Emily: "Yes, dear. It belongs to my brother Charles. When he goes out of town, he puts me on the Free List, as he calls it, of his wardrobe. Isn't it kind?"
Victorian Damsels
But even within the ranks of the social élite signs of a desire for equal rights were not wanting. These, however, were mainly in the direction of aping masculinity in sport and dress. In the same year we read of the Duchess of Marlborough shooting, and a Ladies' Club is mentioned for the first time a few months earlier. References to the mistakenly modern idea of ladies smoking are to be found pretty frequently even before the Crimean War, which is generally held responsible for the introduction of the cigarette, and soon afterwards we have a picture of a lady calmly enjoying a smoke in the train. Fine ladies are satirized for emulating their brothers and husbands by leaving their bills unpaid. It must be owned that woman, if she ventured to step outside the domain of an amiable, decorative, or domestic mode of existence met with little commendation from Punch. He was a strong advocate of schools for cooking long years before the historic advice of "Feed the Brute" appeared in his pages. But the strong-minded female only excited his ridicule and satire, though with unkind inconsistency he was never weary of making fun of the troubles of the helpless "unprotected female." There are hundreds of portraits of charming Victorian damsels in Leech's "Social Cuts," but their predominant trait is health and amiability. Very rarely do they say anything wise or witty or plain spoken—even under great provocation from their pert schoolboy brothers. But we know—even from the pages of Punch—that Victorian women and girls were not all of this yielding and gentle type, and it is to his credit that in his sketch of "The Model Fast Lady," he was able to render justice to a phase of advanced womanhood remote alike from sentimentality and intellectualism:—
The Model Fast Lady
She delights in dogs; not King Charles's, but big dogs that live in kennels. She takes them into the drawing-room, and makes them leap over the chairs. Her mare, too, is never out of her mouth.... If she is intimate with you, she will call you "my dear fellow"; and if she takes a fancy to you, you will be addressed the first time by your Christian name, familiarized very shortly from Henry into Harry. Her father is hailed as "Governor." Her speech, in fact, is a little masculine. If your eyes were shut, you would fancy it was a "Fast Man" speaking, so quick do the "snobs," and "nobs," and "chaps," and "dowdies," "gawkies," "spoonies," "brats," and other cherished members of the Fast Human Family run through her loud conversation. Occasionally, too, a "Deuce take it," vigorously thrown in, or a "Drat it," peculiarly emphasized, will startle you; but they are only used as interjections, and mean nothing but "Alas!" or "Dear me!" or, at the most, "How provoking!"
The MODEL FAST LADY is not particularly attached to dancing. She waltzes as if she had made a wager to go round the room one hundred and fifty times in five minutes and a quarter. If any one is pushed over by the rapidity of her Olga revolutions, she does not stop, but merely laughs, and "hopes no limbs are broken."
By the bye, if she has a weakness, it is on the score—rather a long one—of wagers. She is always betting. It must be mentioned, however, that she is most honourable in the payment of her debts. She would sell her Black Bess sooner than levant.
THE MODEL FAST LADY has, at best, but a superficial knowledge of the art of flirting. Compliments, she calls "stuff"; and sentiment "namby-pamby nonsense." She likes a person to be sensible; and has no idea of being made a fool of.
At a picnic she is invaluable. When your tumbler is empty, she'll take Champagne with you—that is to say, if you're not too proud. You may as well fill her glass; she has no notion of being cheated. Here's better luck to you! and to enforce it, she runs the point of her parasol into your side.
She dislikes smoking? Not she indeed; she's rather fond of it. In fact, she likes a "weed" herself occasionally, and to convince you, will take a whiff or two. Her forefinger is not much needle-marked, and she laughs at Berlin wool, and all such fiddle faddle. She has a pianoforte, but really she has no patience to practise. She can play a short tune on the cornet-à-piston.
Literature is a sealed pleasure to her, though it is but fair to state she reads Bell's Life, and has a few volumes in her bedroom of the Sporting Magazine. She knows there was a horse of the name of Byron.
The FAST LADY rather avoids children. If a baby is put into her hands, she says, "Pray, somebody, come and take this thing, I'm afraid of dropping it." She prefers the society of men, too, to that of her own sex.
