it. I grew uneasy. My insatiable curiosity—that
devil—was at work again. I determined
to conceal myself in the bride's chamber. I did—and
you will smile, when I relate what I saw, before I was
discovered. The poor girl, a remarkably timid, delicate,
modest, gentle, innocent creature, came up stairs,
attended by two romping bride maids, who attempted
to pull off her clothes, and put her to bed, by main
force. She resisted—and they, finally, consented that
she should undress herself. So, she began;—first, she
pulled off one glove—then, fetched a deep sigh—then,
rolled it up—(the glove, I mean—not the sigh)—then,
pulled off the other—then sighed again, from the very
bottom of her heart—and began to roll them both up together.
The girls became impatient, and snatched the
gloves away. Then the bride took off the ribband that
if she never would be done—inch by inch, and with all
her might—breathing a faint sigh, at every turn.
“Pho, pho! give me the ribband,” said one—“what a
fuss you make about it.”
“Lord!” cried the other, “I would'nt mind it, at all.”
“O, yes you would,” answered the poor bride—seeking,
by every artifice in her power, to prolong the ceremony;
for the groom was getting impatient—and I
could see him pacing to and fro, in the hall below, taking
out his watch at every turn—and shaking the whole
house with his tread.
Then the poor bride began to pull off one of her
stockings—and then—and then—I came away.
And now, to the main story. Among many hundred
scrapes, some of which were truly laughable, quite too
laughable for relation, except the company be all men,
or all women; all married, or all single; and nearly of
the same age, too—Stop! that puts me in mind of a
matter, upon which I will step aside for a moment.—
Women! hearken to me. I know something of that evil
propensity, which is common among you, when you
are once—for a single moment—admitted to an acquaintance
with certain mysteries. Widows and wives!
Women of beauty and excellence!—how many of you,
are there, who, if ye happen to be very intimate with
each other, and sitting together in a tight room, by
yourselves, would be willing to have a man overhear
your conversation? Ah! you are startled. I have been
among you, on many occasions, when you knew it not;
by your side, when you saw me not; at times, when the
thickness only of a thin board, kept us apart at
night;—nay, less than that, sometimes. I have heard
your murmuring in your sleep; your half articulated
thought; your deep, deep inaudible soliloquy:—God!
how you would have shivered at the near sound of a
man's voice! I have overheard you in couples; been
with you, on sacred occasions; heard the young, blushing,
and innocent creature, who, were I to judge from
the blue tenderness of her eyes; the bashful sweetness of
her untasted lip; would fall down with affright, and
had been caught naked, by a ruffian—if one impure
thought; or one immodest allusion, had been uttered in
her presence;—lovely and timid creatures, whom it
would seem impossible that indelicacy could approach;
—spiritual ones, who could not—so your heart would
delight to think—who could not understand the look or
language of impurity—looking as if butter wouldn't melt
in their mouths. Yes. I have been with them; by them,
at their most secret moments: and heard them—alone—
in couples—in their bed-chambers —at church—in the
wood —and the water—utter such things!—woman!—
such things that my very heart hath turned pale at them.
Yea, and mothers; wives; and the newly married —the
holy and consecrate—have I not heard from their lips,
what, had their husbands heard from them—their lovers—or
their children—O, what had been their alarm,
and sorrow, and amazement. Woman! if thou art worthy
of the name, thou wilt never utter that—never listen
to that, which thou wouldst not be willing to say
aloud, before any man living. I have known some—,
some few;—they were the white waxen flowrets, that
cannot even be breathed upon, by an impure heart;—
transparent and beautiful blossoms, that are sullied by
even the breath of unholy passion;—stars that wane
and dissolve, if approached, even at midnight. profanely.
They were worshipped—they! Ask your own
hearts. Let me ask thee, dearest—hast thou never,
never, in all thy life, uttered that to a woman, which,
for thy right hand, thou wouldst not have had a man
to hear? Yet, thou art pure—pure as the drifted snow
—born of rain and cold—tears and chilliness—high up
in the heaven.
Look at me—thou of the dark, imperial eye;—thou
stately creature, of the regal front, and tread of dominion—whom
but to think of, brings the sweat out
upon my mouth—and have I not—even I—heard thee
mean that, as thy sweet, clear voice fainted in my ear;
seen thee understand that, at which, when thou wast
all alone, thy cheeks kindled, and thine eyes filled, at
having meant or understood? Have I not?
