Expressions then in common use among ladies would not be tolerated now in decent society. In their intercourse with men they were more restrained, at least in writing, but the attitude of the sexes towards each other was one peculiar to the age. There was so much affectation of gallantry on the part of the men, and such a want of straightforwardness on the part of the women, that the whole tone of society was thoroughly artificial. Between the wits, statesmen, men of letters, and the great ladies of their acquaintance there was a romantic kind of relation worthy of the days of chivalry. The elaborately framed protestations of devotion to which women were generally quite ready to listen belonged rather to feudal romance than to real life. But the romance of the eighteenth century was tinctured with the spirit of banter, and both sides were well aware that the whole thing was merely put on, like the powder and the patches. So general was this playing at sentiment that when real feeling for once in a way tried to get the ascendant it was unable to obtain credence.
The fashionable dames of the eighteenth century loved to dabble in politics, which afforded a fresh excitement when the social round began to grow a little flavourless. The eighteenth century was a great period for letter-writing, and political news was a constant topic of correspondence. The interest centred on men rather than on principles. These great ladies, when they wrote to each other or to their friends of the male sex, did not discuss causes. They were concerned with individuals, with the career of the gentlemen of their acquaintance. Looked at in this way, politics were, in the phraseology of the age, “vastly” entertaining.
When the rage for speculation came in, the ladies became ardent speculators. They exchanged confidences and congratulations over the great South Sea Bubble, before it burst, and hoped that “stocks were going on prosperously.” Mrs. Molesworth, writing to Mrs. Howard (Countess of Suffolk), in June, 1720, says—
“To tell you the truth, I am South Sea mad, and I find that philosophic temper of mind which made me content under my circumstances, when there was no seeming probability of bettering them, forsakes me on this occasion; and I cannot, without great regret, reflect that for want of a little money, I am forced to let slip an opportunity which is never like to happen again. Perhaps you will think me unreasonable when I tell you that good Lady Sunderland was so mindful of her absent friends as to secure us a £500 subscription, which money my father had laid down for us, and it is now doubled; but this has but given me a taste of fortune, which makes me more eager to pursue it. As greedy as I seem, I should have been satisfied if I could by any means have raised the sum of £500 or £1000 more, but the vast price that money bears, and our being not able to make any security according to law, has made me reject a scheme I had laid of borrowing such a sum of some monied friend.”
The ladies got their men friends, with whom they corresponded copiously, to gamble for them. Thus the Duke of Argyll, in 1719–20, acted for the Countess of Suffolk, and invested for her a large sum of money in the Missouri scheme, informing her from time to time how things were going.
The taste for speculation was worse than the taste for French fashions, which was decried by Lord Chesterfield.
“I do not mean to undervalue the French,” he writes. “I know their merit. They are a cheerful, industrious, ingenious, polite people, and have many things in which I wish we did imitate them. But, like true mimics, we only ape their imperfections, and awkwardly copy those parts which all reasonable Frenchmen themselves contemn in the originals. If this folly went no farther than disguising both our meats and ourselves in the French modes, I should bear it with more patience, and content myself with representing only to my country folks that the one would make them sick and the other ridiculous; but when even the materials for the folly are to be brought over from France too, it becomes a much more serious consideration. Our trade and manufactures are at stake, and what seems at first only very silly is, in truth, a great national evil and a piece of civil immorality.”
The great lady of the eighteenth century is always, so to speak, in full dress. She seems to live in and for society, to be the leading figure in a great show. It is difficult to think of her except with a train and an elaborate coiffure, with her fan and smelling-bottle and her grand manner en princesse. The elaboration of life in the fashionable world, the affectations of speech and manner, and the imposing costumes surround her with an air of artificiality. Though she might be an ardent politician or a brilliant wit, though she might achieve fame in the world of letters, she lived in a narrow circle. The great social movements of the country were as nothing to her. The history of the classes below her own had no meaning for her mind. Court intrigues, political changes, were events of moment; they were part of her world; she knew no other. Her outlook was limited to personal interests and ambitions. The accident of birth gave her a part to play in the affairs of the world. And she played it like a great lady, whose proper business is pleasure. She flirted, intrigued, and cajoled; suffered herself to be alternately flattered and neglected when she wanted a place at court or to worm out some political secret for a friend. But of the healthy, broad interest which regards the politics of to-day, both home and foreign, as the history of the morrow, she was generally devoid.
The great lady of the eighteenth century, unless she happened to be gifted with exceptional breadth of view, was indifferent—often contemptuously indifferent—to matters outside her own fashionable circle. Her education and the temperament of the age fostered this feeling. She had not the domestic responsibilities of women of a lower grade, or of great ladies of former times. In their place she was offered the distractions of society. One by one her duties had fallen away from her. Domestic occupations did not form part of the rôle of a great lady then any more than at the present time. The altered conditions of life gave her leisure; the increase of luxury begat a distaste for exertion. There was a great deal of licence of manners allowed to women, but little real freedom. They could not venture out of the beaten track without incurring ridicule, and possibly insult. In all the relations of life they were made to feel they were dependent beings. As daughters they had the inferior portion, and no profession but marriage. As wives they had nothing at all of their own, not even their children—a condition only remedied late in the present century. But the lack of all interest in their children, which was said to be a characteristic of the French nobility, was not so marked in England. In France it was considered very bourgeois to be surrounded by a family. Husbands and wives commonly lived independent lives. “Une mariage uni devient une anomalie dans le grand monde, un manque de goût.”[69]
It was the attitude in which women were regarded that affected their position more than the actual existence of repressive or deteriorating customs. And to public opinion the great lady was both more susceptible and more subject than other women, for she lived with all eyes upon her. Without a great deal of moral courage she could not step out of her bounds or revolt against the conditions of her life. A narrow mental horizon, a cramping education, united with wealth and high place, were not favourable to the evolution of women, morally or intellectually. In the eighteenth century women moved in a circle, from the meshes of which they were not freed until the present century had run half its course.