“Well, Miss Jennie,” said Bob, “it isn’t merely our sex who are guilty of making themselves less agreeable after marriage. Your dapper little fairy creatures, who dazzle us so with wondrous and fresh toilettes, who are so trim and neat and sprightly and enchanting, what becomes of them after marriage? If he reads the newspaper at the breakfast-table, perhaps it’s because there is a sleepy, dowdy woman opposite, in a faded gingham wrapper, put on in the sacredness of domestic privacy, and perhaps she has laid aside those crisp, sparkling, bright little sayings and doings that used to make it impossible to look at or listen to anybody else when she was about. Such things are, sometimes, among the goddesses, I believe. Of course, Marianne and I know nothing of these troubles; we, being a model pair, sit among the clouds and speculate on all these matters as spectators merely.”
“Well, you see what your principle leads to, carried out,” said Jennie. “If home is merely the place where one may feel at liberty to be tired or dull or disagreeable, without losing one’s character, I think women have far more right to avail themselves of the liberty than men; for all the lonesome, dull, disagreeable part of home-life comes into their department. It is they who must keep awake with the baby, if it frets; and if they do not feel spirits to make an attractive toilette in the morning, or have not the airy, graceful fancies that they had when they were girls, it is not so very much against them. A housekeeper and nurserymaid cannot be expected to be quite as elegant in her toilette and as entertaining in her ways as a girl without a care in her father’s house; but I think that this is no excuse for husbands neglecting the little civilities and attentions which they used to show before marriage. They are strong and well and hearty; go out into the world and hear and see a great deal that keeps their minds moving and awake; and they ought to entertain their wives after marriage just as their wives entertained them before. That’s the way my husband must do, or I will never have one, — and it will be small loss, if I don’t,” said Miss Jennie.
“Well,” said Bob, “I must endeavour to initiate Charley Sedley in time.”
“Charley Sedley, Bob!” said Jennie, with crimson indignation. “I wonder you will always bring up that old story, when I’ve told you a hundred times how disagreeable it is! Charley and I are good friends, but — —”
“There, there,” said Bob, “that will do; you don’t need to proceed further.”
“You only said that because you couldn’t answer my argument,” said Jennie.
“Well, my dear,” said Bob, “you know everything has two sides to it, and I’ll admit that you have brought up the opposite side to mine quite handsomely; but for all that, I am convinced that, if what I said was not really the truth, yet the truth lies somewhere in the vicinity of it. As I said before, so I say again, true love ought to beget freedom which shall do away with the necessity of ceremony, and much may and ought to be tolerated, among our near and dear friends, that would be discourteous among strangers. I am just as sure of this as of anything in the world.”
“And yet,” said my wife, “there is certainly truth in the much quoted lines of Cowper, on Friendship, where he says, —
“As similarity of mind,
Or something not to be defined,
First fixes our attention,
So manners decent and polite,
The same we practised at first sight,
Will save it from declension.”
“Well, now,” said Bob, “I’ve seen enough of French politeness between married people. When I was in Paris, I remember, there was in our boarding-house a Madame de Villiers, whose husband had conferred upon her his name and the de belonging to it, in consideration of a snug little income which she brought to him by the marriage. His conduct towards her was a perfect model of all the graces of civilized life. It was true that he lived on her income, and spent it promenading the Boulevards, and visiting theatres and operas with divers fair friends of easy morals; still all this was so courteously, so politely, so diplomatically arranged with Madame, that it was quite worth while to be neglected and cheated for the sake of having the thing done in so finished and elegant a manner, according to his showing. Monsieur had taken the neat little apartment for her in our pension, because his circumstances were embarrassed, and he would be in despair to drag such a Creature into hardships which he described as terrific, and which he was resolved, heroically, to endure alone No, while a sous remained to them, his adored Julie should have her apartment and the comforts of life secured to her, while the barest attic should suffice for him. Never did he visit her without kissing her hand with the homage due to a princess, complimenting her on her good looks, bringing bonbons, entertaining her with most ravishing small-talk of all the interesting on-dits in Paris; and these visits were more particularly frequent as the time for receiving her quarterly instalments approached. And so Madame adored him, and could refuse him nothing, believed all his stories, and was well content to live on a fourth of her own income for the sake of so engaging a husband.”
