Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (new ebook reader TXT) 📖

But this is what I saw done by a little girl of six; the circumstances were much more difficult, for not only was she strictly forbidden to ask for anything directly or indirectly, but disobedience would have been unpardonable, for she had eaten of every dish; one only had been overlooked, and on this she had set her heart. This is what she did to repair the omission without laying herself open to the charge of disobedience; she pointed to every dish in turn, saying, “I’ve had some of this; I’ve had some of this;” however she omitted the one dish so markedly that some one noticed it and said, “Have not you had some of this?” “Oh, no,” replied the greedy little girl with soft voice and downcast eyes. These instances are typical of the cunning of the little boy and girl.

What is, is good, and no general law can be bad. This special skill with which the female sex is endowed is a fair equivalent for its lack of strength; without it woman would be man’s slave, not his helpmeet. By her superiority in this respect she maintains her equality with man, and rules in obedience. She has everything against her, our faults and her own weakness and timidity; her beauty and her wiles are all that she has. Should she not cultivate both? Yet beauty is not universal; it may be destroyed by all sorts of accidents, it will disappear with years, and habit will destroy its influence.

A woman’s real resource is her wit; not that foolish wit which is so greatly admired in society, a wit which does nothing to make life happier; but that wit which is adapted to her condition, the art of taking advantage of our position and controlling us through our own strength. Words cannot tell how beneficial this is to man, what a charm it gives to the society of men and women, how it checks the petulant child and restrains the brutal husband; without it the home would be a scene of strife; with it, it is the abode of happiness. I know that this power is abused by the sly and the spiteful; but what is there that is not liable to abuse? Do not destroy the means of happiness because the wicked use them to our hurt.

The toilet may attract notice, but it is the person that wins our hearts. Our finery is not us; its very artificiality often offends, and that which is least noticeable in itself often wins the most attention. The education of our girls is, in this respect, absolutely topsy-turvy. Ornaments are promised them as rewards, and they are taught to delight in elaborate finery. “How lovely she is!” people say when she is most dressed up. On the contrary, they should be taught that so much finery is only required to hide their defects, and that beauty’s real triumph is to shine alone. The love of fashion is contrary to good taste, for faces do not change with the fashion, and while the person remains unchanged, what suits it at one time will suit it always.

If I saw a young girl decked out like a little peacock, I should show myself anxious about her figure so disguised, and anxious what people would think of her; I should say, “She is over-dressed with all those ornaments; what a pity! Do you think she could do with something simpler? Is she pretty enough to do without this or that?”

Possibly she herself would be the first to ask that her finery might be taken off and that we should see how she looked without it. In that case her beauty should receive such praise as it deserves. I should never praise her unless simply dressed. If she only regards fine clothes as an aid to personal beauty, and as a tacit confession that she needs their aid, she will not be proud of her finery, she will be humbled by it; and if she hears some one say, “How pretty she is,” when she is smarter than usual, she will blush for shame.

Moreover, though there are figures that require adornment there are none that require expensive clothes. Extravagance in dress is the folly of the class rather than the individual, it is merely conventional. Genuine coquetry is sometimes carefully thought out, but never sumptuous, and Juno dressed herself more magnificently than Venus. “As you cannot make her beautiful you are making her fine,” said Apelles to an unskilful artist who was painting Helen loaded with jewellery. I have also noticed that the smartest clothes proclaim the plainest women; no folly could be more misguided. If a young girl has good taste and a contempt for fashion, give her a few yards of ribbon, muslin, and gauze, and a handful of flowers, without any diamonds, fringes, or lace, and she will make herself a dress a hundredfold more becoming than all the smart clothes of La Duchapt.

Good is always good, and as you should always look your best, the women who know what they are about select a good style and keep to it, and as they are not always changing their style they think less about dress than those who can never settle to any one style.

A genuine desire to dress becomingly does not require an elaborate toilet. Young girls rarely give much time to dress; needlework and lessons are the business of the day; yet, except for the rouge, they are generally as carefully dressed as older women and often in better taste. Contrary to the usual opinion, the real cause of the abuse of the toilet is not vanity but lack of occupation. The woman who devotes six hours to her toilet is well aware that she is no better dressed than the woman who took half an hour, but she has got rid of so many of the tedious hours and it is better to amuse oneself with one’s clothes than to be sick of everything.

