Part 10

27. NOT that I would have you give up your opinion always; no, assert your own sentiments, and oppose those of others, when wrong; but let your manner and voice be gentle and engaging, and yet no ways affected. If you contradict, do it with, ‘I may be wrong, I won’t be positive, but I really think—I should rather suppose—If I may be permitted to say,’ and close your dispute with good humour, to shew that you are neither displeased yourself nor meant to displease the person you dispute with.

28. ACQUAINT yourself with the character and situations of the company you go into, before you give a loose to your tongue; for, should you enlarge on some virtue, which any one present may notoriously want; or should you condemn some vice, which any of the company may be particularly addicted to, they will be apt to think your reflections pointed and personal, and you will be sure to give offence. This consideration will naturally lead you, not to suppose things said in general, to be leveled at you.

29. LOW-BRED people, when they happen occasionally to be in good company, imagine themselves to be the subject of every separate conversation. If any part of the company whisper, it is about them; if they laugh, it is at them; and if any thing is said which they do not comprehend, they immediately suppose it is meant of them. This mistake is admirably ridiculed in one of our celebrated comedies, ‘I am sure,’ says Scrub, ‘they were talking of me, for they laughed consumedly.’ Now, a well-bred person never thinks himself disesteemed by the company, or laughed at, unless their reflections are so gross, that he cannot be supposed to mistake them, and his honour obliges him to resent it in a proper manner; however, be assured, gentlemen never laugh at, or ridicule one another, unless they are in joke, or on a footing of the greatest intimacy. If such a thing should happen once in an age, from some pert coxcomb, or some flippant woman, it is better to seem not to know it, than to make the least reply.

30. IT is a piece of politeness not to interrupt a person in a story, whether you have heard it before or not. Nay, if a well-bred man is asked whether he has heard it; he will answer no, and let the person go on, though he knows it already. Some are fond of telling a story, because they think they tell it well, others pride themselves in being the first teller of it, and others are pleased at being thought entrusted with it. Now, all these persons you would disappoint by answering yes. And, as I have told you before, as the greatest proof of politeness is to make every body happy about you, I would never deprive a person of any secret satisfaction of this sort, in which I could gratify him by a minute’s attention.

31. BE not ashamed of asking questions, if such questions lead to information; always accompany them with some excuse, and you never will be reckoned impertinent. But abrupt questions, without some apology, by all means avoid, as they imply design. There is a way of fishing for facts, which, if done judiciously, will answer every purpose, such as, taking things you wish to know for granted; this will perhaps lead some officious person to set you right. So again, by saying, you have heard so and so, and sometimes seeming to know more than you do, you will often get at information, which you would lose by direct questions, as these would put people on their guard, and frequently defeat the very end you aim at.

32. MAKE it a rule never to reflect on any body of people, for, reflections of this nature create many enemies. There are good and bad of all professions; lawyers, soldiers, parsons, or citizens. They are all men, subject to the same passions, differing only in their manner, according to the way they have been bred up in. For this reason, it is unjust, as well as indiscreet, to attack them as a CORPS collectively. Many a young man has thought himself extremely clever in abusing the clergy. What are the clergy more than other men? Can you suppose a black gown can make any alteration in his nature? Fie, fie; think seriously, and I am convinced you will never do it.

33. BUT above all, let no example, no fashion, no witticism, no foolish desire of rising above what knaves call prejudices, tempt you to excuse, extenuate or ridicule the least breach of morality; but upon every occasion, shew the greatest abhorrence of such proceedings, and hold virtue and religion in the highest veneration.

34. IT is a great piece of ill-manners to interrupt any one while speaking, by speaking yourself, or calling off the attention of the company to any foreign matter. But this every child knows.

35. THE last thing I shall mention is that of concealing your learning, except on particular occasions. Reserve this for learned men, and let them rather extort it from you, than you be too willing to display it. Hence you will be thought modest, and to have more knowledge than you really have. Never seem wise or more learned than the company you are in. He who affects to shew his learning, will be frequently questioned; and if found superficial, will be sneered at; if otherwise, he will be deemed a pedant. Real merit will always shew itself, and nothing can lessen it in the opinion of the world, but a man’s exhibiting it himself.