“Well,” said Jennie, “I don’t know to what purpose your anecdote is related, but to me it means simply this: if a rascal without heart, without principle, without any good quality, can win and keep a woman’s heart merely by being invariably polite and agreeable while in her presence, how much more might a man of sense and principle and real affection do by the same means. I’m sure, if a man who neglects a woman, and robs her of her money, nevertheless keeps her affections, merely because whenever he sees her he is courteous and attentive, it certainly shows that courtesy stands for a great deal in the matter of love.”
“With foolish women,” said Bob.
“Yes, and with sensible ones too,” said my wife. “Your Monsieur presents a specimen of the French way of doing a bad thing; but I know a poor woman whose husband did the same thing in English fashion, without kisses or compliments. Instead of flattering, he swore at her, and took her money away without the ceremony of presenting bonbons; and I assure you, if the thing must be done at all, I would, for my part much rather have it done in the French than the English manner. The courtesy, as far as it goes, is a good, and far better than nothing, — though, of course, one would rather have substantial good with it. If one must be robbed, one would rather have one’s money wheedled away agreeably, with kisses and bonbons, than be knocked down and trampled upon.”
“The mistake that is made on this subject,” said I, “is in comparing, as people generally do, a polished rascal with a boorish good man; but the polished rascal should be compared with the polished good man, and the boorish rascal with the boorish good man and then we get the true value of the article.
“It is true as a general rule, that those races of men that are most distinguished for outward urbanity and courtesy are the least distinguished for truth and sincerity; and hence the well-known alliterations, ‘fair and false,’ ‘smooth and slippery.’ The fair and false Greek, the polished and wily Italian, the courteous and deceitful Frenchman, are associations which, to the strong, downright, courageous Anglo-Saxon, make up-and-down rudeness and blunt discourteousness a mark of truth and honesty.
“No one can read French literature without feeling how the element of courteousness pervades every department of life, — how carefully people avoid being personally disagreeable in their intercourse. A domestic quarrel, if we may trust French plays, is carried on with all the refinements of good breeding, and insults are given with elegant civility. It seems impossible to translate into French the direct and downright brutalities which the English tongue allows. The whole intercourse of life is arranged on the understanding that all personal contacts shall be smooth and civil, and such as to obviate the necessity of personal jostle and jar.
“Does a Frenchman engage a clerk or other employé, and afterwards hear a report to his disadvantage, the last thing he would think of would be to tell a downright unpleasant truth to the man. He writes him a civil note, and tells him, that, in consequence of an unexpected change of business, he shall no
t need an assistant in that department, and much regrets that this will deprive him of Monsieur’s agreeable society, &c.
“A more striking example cannot be found of this sort of intercourse than the representation in the life of Madame George Sand, of the proceedings between her father and his mother. There is all the romance of affection between this mother and son. He writes her the most devoted letters, he kisses her hand on every page, he is the very image of a gallant, charming, loveable son, while at the same time he is secretly making arrangements for a private marriage with a woman of low rank and indifferent reputation, — a marriage which he knows would be like death to his mother. He marries, lives with his wife, has one or two children by her, before he will pain the heart of his adored mother by telling her the truth. The adored mother suspects her son, but no trace of the suspicion appears in her letters to him. The question which an English parent would level at him point-blank, she is entirely too delicate to address to her dear Maurice; but she puts them to the Prefect of Police, and ferrets out the marriage through legal documents, while yet no trace of this knowledge dims the affectionateness of her letters, or the serenity of her reception of her son when he comes to bestow on her the time which he can spare from his family cares. In an English or American family there would have been a battle royal, an open rupture; whereas this courteous son and mother go on for years with this polite drama, she pretending to be deceived while she is not, and he supposing that he is sparing her feelings by the deception.