Hear me—woman! dear woman!—there is not that
being beneath the sky—no, not one, that reveres you
as I do. I would not see you profaned—I would not
even imagine it. I would preserve you untasted—unbreathed
upon—with “innocent lips,” and unpractised
eyes. And, therefore, do I counsel you. No matter how
your fellow-women, of more experience, may affect to
countenance and encourage you, when you are shrinking,
with your first love—nestling in it, like your first
child, at your own bosom; or trembling, and blushing,
and warming all over, as you strive, vainly strive, to
adjust your shawl, so that no eye may detect the thrilling
secret—of your happiness, “if you love your lord.”
No matter how they may strive to win you into their
way, there is a sanctity, a sweetness, a something unapproachable—like
witchery and enchantment---the
virginity of the blood and thought---about you now,
that will be gone the first moment that you listen to, or
repeat (for that will follow,) the words of meaning,
that shall be uttered where you are. Do not listen to
them;---do not, I entreat you. They that laugh at your
prudery—even they, will love you the better for it.—
To love, and be beloved, should be the religion of women.
Not that “to suckle fools, and chronicle small
beer,” are to be your only employments. No;—but I
would have you, what heaven meant you to be—the
mother and the wife; the companion, friend, and counseller
of man; his home—his heaven; a something, with
whom he may mingle his immortality, thought, and essence;
sure that it will be purified by the communion,
whether your lips are thrilling together, or oceans are
rolling between you.
Would you be this? Would you? Awake then; put
on the imperial beauty that man loves; that, which conquers,
while it lifts up the compassionate, supplicating,
imploring eyes of love to us; be yourselves; be modest;
rebuke the licentiousness, which is growing upon you.
Let your foreheads expostulate with it.
By heaven, I have a mind to speak plainly. I will!
I have overheard women, modest women, say, what I
have blushed, afterward, to think of; and I have no great
women, whom I do respect, and could have loved, betray
a quickness of apprehension upon some subjects;
a dexterity of application, that took my breath away;
and brought the water into my eyes. I have been afraid
to look them in the face again. But others—O, I have
known more than one blessed creature, who never un
derstood aught that she should not understand; or, if
she did, they only could see it, who knew when the colour
of her eyes changed, with shame and sorrow.
Woman!—you know not your own character! Why
do you expose your naked arms, and naked shoulders?
Why do you wear flesh-coloured stockings, thin as cobweb,
with lace insteps and clocks. Look at me. I
put the question home to you. You “cannot tell.”
“It is the fashion.” Pshaw! Why do you expose your
bosoms?—particularly, when you know them to be
beautiful?—or, why do the more knowing ones, cover
it with a transparent gauze? Dare you acknowledge
the true reason? Are you not ashamed of it? Is it to
excite the envy of women? In part, it may be. Or,
is it to move the passions, and excite the blood of men?
—of the voluptuary, and the sensualist? You tremble
at the thought. The tears come into your eyes. Yet,
how can you deny it? Ye do these things—that cannot
be denied. Tell me why ye do them. Is it that
you do not think of the matter? Shame on you, if that
defence be a true one! Can a modest woman uncover
her beauty, without thinking of it?—without knowing
it? As soon would she go entirely naked—not, all at
once—but, gradually, and after a little time. But, perhaps,
you will take that back. “I always think of it,”
you may say—“but it is the fashion.” What!—is that
the answer of a creature, when the nakedness of her
heart has been uncovered—her most holy enchantment
revealed to the wanton multitude. If fashion can so
utterly overcome the natural instinct of modesty, in any
woman—I care not who she may be—as to reconcile
her to an exposure, that, if it were not fashionable, she
would blush at—I should have no hope for her—no
confidence in her—in Turkey, or Italy—or any where;
if the fashion of the age were ever so shameless, or
what you disapprove. O, woman, what more could your
bitterest enemy say of you! In short, either you do approve
of such things, or you do not. If you do, you are
no longer a woman; for it is the character—the essential
character of woman, to shrink from the exposure
of her charms. If you do not approve of it, and yet
yield to the fashion, you are more of a woman, to be
sure, in one thing; but less, in modesty, and far less, in
principle. Why, even boys are more modest—and
grown men—where indecent tales are told, than you
sometimes are.
