The Young Man's Guide Part 19

But, _who is to tell_ whether a girl will make an industrious woman?

How is the pur-blind lover especially, to be able to ascertain whether she, whose smiles and dimples and bewitching lips have half bereft him of his senses; how is he to be able to judge, from any thing that he can see, whether the beloved object will be industrious or lazy? Why, it is very difficult; it is a matter that reason has very little to do with. Still there are indications which enable a man, not wholly deprived of the use of his reason, to form a pretty accurate judgment in this matter.

It was a famous story some years ago, that a young man, who was courting one of three sisters, happened to be on a visit to her, when all the three were present, and when one said to the others, 'I _wonder_ where _our_ needle is.' Upon which he withdrew, as soon as was consistent with the rules of politeness, resolving to think no more of a girl who possessed a needle only in partners.h.i.+p, and who, it appeared, was not too well informed as to the place where even that share was deposited.

This was, to be sure, a very flagrant instance of a want of industry; for, if the third part of the use of a needle satisfied her, when single, it was reasonable to antic.i.p.ate that marriage would banish that useful implement altogether. But such instances are seldom suffered to come in contact with the eyes and ears of the lover. There are, however, as I have already said, certain _rules_, which, if attended to with care, will serve as pretty sure guides.

And, first, if you find the tongue lazy, you may be nearly certain that the hands and feet are not very industrious. By laziness of the tongue I do not mean silence; but, I mean, a _slow_ and _soft_ utterance; a sort of _sighing_ out of the words, instead of _speaking_ them; a sort of letting the sounds fall out, as if the party were sick at stomach.

The p.r.o.nunciation of an industrious person is generally _quick_, and _distinct_; the voice, if not strong, _firm_ at the least. Not masculine, but as feminine as possible; not a _croak_ nor a _bawl_, but a quick, distinct, and sound voice.

One writer insists that the motion of those little members of the body, the teeth, are very much in harmony with the operations of the mind; and a very observing gentleman a.s.sures me that he can judge pretty accurately of the temper, and indeed of the general character of a _child_, by his manner of eating. And I have no doubt of the fact.

Nothing is more obvious than that the temper of the child who is so greedy as to swallow down his food habitually, without masticating it, must be very different from that of him who habitually eats slowly.

Hunger, I know, will quicken the jaws in either case, but I am supposing them on an equal footing in this respect.

Another mark of industry is, a _quick step_, and a somewhat _heavy tread_, showing that the foot comes down with a _hearty good will_. If the body lean a little forward, and the eyes keep steadily in the same direction, while the feet are going, so much the better, for these discover _earnestness_ to arrive at the intended point. I do not like, and I _never_ liked, your _sauntering_, soft-stepping girls, who move as if they were perfectly indifferent as to the result. And, as to the _love_ part of the story, who ever expects ardent and lasting affection from one of these sauntering girls, will, when too late, find his mistake. The character is much the same throughout; and probably no man ever yet saw a sauntering girl, who did not, when married, make an indifferent wife, and a cold-hearted mother; cared very little for, either by husband or children; and, of course, having no store of those blessings which are the natural resources to apply to in sickness and in old age.

8. EARLY RISING.

_Early rising_ is another mark of industry; and though, in the higher stations of life, it may be of no importance in a mere pecuniary point of view, it is, even there, of importance in other respects; for it is rather difficult to keep love alive towards a woman who never sees the _dew_, never beholds the rising _sun_, and who constantly comes directly from a reeking bed to the breakfast table, and there chews, without appet.i.te, the choicest morsels of human food. A man might, perhaps, endure this for a month or two, without being disgusted; but not much longer.

As to people in the middle rank of life, where a living and a provision for children is to be sought by labor of some sort or other, late rising in the wife is certain ruin; and rarely will you find an early-rising wife, who had been a late-rising girl. If brought up to late rising, she will like it; it will be her _habit_; she will, when married, never want excuses for indulging in the habit. At first she will be indulged without bounds; and to make a _change_ afterwards will be difficult, for it will be deemed a _wrong_ done to her; she will ascribe it to diminished affection. A quarrel must ensue, or, the husband must submit to be ruined, or, at the very least, to see half the fruit of his labor snored and lounged away.

And, is this being unreasonably harsh or severe upon woman? By no means. It arises from an ardent desire to promote the happiness, and to add to the natural, legitimate, and salutary influence of the female s.e.x. The tendency of this advice is to promote the preservation of their health; to prolong the duration of their beauty; to cause them to be loved to the last day of their lives; and to give them, during the whole of those lives, that weight and consequence, and respect, of which laziness would render them wholly unworthy.