Without the toilet how would she spend the time between dinner and supper. With a crowd of women about her, she can at least cause them annoyance, which is amusement of a kind; better still she avoids a tete-a-tete with the husband whom she never sees at any other time; then there are the tradespeople, the dealers in bric-a-brac, the fine gentlemen, the minor poets with their songs, their verses, and their pamphlets; how could you get them together but for the toilet. Its only real advantage is the chance of a little more display than is permitted by full dress, and perhaps this is less than it seems and a woman gains less than she thinks. Do not be afraid to educate your women as women; teach them a woman’s business, that they be modest, that they may know how to manage their house and look after their family; the grand toilet will soon disappear, and they will be more tastefully dressed.

Growing girls perceive at once that all this outside adornment is not enough unless they have charms of their own. They cannot make themselves beautiful, they are too young for coquetry, but they are not too young to acquire graceful gestures, a pleasing voice, a self-possessed manner, a light step, a graceful bearing, to choose whatever advantages are within their reach. The voice extends its range, it grows stronger and more resonant, the arms become plumper, the bearing more assured, and they perceive that it is easy to attract attention however dressed. Needlework and industry suffice no longer, fresh gifts are developing and their usefulness is already recognised.

I know that stern teachers would have us refuse to teach little girls to sing or dance, or to acquire any of the pleasing arts.

This strikes me as absurd. Who should learn these arts—our boys?

Are these to be the favourite accomplishments of men or women? Of neither, say they; profane songs are simply so many crimes, dancing is an invention of the Evil One; her tasks and her prayers we all the amusement a young girl should have. What strange amusements for a child of ten! I fear that these little saints who have been forced to spend their childhood in prayers to God will pass their youth in another fashion; when they are married they will try to make up for lost time. I think we must consider age as well as sex; a young girl should not live like her grandmother; she should be lively, merry, and eager; she should sing and dance to her heart’s content, and enjoy all the innocent pleasures of youth; the time will come, all too soon, when she must settle down and adopt a more serious tone.

But is this change in itself really necessary? Is it not merely another result of our own prejudices? By making good women the slaves of dismal duties, we have deprived marriage of its charm for men.

Can we wonder that the gloomy silence they find at home drives them elsewhere, or inspires little desire to enter a state which offers so few attractions? Christianity, by exaggerating every duty, has made our duties impracticable and useless; by forbidding singing, dancing, and amusements of every kind, it renders women sulky, fault-finding, and intolerable at home. There is no religion which imposes such strict duties upon married life, and none in which such a sacred engagement is so often profaned. Such pains has been taken to prevent wives being amiable, that their husbands have become indifferent to them. This should not be, I grant you, but it will be, since husbands are but men. I would have an English maiden cultivate the talents which will delight her husband as zealously as the Circassian cultivates the accomplishments of an Eastern harem. Husbands, you say, care little for such accomplishments.

So I should suppose, when they are employed, not for the husband, but to attract the young rakes who dishonour the home. But imagine a virtuous and charming wife, adorned with such accomplishments and devoting them lo her husband’s amusement; will she not add to his happiness? When he leaves his office worn out with the day’s work, will she not prevent him seeking recreation elsewhere? Have we not all beheld happy families gathered together, each contributing to the general amusement? Are not the confidence and familiarity thus established, the innocence and the charm of the pleasures thus enjoyed, more than enough to make up for the more riotous pleasures of public entertainments?

Pleasant accomplishments have been made too formal an affair of rules and precepts, so that young people find them very tedious Instead of a mere amusement or a merry game as they ought to be.

Nothing can be more absurd than an elderly singing or dancing master frowning upon young people, whose one desire is to laugh, and adopting a more pedantic and magisterial manner in teaching his frivolous art than if he were teaching the catechism. Take the case of singing; does this art depend on reading music; cannot the voice be made true and flexible, can we not learn to sing with taste and even to play an accompaniment without knowing a note? Does the same kind of singing suit all voices alike? Is the same method adapted to every mind? You will never persuade me that the same attitudes, the same steps, the same movements, the same gestures, the same dances will suit a lively little brunette and a tall fair maiden with languishing eyes. So when I find a master giving the same lessons to all his pupils I say, “He has his own routine, but he knows nothing of his art!”

Should young girls have masters or mistresses? I cannot say; I wish they could dispense with both; I wish they could learn