How mistaken we are. Humour and ribaldry—nay,
even wit, when it most elates us, like the delirium of
intoxication, will always leave us mortified and humbled.
How often have I seen a great man lose his hold
upon the veneration of other men, by coming too near
them, and their infirmities, with some paltry joke. And
yet, strange as it is, we do love to see the great and
good forgetting, thus vilely, all their greatness and
goodness. Judges of courts have I seen, gloating on
obscenity and lewdness, about a table—ministers of the
gospel—aged and venerable men—men of wisdom and
piety—fathers and husbands—who should, if they had
life in them, when a ribald joke was uttered; or a scurrilous
toast; or a blackguard song; have arisen, and rebuked
the ruffian to the dust. By heaven, I would as soon
show an indecent print to my own daughter; or sing a
bawdy song before modest women; nay, be guilty of
any shameful outrage upon modesty, before my own
mother, sister, or daughter, as utter an obscene sentiment
or allusion, in the presence of an old man. There
is an awful something to me, in the bearing of old age.
I feel, when I see a broad old forehead; and a bright,
venerable eye, shaded by the thin grey hair of great
age, as if I am with one, that is holier than I; a greater
favourite of heaven; and much nearer the time of meeting
with his God;—as if I am performing before one,
that is about to carry news of younger men, and of me,
into the habitation of all men—the ancient heavens.
How horrible it is, to hear such men uttering, with
“a death-bed sensation, some blasphemous jest.” It
makes me indignant, weary, angry, and impatient. I
could arise, and rebuke them for it. What! I would
say—are ye fathers?—husbands?—and will ye bear
this? Call in your wives!—your daughters! Let them
listen to, and mock at you, till their tears blind them!
Oh, no, no! Men will not be taught; and old men, least
of all; and, although every man knows, that he never
heard another tell a smutty story; or make an immodest
allusion, without feeling his respect for him diminished;
yet, every man, when men are assembled together,
—I never knew an exception in all my life, at a large
dinner table—will say things; and listen to them, (which
is the same.) and chuckle over them, too, as if there
were a luxury in their wicked raciness, pollution, and
pungency, which was irresistible; things, at which they
should weep for shame, for having permitted them to be
said in their presence, when they are alone.
It is inconceivable that men will do this; but, how
transcendently worse is it in women! What a horrour
do we feel for the impious, the intemperate, or the
bloody minded woman; yet, to our horrour and hatred
for these, are added a faintness of the heart; a sick
loathing for the indecent woman. And this is so instinctively
man's nature, that he will turn away with
abhorrence from her, in the last paroxysm of his own
moral corruption. And yet, there are scoundrels—ah!
how many!—who appear to delight in bringing down
these poor creatures, these spiritualities, to the base
earth. Nay, are there not many nobler creatures; men
of high bearing; resolved minds; prompt and lofty energies;
who are for ever wandering upon the very confines
of the forbidden; tempting the unwary among women,
by the voluptuous warmth of their manner; their
hazardous prompting; their continual invitation; just
to overstep, for one moment, the barrier of snow; or, if
that may not be, just to let their thought wander over,
or their eyes, for a moment!
It is common. I blush to say it; but, heed me woman—thou,
who hast no brother to tell thee this; thou,
thou shouldst need it; whose husband will not;—do thou
listen to me. Be assured that, with all our art, and
all our apparent pleasure, when we see thee forget the
modesty of thy nature, we do feel a pang; we do, assuredly,
even at the profanation of our own hands. Hallow
thyself, then. Be what thou mayest be:—a vessel
into which our hearts may empty themselves—breath
and blood—when hurried almost into the grave, by the
misfortune, and the sorrow, and the apparitions of
life.
Do not believe that we love you the better, when we
laugh most heartily at your wit—do not; it is a mortal
errour. We may laugh; but it were a better compliment
to you, if we wept, when we see your pure hands
so unworthily employed; or your mind distilling poison;
or your beautiful bodies anointed with impure passion.
But why need I preach to you? Neither you; nor the
old men; nor the wise, will heed me. You are afraid
of being laughed at; as if it were not better to be
laughed at, by all the world; and loved by one, to idolatry;
than to be waited on with sensual, though ever so
rich offerings, by all the men of the world. But it is
not so. Be modest, and they dare not laugh at you.