9. FRUGALITY.

This means the contrary of extravagance. It does not mean _stinginess_; it does not mean _pinching_; but it means an abstaining from all unnecessary expenditure, and all unnecessary use of goods of any and of every sort. It is a quality of great importance, whether the rank in life be high or low.

Some people are, indeed, so rich, they have such an over-abundance of money and goods, that how to get rid of them would, to a spectator, seem to be their only difficulty. How many individuals of fine estates, have been ruined and degraded by the extravagance of their wives! More frequently by their _own_ extravagance, perhaps; but, in numerous instances, by that of those whose duty it is to a.s.sist in upholding their stations by husbanding their fortunes.

If this be the case amongst the opulent, who have estates to draw upon, what must be the consequences of a want of frugality in the middle and lower ranks of life? Here it must be fatal, and especially among that description of persons whose wives have, in many cases, the receiving as well as the expending of money. In such a case, there wants nothing but extravagance in the wife to make ruin as inevitable as the arrival of old age.

To obtain security against this is very difficult; yet, if the lover be not quite _blind_, he may easily discover a propensity towards extravagance. The object of his addresses will, nine times out of ten, never be the manager of a house; but she must have her _dress_, and other little matters under her control. If she be costly in these; if, in these, she step above her rank, or even to the top of it; if she purchase all she is able to purchase, and prefer the showy to the useful, the gay and the fragile to the less sightly and more durable, he may be sure that the disposition will cling to her through life. If he perceive in her a taste for costly food, costly furniture, costly amus.e.m.e.nts: if he find her love of gratification to be bounded only by her want of means; if he find her full of admiration of the trappings of the rich, and of desire to be able to imitate them, he may be pretty sure that she will not spare his purse, when once she gets her hand into it; and, therefore, if he can bid adieu to her charms, the sooner he does it, the better.

Some of the indications of extravagance in a lady are ear-rings, broaches, bracelets, buckles, necklaces, diamonds, (real or mock,) and nearly all the ornaments which women put upon their persons.

These things may be more proper in _palaces_, or in scenes resembling palaces; but, when they make their appearance amongst people in the middle rank of life, where, after all, they only serve to show that poverty in the parties which they wish to disguise; when the mean, tawdry things make their appearance in this rank of life, they are the sure indications of a disposition that will always be straining at what it can never attain.

To marry a girl of this disposition is really self-destruction. You never can have either property or peace. Earn her a horse to ride, she will want a gig: earn the gig, she will want a chariot: get her that, she will long for a coach and four: and, from stage to stage, she will torment you to the end of her or your days; for, still there will be somebody with a finer equipage than you can give her; and, as long as this is the case, you will never have rest. Reason would tell her, that she could never be at the _top_; that she must stop at some point short of that; and that, therefore, all expenses in the rivals.h.i.+p are so much thrown away. But, reason and broaches and bracelets seldom go in company. The girl who has not the sense to perceive that her person is disfigured and not beautified by parcels of bra.s.s and tin, or even gold and silver, as well to _regret_, if she dare not _oppose_ the tyranny of absurd fas.h.i.+ons, is not ent.i.tled to a full measure of the confidence of any individual.

10. PERSONAL NEATNESS.

There never yet was, and there never will be sincere and ardent love, of long duration, where personal neatness is wholly neglected. I do not say that there are not those who would live peaceably and even contentedly in these circ.u.mstances. But what I contend for is this: that there never can exist, for any length of time, ardent _affection_, in any man towards a woman who neglects neatness, either in her person, or in her house affairs.

Men may be careless as to their own person; they may, from the nature of their business, or from their want of time to adhere to neatness in dress, be slovenly in their own dress and habits; but, they do not relish this in their wives, who must still have _charms_; and charms and neglect of the person seldom go together. I do not, of course, approve of it even in men.

We may, indeed, lay it down as a rule of almost universal application, that supposing all other things to be equal, he who is most guilty of personal neglect; will be the most ignorant and the most vicious. _Why_ there should be, universally, a connection between slovenliness, ignorance, and vice, is a question I have no room in this work to discuss.