“Now it is the reaction from such a style of life on the truthful Anglo-Saxon nature that leads to an undervaluing of courteousness, as if it were of necessity opposed to sincerity. But it does not follow, because all is not gold that glitters, that nothing that glitters is gold, and because courteousness and delicacy in personal intercourse are often perverted to deceit, that they are not valuable allies of truth. No woman would prefer a slippery, plausible rascal to a rough, unceremonious honest man; but of two men equally truthful and affectionate, every woman would prefer the courteous one.”
“Well,” said Bob, “there is a loathsome, sickly stench of cowardice and distrust about all this kind of French delicacy that is enough to drive an honest fellow to the other extreme. True love ought to be a robust, hardy plant, that can stand a free out-door life of sun and wind and rain. People who are too delicate and courteous ever fully to speak their minds to each other are apt to have stagnant residuums of unpleasant feelings, which breed all sorts of gnats and mosquitoes. My rule is, Say everything out as you go along; have your little tiffs, and get over them; jar and jolt and rub a little, and learn to take rubs and bear jolts.
“If I take less thought and use less civility of expression, in announcing to Marianne that her coffee is roasted too much, than I did to old Mrs. Pollux when I boarded with her, it’s because I take it Marianne is somewhat more a part of myself than old Mrs. Pollux was, — that there is an intimacy and confidence between us which will enable us to use the short-hand of life, — that she will not fall into a passion or fly into hysterics, but will merely speak to cook in good time. If I don’t thank her for mending my glove in just the style that I did when I was a lover, it is because now she does that sort of thing for me so often that it would be a downright bore to her to have me always on my knees about it. All that I could think of to say about her graceful handiness and her delicate needle-work has been said so often, and is so well understood, that it has entirely lost the zest of originality. Marianne and I have had sundry little battles, in which the victory came out on both sides, each of us thinking the better of the other for the vigour and spirit with which we conducted matters; and our habit of perfect plain-speaking and truth-telling to each other is better than all the delicacies that ever were hatched up in the hot-bed of French sentiment.”
“Perfectly true, perfectly right,” said I. “Every word good as gold. Truth before all things; sincerity before all things: pure, clear, diamond-bright sincerity is of more value than the gold of Ophir: the foundation of all love must rest here. How those people do who live in the nearest and dearest intimacy with friends who they believe will lie to them for any purpose, even the most refined and delicate, is a mystery to me. If I once know that my wife or my friend will tell me only what they think will be agreeable to me, then I am at once lost — my way is a pathless quicksand. But all this being premised, I still say that we Anglo-Saxons might improve our domestic life if we would graft upon the strong stock of its homely sincerity, the courteous graces of the French character.
“If anybody wishes to know exactly what I mean by this, let him read the Memoir of De Tocqueville, whom I take to be the representative of the French ideal man; and certainly the kind of family life which his domestic letters disclose has a delicacy and a beauty which adorn its solid worth.
“What I have to say on this matter is, that it is very dangerous for any individual man or any race of men continually to cry up the virtues to which they are constitutionally inclined, and to be constantly dwelling with reprobation on faults to which they have no manner of temptation.
“I think that we of the English race may set it down as a general rule that we are in no danger of becoming hypocrites in domestic life through an extra sense of politeness, and are in some danger of becoming boors from a rough, uncultivated instinct of sincerity. But to bring the matter to a practical point, I will specify some particulars in which the courtesy we show to strangers might with advantage be grafted into our home-life.
“In the first place, then, let us watch our course when we are entertaining strangers whose good opinion we wish to propitiate. We dress ourselves with care, we study what it will be agreeable to say, we do not suffer our natural laziness to prevent our being very alert in paying small attentions, we start across the room for an easier chair, we stoop to pick up the fan, we search for the mislaid newspaper, and all this for persons in whom we have no particular interest beyond the passing hour; while, with those friends whom we love and respect, we sit in our old faded habiliments, and let them get their own chair, and look up their own newspaper, and fight their own way daily, without any of this preventing care.