Affectation only is ridiculous. Sincerity and nature
never are. Let your modesty be natural, then; unostentatious;
shutting itself up, like water-lilies with the
dew in them; or soft eyes, when they are first kissed.
Depend upon it—we shall all cease to laugh at you, before
you know it; and love and pray for you, before we
know it, ourselves.
And men, too—old men—why should I preach to
them?—the feeble of heart? Have I not seen people
get drunk; smoke, even when the sickness of their
heart was like death, that they might avoid all imputation
of ignorance upon a subject, of which to have a knowledge,
is to be base and brutal? Have I not, again and
again, set at a table, where stories, and songs, and
toasts, were heard, which not a man there, would have
had it known abroad, among women, that he had heard,
for his right hand. It only wanted a word—one word,
face of immodesty, had been banished from the spot.
But who should speak? The old dared not;---the young
trembled, and were afraid. One voice only was heard;
one---and it was that of the youngest in company; and
what was the result? This---this! Is it not honourable
to the nature of man? Is it not a proof that the
Divinity will abide within us, in spite of our profanation?
Did I ever know it fail? No, never. All hands
have united---all hearts---and we have looked into each
other's faces, after we have heard the malediction pronounced,
as if wondering that it had been delayed so
long; and that we had so long born a brutal profligacy
and licentiousness, at the table. And I---yes, it was
I;---I will not pretend to deny it;---I am not ashamed
of it;—it was I!—I have gone home, a prouder and a
better man, for it. That would seem like courage in
me; but it was not. I shook all over, when I lifted my
voice among them.
Yet, think not that I would have you fastidious. No,
I hate that. I know not which is most disgusting—immodesty
or squeamishness; or which is least so. Are
they not the same thing? The truly modest woman
will speak of the duties of a wife and a mother---though
she be unmarried---when the conversation naturally
falls that way, as she would of religion. So much depends
upon the mind, and place of the thought. We go
to church, and hear---what we cannot repeat. We take
up the Bible, and read aloud, to them that love us—what
we could not read in any other book. The truly modest
woman, in such a case, will never falter when she
comes upon the bad word; the same voice, the same
look, the same attitude will continue; but the immodest
woman, will be sure to make such a fuss about it,
that she tempts all that hear her, to get the Bible, and
hunt for the place, where she was reading; and dwell
upon it, at some time, when they are alone. No;---I
would have a woman so modest, that her tears should
fall continually, when she was alone, if aught that she
could not repeat, to her husband, or lover, or son, or father,
had been said in her company; yet able to sit upright
in her chair; look me patiently in the face; and
Society is advancing. There was a time, a few years
only have passed, when a woman, in America, or England,
would not have spoken of a pain in her breast, for
all the world; all her pains, in that region, were then
described by the most awkward circumlocution; as a
pain in her side; a pain here; a pain there; the stomach
ache; a pain near the shoulder, &c. &c. But how is it
now? Nothing is more common, than to hear a lovely
girl, with a bosom just heaving up to the wind, like
something hidden and terrified, speak of a pain in her
breast, just as of a pain in her head. And what is the
result? A man thinks no more of it. But, if she hurt
her knee, or broke her leg, or her thigh—O, there is no
telling of that, before any man; and her awkward,
roundabout way of describing it, has often a very mischievous
effect upon his imagination.
Upon my word, dear woman—you must be a woman,
and a dear one, too, if you have got this far—the patience
and curiosity of no man, could have sustained
him;—this speculation on modesty was utterly unpremeditated.
I know not how it happened; perhaps from
coming home, from a house where I love to go, the
mistress of which, a most fascinating and superiour
woman, will understand, now and then, what she ought
not; and will make a man, if he have any blood or
pulse, understand it too; had disturbed me so confoundedly,
that—really, I began to think of old times,
when—But it is too late to begin another chapter to-night;
so I will, if I can, huddle together a few more
remarks on this subject—woman—and then go to bed.
Why do you strip when you go into company? Do
you know your own interest. You sit covered, and
muffled up to the eyes, before them that truly love and
respect you; and you go, with your very bosoms naked;
aye, your bosoms, whereon, if a man really loved you,
he would as soon another had placed his hand, or his
mouth, as his eyes; aye, your bosoms—the pillow, where
a husband, the lord of your heart, and the father of
your babes, will yet lay his aching temples, with the
thought of rapture—that he sleeps upon something holy—unvisited,
dare you so trifle with that sanctity, with which heaven
hath delighted to invest you? O, could you but feel,
for one moment, that delirious enjoyment, which the
heart bounds to, when it is near the unvisited heart of
a loved one---ah! you would shut yourselves up---veil
your eyes—and shade your beauty---as some flower of
Iove, which, to be truly dear, may not be blown upon,
by the common wind of heaven! Look to yourselves.