I am well acquainted with one whole family who neglect their persons from principle. The gentleman, who is a sort of new light in religious concerns, will tell you that the true Christian _should_ 'slight the hovel, as beneath his care.' But there is a want of intelligence, and even common refinement in the family, that certainly does not and _cannot_ add much to their own happiness, or recommend religion--aside from the fact that it greatly annoys their neighbors. And though the head of the family observes many external duties with Jewish strictness, neither he nor any of its members are apt to bridle their tongues, or remember that on _ordinary_ as well as _special_ occasions they are bound to 'do all to the glory of G.o.d.' As to the connection of mind with matter--I mean the dependence of mind and soul on body, they are wholly ignorant.

It is not dress that the husband wants to be perpetual: it is not finery; but _cleanliness_ in every thing. Women generally dress enough, especially when they _go abroad_. This _occasional_ cleanliness is not the thing that a husband wants: he wants it always; in-doors as well as out; by night as well as by day; on the floor as well as on the table; and, however he may complain about the trouble and the 'expense' of it, he would complain more if it were neglected.

The indications of female neatness are, first, a clean _skin_. The hands and face will usually be clean, to be sure, if there be soap and water within reach; but if on observing other parts of the head besides the face, you make discoveries indicating a different character, the sooner you cease your visits the better. I hope, now, that no young woman who may chance to see this book, will be offended at this, and think me too severe on her s.e.x. I am only telling that which all men think; and, it is a decided advantage to them to be fully informed of our thoughts on the subject. If any one, who reads this, shall find, upon self-examination, that she is defective in this respect, let her take the hint, and correct the defect.

In the _dress_, you can, amongst rich people, find little whereon to form a judgment as to cleanliness, because they have not only the dress prepared for them, but put upon them into the bargain. But, in the middle ranks of life, the dress is a good criterion in two respects: first, as to its _color_; for if the _white_ be a sort of _yellow_, cleanly hands would have been at work to prevent that. A _white-yellow_ cravat, or s.h.i.+rt, on a man, speaks at once the character of his wife; and, you may be a.s.sured, that she will not take with your dress pains which she has never taken with her own.

Then, the manner of _putting on_ the dress, is no bad foundation for judging. If this be careless, and slovenly, if it do not fit properly,--no matter for its _mean quality_; mean as it may be, it may be neatly and trimly put on--if it be slovenly put on, I say, take care of yourself; for, you will soon find to your cost, that a sloven in one thing, is a sloven in all things. The plainer people, judge greatly from the state of the covering of the ankles; and, if that be not clean and tight, they conclude that the rest is not as it ought to be. Look at the shoes! If they be trodden on one side, loose on the foot, or run down at the heel, it is a very bad _sign_; and as to going _slipshod_, though at coming down in the morning, and even before daylight, make up your mind to a rope, rather than live with a slipshod woman.

How much do women lose by inattention to these matters! Men, in general, say nothing about it to their wives, but they _think_ about it; they envy their more lucky neighbors, and in numerous cases, consequences the most serious arise from this apparently trifling cause. Beauty is valuable; it is one of the _ties_, and a _strong_ one too; but it cannot last to old age; whereas the charm of cleanliness never ends but with life itself. It has been said that the sweetest flowers, when they really become putrid, are the most offensive. So the most beautiful woman, if found with an uncleansed skin, is, in my estimation, the most disagreeable.

11. A GOOD TEMPER.

This is a very difficult thing to ascertain beforehand. Smiles are cheap; they are easily put on for the occasion; and, besides, the frowns are, according to the lover's whim, interpreted into the contrary. By 'good temper,' I do not mean an easy temper, a serenity which nothing disturbs; for that is a mark of laziness. Sullenness, if you be not too blind to perceive it, is a temper to be avoided by all means. A sullen man is bad enough; what, then, must be a sullen woman, and that woman a _wife_; a constant inmate, a companion day and night!

Only think of the delight of setting at the same table, and occupying the same chamber, for a week, without exchanging a word all the while!

Very bad to be scolding for such a length of time; but this is far better than 'the _sulks_.'

But if you have your eyes, and look sharp, you will discover symptoms of this, if it unhappily exist. She will, at some time or other, show it towards some one or other of the family; or, perhaps, towards yourself; and you may be quite sure that, in this respect, marriage will not mend her. Sullenness arises from capricious displeasure not founded in reason. The party takes offence unjustifiably; is unable to frame a complaint, and therefore expresses displeasure by silence. The remedy for it is, to suffer it to take its _full swing_, but it is better not to have the disease in your house; and to be _married to it_, is little short of madness.

