"Now the point to which I would bring all this verbiage," continued he, "is this—will a lady of a mean understanding, or a vulgar education, be likely to practice economy on this large scale? And is not such economy a field in which a woman of the best sense may honorably exercise her powers?"
Miss Sparkes, who was always a stanch opposer in moral as well as in political debate, because she said it was the best side for the exertion of wit and talents, comforted herself that though she felt she was completely in the minority, yet she always thought that was rather a proof of being right than the contrary; for if it be true, that the generality are either weak or wicked, it follows that the inferior number is most likely to be neither.
"Women," said Mr. Carlton, "in their course of action describe a smaller circle than men; but the perfection of a circle consists not in its dimensions but in its correctness. There may be," added he, carefully turning away his eyes from Miss Sparkes, "here and there a soaring female, who looks down with disdain on the party affairs of 'this dim speck called earth;' who despises order and regularity as indications of a groveling spirit. But a sound mind judges directly contrary. The larger the capacity, the wider is the sweep of duties it takes in. A sensible woman loves to imitate that order which is stamped on the whole creation of God. All the operations of nature are uniform even in their changes, and regular in their infinite variety. Nay, the great Author of Nature himself disdains not to be called the God of order."
"I agree with you," said Sir John. "A philosophical lady may 'read Malebranche, Boyle, and Locke;' she may boast of her intellectual superiority; she may talk of abstract and concrete; of substantial forms and essences; complex ideas and mixed modes, of identity and relation; she may decorate all the logic of one sex with all the rhetoric of the other; yet if her affairs are delabré, if her house is disorderly, her servants irregular, her children neglected, and her table ill-arranged, she will indicate the want of the most valuable faculty of the human mind, a sound judgment."
"It must, however, be confessed," replied Mr. Stanley, "that such instances are so rare, that the exceptions barely serve to establish the rule. I have known twenty women mismanage their affairs, through a bad education, through ignorance, especially of arithmetic, that grand deficiency in the education of women, through a multiplicity of vain accomplishments, through an excess of dissipation, through a devotedness to personal embellishments, through an absorption of the whole soul in music, for one who has made her husband metaphysically miserable."
"What marks the distinction," said Mr. Carlton, "between the judicious and the vulgar economist is this: the narrow-minded woman succeeds tolerably in the filling up, but never in the outline. She is made up of detail but destitute of plan. Petty duties demand her whole grasp of mind, and, after all, the thing is incomplete. There is so much bustle and evident exertion in all she does! she brings into company a mind exhausted with her little efforts! overflowing with a sense of her own merits! looking up to her own performance as the highest possible elevation of the human intellect, and looking down on the attainments of more highly gifted women, as so many obstructions to their usefulness; always drawing comparisons to her own advantage, with the cultivated and the refined, and concluding that because she possesses not their elegance they must necessarily be deficient in her art. While economists of a higher strain—I draw from living and not absent instances," added he, looking benignantly round him—"execute their well ordered plan, as an indispensable duty, but not as a superlative merit. They have too much sense to omit it, but they have too much taste to talk of it. It is their business, not their boast. The effect is produced, but the hand which accomplishes it is not seen. The mechanism is set at work, but it is behind the scenes. The beauty is visible, the labor is kept out of sight."
"The misfortune is," said Mr. Stanley, "that people are apt to fancy that judgment is a faculty only to be exercised on great occasions; whereas it is one that every hour is calling into exercise. There are certain habits which, though they appear inconsiderable when examined individually, are yet of no small importance in the aggregate. Exactness, punctuality, and other minor virtues, contribute more than many are aware, to promote and to facilitate the exercise of the higher qualities. I would not erect them into a magnitude beyond their real size; as persons are too apt to do who are only punctual, and are deficient in the higher qualities; but by the regular establishment of these habits in a family, it is inconceivable to those who have not made the experiment, how it saves, how it amplifies time, that canvas upon which all the virtues must be wrought. It is incredible how an orderly division of the day gives apparent rapidity to the wings of time, while a stated devotion of the hour to its employment really lengthens life. It lengthens it by the traces which solid occupation leaves behind it: while it prevents tediousness by affording, with the successive change, the charm of novelty, and keeping up an interest which would flag, if any one employment were too long pursued. Now all these arrangements of life, these divisions of time, and these selections and appropriations of the business to the hour, come within the department of the lady. And how much will the cares of a man of sense be relieved, if he choose a wife who can do all this for him!"
"In how many of my friends' houses," said Mr. Carlton, "have I observed the contrary habits produce contrary effects! A young lady bred in total ignorance of family management, transplanted from the house of her father, where she has learned nothing, to that of her husband, where she is expected to know every thing, disappoints a prudent man: his affection may continue, but his esteem will be diminished; and with his happiness, his attachment to home will be proportionably lessened."
"It is perfectly just," said Sir John, "and this comfortless deficiency has naturally taught men to inveigh against that higher kind of knowledge which they suppose, though unjustly, to be the cause of ignorance in domestic matters. It is not entirely to gratify the animal, as Miss Sparkes supposes, that a gentleman likes to have his table well appointed; but because his own dignity and his wife's credit are involved in it. The want of this skill is one of the grand evils of modern life. From the heiress of the man of rank, to the daughter of the opulent tradesman, there is no one quality in which young women are so generally deficient as in domestic economy. And when I hear learning contended for on one hand, and modish accomplishments on the other, I always contend for this intermediate, this valuable, this neglected quality, so little insisted on, so rarely found, and so indispensably necessary."
"Besides," said Mr. Carlton, addressing himself to Miss Sparkes, "you ladies are apt to consider versatility as a mark of genius. She, therefore, who can do a great thing well, ought to do a small one better; for, as Lord Bacon well observes, he who can not contract his mind as well as dilate it, wants one great talent in life."