FOR God’s sake, revolve all these things seriously in your mind, before you go abroad into life. Recollect the observations you have yourself occasionally made upon men and things, compare them with my instructions, and act wisely, and consequently, as they shall teach you.

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A FATHER’S LEGACY TO HIS DAUGHTERS.

MY DEAR GIRLS,

YOU had the misfortune to be deprived of your mother, at a time of life when you were insensible of your loss, and could receive little benefit, either from her instruction, or her example. Before this comes to your hands, you will likewise have lost your father.

I HAVE had many melancholy reflections on the forlorn and helpless situation you must be in, if it should please God to remove me from you before you arrive at that period of life, when you will be able to think and act for yourselves. I know mankind too well. I know their falsehood, their dissipation, their coldness to all the duties of friendship and humanity. I know the little attention paid to helpless infancy. You will meet with few friends disinterested enough to do you good offices, when you are incapable of making them any return, by contributing to their interest or their pleasure, or to the gratification of their vanity.

I HAVE been supported under the gloom naturally arising from these reflections, by a reliance on the goodness of that Providence which has hitherto preferred you, and given me the most pleasing prospect of the goodness of your dispositions; and by the secret hope, that your mother’s virtues will entail a blessing on her children.

THE anxiety I have for your happiness has made me resolve to throw together my sentiments, relating to your future conduct in life. If I live for some years, you will receive them with much greater advantage, suited to your different geniuses and dispositions. If I die sooner, you must receive them in this very imperfect manner,—the last proof of my affection.

YOU will all remember your father’s fondness, when perhaps every other circumstance relating to him is forgotten. This remembrance, I hope, will induce you to give a serious attention to the advices I am now going to leave with you.—I can request this attention with the greater confidence, as my sentiments on the most interesting points that regard life and manners, were entirely correspondent to your mother’s, whose judgment and taste I trusted much more than my own.

YOU must expect that the advice which I shall give you will be very imperfect, as there are many nameless delicacies, in female manners, of which none but a woman can judge.

YOU will have one advantage by attending to what I am going to leave with you; you will hear, at least for once in your lives, the genuine sentiments of a man, who has no interest in flattering or deceiving you.—I shall throw my reflections together without any studied order, and shall only, to avoid confusion range them under a few general heads.

YOU will see, in a little treatise of mine just published, in what an honourable point of view I have considered your sex; not as domestic drudges, or the slaves of our pleasures, but as our companions and equals; as designed to soften our hearts and polish our manners; and as Thomson finely says,

To raise the virtues, animate the bliss, And sweeten all the toils of human life.

I shall not repeat what I have there said on this subject, and shall only observe, that from the view I have given of your natural character and place in society, there arises a certain propriety of conduct peculiar to your sex. It is this peculiar propriety of female manners of which I intend to give you my sentiments, without touching on those general rules of conduct by which men and women are equally bound.

WHILE I explain to you that system of conduct which I think will tend most to your honour and happiness, I shall, at the same time, endeavour to point out those virtues and accomplishment which render you most respectable and most amiable in the eyes of my own sex.

RELIGION.

THOUGH the duties of religion, strictly speaking, are equally binding on both sexes, yet certain differences in their natural character and education, render some vices in your sex particularly odious. The natural hardiness of our hearts, and strength of our passions, inflamed by the uncontrouled license we are too often indulged with in our youth, are apt to render our manners more dissolute, and make us less susceptible of the finer feelings of the heart. Your superior delicacy, your modesty, and the usual severity of your education, preserve you, in a great measure, from any temptation to those vices to which we are most subjected. The natural softness and sensibility of your dispositions particularly fit you for the practice of those duties where the heart is chiefly concerned. And this, along with the natural warmth of your imaginations, renders you peculiarly susceptible of the feelings of devotion.

THERE are many circumstances in your situation that peculiarly require the supports of religion to enable you to act in them with spirit and propriety. Your whole life is often a life of suffering. You cannot plunge into business, or dissipate yourselves in pleasure and riot, as men too often do, when under the pressure of misfortunes. You must bear your sorrows in silence, unknown and unpitied. You must often put on a face of serenity and cheerfulness, when your hearts are torn with anguish, or sinking in despair. Then your only resource is in the consolations of religion. It is chiefly owing to these that you bear domestic misfortunes better than we do.