Her costume is not regulated much by the fashions, and she is always the first to come down when the ladies have gone upstairs to change their dress.
Her greatest accomplishment is to drive. With the whip in one hand and the reins in the other, and a key-bugle behind, she would not exchange places with the Queen herself.
With all these peculiarities and manly addictions, however, the FAST LADY is good hearted, very good natured, and never guilty of what she would call "a dirty action." Her generosity, too, must be included amongst her other faults, for she gives to all, and increases the gift by sympathy. She is always in good humour, and, like gentle dulness, dearly loves a joke. She is an excellent daughter, and her father dotes on her and lets her do what she likes, for "he knows she will never do anything wrong, though she is a strange girl." In the country she is greatly beloved. The poor people call her "a dear good Miss," and present their petitions and unfold all their little griefs to her. She is continually having more presents of pups sent to her than she knows what to do with. The farmers, too, consult her about their cows and pigs, and she is the godmother to half the children in the parish.
Her deficiencies, after all, are more those of manner than of feeling. She may be too largely gifted with the male virtues, but then she has a very sparing collection of the female vices. Nature may be to blame for having made her one of the weaker vessels, but imperfect and manly as she is, she still retains the inward gentleness of the woman, and many fine ladies, who stand the highest in the pulpits of society, would preach none the less effectively if they had only as good a heart—even with the trumpery straw in which, like a rich fruit, it is enveloped—as the MODEL FAST LADY.
Fast Young Lady (to Old Gent): "Have you such a thing as a lucifer about you, for I've left my cigar lights at home."
This was written seventy years ago, but within the last decade we have seen Miss Compton frequently impersonating rôles of which the leading traits were, in essentials, identical with those of the Model Fast Lady. The model woman, married or unmarried, as represented by the writers and artists of Punch, was feminine, kindly, but colourless, though the "deviations from the norm" are not overlooked—the lion-huntresses of Belgravia; thrusting matrons; willing victims of the social tread-mill and the "petty decalogue of Mode"; cynical high-priestesses of the marriage market.
When we turn to the higher education of women generally the attitude assumed is nearly always one of mild chaff. Punch refused to take it seriously, and propounded his own scheme for a female university, in which the fashionable accomplishments are enumerated in detail:—
French and Italian as spoken in the fashionable circles, music, drawing, fancy-work, and the higher branches of dancing, will form the regular curriculum. A minor examination on these subjects, or a "Little Go," will be instituted before the Spinstership of Arts can be tried for. The examined shall be able to "go on" anywhere in "Télémaque," or in the conversations in Veneroni's Grammar; to play a fantasia of Thalberg's; to work a pair of slippers in Berlin wool; and to dance the Cachuca and Cracovienne.
For the degree of Spinster, the candidate shall be examined in various novels by Paul de Kock, Victor Hugo, Balzac, and others; also in the libretto of the last new opera. She shall be able to play or sing any of the fashionable pieces or airs of the day, and shall give evidence of an extensive acquaintance with Bellini, Donizetti, Labitzky, and Strauss. She shall draw and embroider, in a satisfactory manner, various fruits, flowers, cottages and a wood, Greeks and Mussulmen. Lastly, she shall dance, with correctness and elegance, a "pas de deux" with any young gentleman who may be selected for the purpose.
There shall be likewise, with respect to music and dancing, an annual examination for honours. The candidates shall evince a familiarity with the most admirable feats of Taglioni, and the Ellslers, and with the most difficult compositions of Herz, Czerny, and Bochsa; though if they like they may be allowed to take up, in preference, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Weber.
These examinations shall be called respectively the Musical and the Dancing Tripos. No one shall be admissible to the latter who has not taken honours in the former. The gradations or distinction shall be as follows: In the Musical Tripos the foremost damsel shall be entitled the Senior Warbler; next shall follow the Simple Warblers; the Bravissimas shall come next; then the Bravas; and finally those who barely get their degree.
The first dancer shall be denominated La Sylphide; after her shall be ranked the Sylphs; next to these the first and second Coryphées; and lastly, as before, the merely passable.