“In the matter of personal adornment, especially, there are a great many people who are chargeable with the same fault that I have already spoken of, in reference to household arrangements. They have a splendid wardrobe for company, and a shabby and sordid one for domestic life. A woman puts all her income into party dresses, and thinks anything will do to wear at home. All her old tumbled finery, her frayed, dirty silks and soiled ribbons, are made to do duty for her hours of intercourse with her dearest friends. Some seem to be really principled against wearing a handsome dress in every-day life; they ‘cannot afford’ to be well-dressed in private. Now what I should recommend would be, to take the money necessary for one or two party-dresses and spend it upon an appropriate and tasteful home-toilette, and to make it an avowed object to look prettily at home.
“We men are a sort of stupid, blind animals: we know when we are pleased, but we don’t know what it is that pleases us; we say we don’t care anything about flowers, but if there is a flower-garden under our window, somehow or other, we are dimly conscious of it, and feel that there is something pleasant there; and so when our wives and daughters are prettily and tastefully attired, we know it, and it gladdens our life far more than we are, perhaps, aware of.”
“Well, papa,” said Jennie, “I think men ought to take just as much pains to get themselves up nicely after marriage as women. I think there are such things as tumbled shirt-collars and frowzy hair and muddy shoes, brought into the domestic sanctuary, as well as frayed silks and dirty ribbons.”
“Certainly,” I said; “but you know we are the natural Hottentot, and you are the missionaries who are to keep us from degenerating; we are the clumsy, old, blind Vulcan, and you the fair Cytherea, the bearers of the magic cestus, and therefore it is to you that this head more particularly belongs.
“Now I maintain that
in family-life there should be an effort not only to be neat and decent in the arrangement of our person, but to be also what the French call coquette, — or to put it in plain English, there should be an endeavour to make ourselves look handsome in the eyes of our dearest friends.
“Many worthy women, who would not for the world be found wanting in the matter of personal neatness, seem somehow to have the notion that any study of the arts of personal beauty in family-life is, unmatronly; they buy their clothes with simple reference to economy, and have them made up without any question of becomingness; and hence marriage sometimes transforms a charming, trim, tripping young lady into a waddling matron whose every-day toilette suggests only the idea of a feather-bed tied round with a string. For my part, I do not believe that the summary banishment of the Graces from the domestic circle, as soon as the first baby makes its appearance, is at all conducive to domestic affection. Nor do I think that there is any need of so doing. These good housewives are in danger, like other saints, of falling into the error of neglecting the body through too much thoughtfulness for others and too little for themselves. If a woman ever had any attractiveness, let her try and keep it, setting it down as one of her domestic talents. As for my erring brothers who violate the domestic sanctuary by tousled hair, tumbled linen, and muddy shoes, I deliver them over to Miss Jennie without benefit of clergy.
“My second head is, that there should be in family-life the same delicacy in the avoidance of disagreeable topics, that characterizes the intercourse of refined society among strangers.
“I do not think that it makes family-life more sincere, or any more honest, to have the members of a domestic circle feel a freedom to blurt out in each other’s faces, without thought or care, all the disagreeable things that may occur to them: as, for example, ‘How horridly you look this morning! What’s the matter with you?’—’Is there a pimple coming on your nose? or what is that spot?’—’What made you buy such a dreadfully unbecoming dress? It sets like a witch! Who cut it?’—’What makes you wear that pair of old shoes?’—’Holloa, Bess! is that your party-rig? I should think you were going out for a walking advertisement of a flower-store!’ — Observations of this kind between husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, or intimate friends, do not indicate sincerity, but obtuseness; and the person who remarks on the pimple on your nose is, in many cases, just as apt to deceive you as the most accomplished Frenchwoman who avoids disagreeable topics in your presence.
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 527