_Querulousness_ is a great fault. No man, and, especially, no _woman_, likes to hear a continual plaintiveness. That she complain, and roundly complain, of your want of punctuality, of your coolness, of your neglect, of your liking the company of others: these are all very well, more especially as they are frequently but too just. But an everlasting complaining, without rhyme or reason, is a bad sign. It shows want of patience, and, indeed, want of sense.

But the contrary of this, a cold _indifference_, is still worse. 'When will you come again? You can never find time to come here. You like any company better than mine.' These, when groundless, are very teasing, and demonstrate a disposition too full of anxiousness; but, from a girl who always receives you with the same civil smile, lets you, at your own good pleasure, depart with the same; and who, when you take her by the hand, holds her cold fingers as straight as sticks, I should say, in mercy, preserve _me_!

_Pertinacity_ is a very bad thing in anybody, and especially in a young woman; and it is sure to increase in force with the age of the party.

To have the last word, is a poor triumph; but with some people it is a species of disease of the mind. In a wife it must be extremely troublesome; and, if you find an ounce of it in the maid, it will become a pound in the wife. A fierce _disputer_ is a most disagreeable companion; and where young women thrust their _say_ into conversations carried on by older persons, give their opinions in a positive manner, and court a contest of the tongue, those must be very bold men who will encounter them as wives.

Still, of all the faults as to _temper_, your melancholy ladies have the worst, unless you have the same mental disease yourself. Many wives are, at times, _misery-makers_; but these carry it on as a regular trade. They are always unhappy about something, either past, present, or to come. Both arms full of children is a pretty efficient remedy in most cases; but, if these ingredients be wanting, a little want, a little _real_ trouble, a little _genuine affliction_, often will effect a cure.

12. ACCOMPLISHMENTS.

By accomplishments, I mean those things, which are usually comprehended in what is termed a useful and polite education. Now it is not unlikely that the fact of my adverting to this subject so late, may lead to the opinion that I do not set a proper estimate on this female qualification.

But it is not so. Probably few set too high an estimate upon it. Its _absolute_ importance has, I am confident, been seldom overrated. It is true I do not like a _bookish_ woman better than a bookish man; especially a great devourer of that most contemptible species of books with whose burden the press daily groans: I mean _novels_. But mental cultivation, and even what is called _polite_ learning, along with the foregoing qualifications, are a most valuable acquisition, and make every female, as well as all her a.s.sociates, doubly happy. It is only when books, and music, and a taste for the fine arts are subst.i.tuted for other and more important things, that they should be allowed to change love or respect to disgust.

It sometimes happens, I know, that two persons are, in this respect, pretty equally yoked. But what of that? It only makes each party twofold more the child of misfortune than before. I have known a couple of intelligent persons who would sit with their 'feet in the ashes,' as it were, all day, to read some new and bewitching book, forgetting every want of the body; perhaps even forgetting that they _had_ bodies.

Were they therefore happy, or likely to be so?

Drawing, music, embroidery, (and I might mention half a dozen other things of the same cla.s.s) where they do not exclude the more useful and solid matters, may justly be regarded as appropriate branches of female education; and in some circ.u.mstances and conditions of life, indispensable. Music,--vocal and instrumental--and drawing, to a certain extent, seem to me desirable in all. As for dancing, I do not feel quite competent to decide. As the world is, however, I am almost disposed to reject it altogether. At any rate, if a young lady is accomplished in every other respect, you need not seriously regret that she has not attended to dancing, especially as it is conducted in most of our schools.

CHAPTER VII.

Criminal Behavior.

SECTION I. _Inconstancy and Seduction._

In nineteen cases out of twenty, of illicit conduct, there is perhaps, no seduction at all; the pa.s.sion, the absence of virtue, and the crime, being all mutual. But there are cases of a very different description.

Where a young man goes coolly and deliberately to work, first to gain and rivet the affections of a young lady, then to take advantage of those affections to accomplish that which he knows must be her ruin, and plunge her into misery for life;--when a young man does this, I say he must be either a selfish and unfeeling brute, unworthy of the name of man, or he must have a heart little inferior, in point of obduracy, to that of the murderer. Let young women, however, be aware; let them be _well_ aware, that few, indeed, are the cases in which this apology can possibly avail them. Their character is not solely theirs, but belongs, in part, to their family and kindred. They may, in the case contemplated, be objects of compa.s.sion with the world; but what contrition, what repentance, what remorse, what that even the tenderest benevolence can suggest, is to heal the wounded hearts of humbled, disgraced, but still affectionate parents, brethren, and sisters?