As when she touched the brink of all we hate."
It was no doubt Pope's intention to run down the entire female sex, but while uttering the above insinuation, he seems fatally blind to the very questionable light the successful application of certain female devices reflected on the contemporary male character!
From a purely feminist point of view, the name of "cold-hearted rascal", by which Mary Wollstonecraft distinguished the Earl of Chesterfield, although not altogether deserved—for where his son was concerned he was anything but "cold-hearted"—may be easily accounted for. Whenever woman is the subject, his contentions as well as his tone of uttering them betray a callous, contemptuous cynicism which marks the man of fashion who "knows the season, when to take occasion by the hand", and has been taught by the intricacies of diplomacy to regard women from a purely egoistical standpoint as political weathercocks, whose undeniable influence may be turned to account, but upon whom otherwise no judgment can be too severe. There is in his writings no trace of interest whatever in women for their own sake; despising them for their weaknesses, he regards them merely as possible instruments by which his personal ends may be furthered. The morality preached in the famous "Letters to his Son" (written between the years 1739 and 1768, representing the dawn of the Bluestocking movement) has been severely and deservedly criticised. Their worst defect as well as their greatest danger is that while containing a number of maxims which are absolutely repugnant in their cynicism, they were written for an educational purpose and pretended to instil the ways of conscious virtue "which is the only solid foundation of all happiness."[17] Another objection is that he insisted far too much on "the graces" (i. e. deportment), while almost forgetting to recommend the more solid acquirements of the character. Mrs. Chapone complained that he substituted appearances for the real excellences which she considered more important, and Mrs. Delany wrote that his letters were generally considered ingenious and useful as to polish of manners, but very hurtful in a moral sense. "Les grâces", she added, "are the sum total of his religion." This, and the fact that he made a point of discussing moral questions of the greatest importance with a child not yet ten years old and incapable of grasping their full purport, afterwards made Mary Wollstonecraft turn upon him with her accustomed vehemence. No doubt she found this education of deliberate cynicism more difficult to forgive than even his cold contempt of the female sex.
Chesterfield wanted to perfect his son in what he considered the most important of arts, to be recommended to both sexes with equal emphasis: that of pleasing. No man held more by opinion as a means of reaching aims than he. To read his correspondence one might think the chief aim of life to be a perfect mastery of the art of "wriggling oneself into favour", with all its attendant insincerity and duplicity. Such was the man whose advice the bishop of Waterford asked in respect to the kind of reading to be permitted to his daughters[18].
When women are the topic, Lord Chesterfield invariably appears at his worst. Nowhere in literature do we find a lower estimate of the sex and a more sneeringly insolent ridicule of their foibles. Little is known about the marriage of young Philip Stanhope, who even forgot to inform his father of the circumstance, and who died too soon after to test the truth of his father's teaching that "husband and wife are commonly clogs upon each other." However, with such a mentor his chances of happiness in the matrimonial state would have been slight in any case.
In the first place Lord Chesterfield regards women as intellectually inferior and beneath notice. They are to him only "children of a larger growth"[19] who seldom reason or act consistently; their best resolutions being swayed by their inordinate passions, which their reason is to weak to keep under constant control. Even the so-called "femme forte",—of which type Catherine the Second was a prominent representative—was in his eyes only another proof of this statement; for at bottom all women are Machiavelians and they cannot do anything with moderation, sentiment always getting the better of reason[20]. They do not appreciate or even understand the language of common sense, and the proper tone to be adopted in their presence is "the polite jargon of good company"[21].
His opinion of female morals is not more flattering. Women are capable of, and ruled by two passions: vanity and love, of which the latter is made dependent upon the former. "He who flatters them most pleases them best; and they are most in love with him who they think is the most in love with them"[22]. They value their beauty—real or imaginary—above everything, and in this respect "scarce any flattery is too gross for them to follow".
The above, if true, might be a reason for a man to rather avoid female company than court it. However, says Chesterfield, low as they are, we cannot afford to ignore them, for it is not to be denied that they are a social power. "As women are a considerable, or at least a pretty numerous part of company; and as their suffrages go a long way towards establishing a man's character in the fashionable part of the world (which is of great importance to the fortune and figure he proposes to make in it), it is necessary to please them". The sole use of women in Chesterfield's eyes is that they may be turned into a ladder for social advancement: "here women may be put to some use"; and he who has discovered the right way of humouring them may serve his own interest by cultivating their acquaintance and fooling them to the top of their bent with judicious and cleverly administered flattery. Of all Chesterfield's insinuations this is certainly the worst.
But how is woman to be pleased? The scheme for social promotion involves an effort to please on an even more general scale. Women feel a contempt for men who pass their time in "ruelles", making themselves their voluntary slaves; they value those most who are held in the highest esteem among their fellowmen; for this will render their conquest by a woman worth her while. However, to please men, and gain influence among them, the concurrence of women is indispensable, and so forth, ad nauseam.