A plain question is before you. Why do you expose
yourselves so---publickly, and to strangers? You are
ashamed to answer me. I am glad of it. I respect you
the more for it. There is yet something left to love in you,
after all. Why are you always in advance of our
opinions.
Let me tell you why you dare to do this. It is the
fashion. The fashion! What a plea for a modest girl,
who shivers with alarm, if her lover find her with her
neck uncovered, in her own room; yet, goes into a mob
of leering, sensual profligates and debauchees; and
stands, half naked, before their gloating and drunken
eyes. O, shame! A woman that will do this, will—
by heaven! what will she not do? It is either pleasant,
or it is not. If it be pleasant to HER, it shows a nature,
that would, on a fitting opportunity, throw her upon
the town; if unpleasant, and yet she do it, in obedience
to fashion, where would she stop? Where the dutchess
of Kingston did—Cherubina—or the Venus of the bath!
She will uncover her arms—her bosom—and as much
of her beautiful limbs, (I dare not say legs,) as very
short clothes will permit; and wear flesh-coloured stockings.
Why? Let her ask her own heart. If she have
any, it will gush out with tears and penitence. Is she
so covetous of admiration? Did she know the thought
that such a display excites in the heart of a man, she
would blush all over.
Nay, what is religion with you? What—but a periodical
fashion? I once heard one man say to another,
in passing through a large southern city of America—
“What a multitude of people go to church, here!”—
“True,” said the other. “What a multitude of women
a satire upon your piety!—unintentional, to be sure,
yet how true! Since then, I have observed, that people;
and women, in particular, are never so devout, as when
the change of seasons, from cold to warm, or from
warm to cold—no matter which—first comes on—for
then, they are in all their newness of dress and finery.
Nay, on a swarming Sunday, I would bet ten to one,
without looking, that there was a change in some fashion
or other—or a late arrival of new bonnets.
Your extravagance, too—merciful heaven! What
will become of you, at this rate, if you never marry; for
you never will, unless to a fool or a bankrupt? And
what will become of your husbands, if you do? I feel
what I say. Unless you reform, you will be a nation
of miserable, neglected, uncultivated, peevish creatures,
who are virgins, by necessity—for whom no man ought
to care; for you will be companions for nobody; and
with whom, no man but a fortune-hunter would dare to
mate; and he, only that he might vie with you, for a little
time, in your foolish prodigality. Am I severe?—
You deserve it. How much is your father worth? How
many children has he? What is the income of his property,
at six per cent.? What are his household expenses?
How much do you—you, yourself, expend for
him, in the course of a single month? Answer me these
questions, and you will soon forgive me—unless you
are wicked enough to persist, in spite of calculation;
and willing to see your father beggared and disgraced,
by your intemperate folly. Women!—ye had better
have a few laces and bonnets the less, and a man to
protect you, when your father is dead, and your family
scattered!
You charge us with marrying for money. Right—it
is a choice between positive starvation, and the chance
of escaping it, that we look for. A friend of mine used
to say, “I will never marry for money. But I cannot
support a wife;—it is out of the question, as girls are
now educated in America. I can marry a woman with
one hundred thousand dollars. Now, suppose that I
refuse her; and marry one, not worth a farthing—do I
wife? Aye, indeed do I;—and I cannot afford that; particularly,
when I have to support her, after marriage.
Never marry an heiress—never; it is a part of female
arithmetick, that she, who brings you ten thousand dollars,
is entitled to spend five thousand a year; nor can
you persuade her, that such an expenditure will ever
affect the principal.”
Woman, forgive me. Did I love thee, less---did I revere
thee, less---I should deal more tenderly with thee.
I should say, verily, thou art beautiful; but, as it is, I
can only say---God forgive thee! Were fashion to bid
thee, thou wouldst go utterly naked among the very brute
animals! God forgive thee!
| CHAPTER VIII. Errata, or, The works of Will. Adams | |