"Madame, I really haven't the time. I must be off in five minutes."—Cham, Paris, 1850.
Coming down to recent times, we still find the current anecdote and proverb in all lands bearing hardly upon the sex. A few kindly and appreciative sayings pass current in Scotland; and the literatures of Germany, England, and the United States teem with the noblest and tenderest homage to the excellence of women. But most of these belong to the literature of this century, and bear the names of men who may be said to have created the moral feeling of the present moment. It is interesting to notice that in one of our latest and best dictionaries of quotation, that of Mr. M. M. Ballou, of Boston, there are one hundred and eleven short passages relating to women, of which only one is dishonorable to them, and that dates back a century and a half, to the halcyon day of the British libertine—"Every woman is at heart a rake.—Pope." So thought all the dissolute men of Pope's circle, as we know from their conversation and letters. So thought the Duc de Rochefoucauld, who said, "There are few virtuous women who are not weary of their profession;" and "Most virtuous women, like concealed treasures, are secure because nobody seeks after them." So thought Chesterfield, who told his hopeful son that he could never go wrong in flattering a woman, for women were foolish and frail without exception: "I never knew one in my life who had good sense, or who reasoned and acted consequentially for four-and-twenty hours together." And so must think every man who lived as men of fashion then lived. "If I dwelt in a hospital," said Dr. Franklin once, "I might come to think all mankind diseased."
"Where are the diamonds exhibited?"
"I haven't the least idea; but I let myself be guided by my wife. Women get at such things by instinct."—Cham, Paris, 1868.
But a man need not be a fine gentleman nor a roué to think ill of womankind. He needs only to be commonplace; and hence it is that the homely proverbs of all time bear so hardly upon women. The native land of the modern proverb is Spain, as we might guess from Sancho Panza's exhaustless repertory; and most of those homely disparaging sentences concerning women that pass current in all lands appear to have originated there. What Spain has left unsaid upon women's foibles, Italy has supplied. Most of the following proverbs are traceable to one of the two peninsulas of Southern Europe: "He that takes an eel by the tail or a woman by her word may say he holds nothing." "There is one bad wife in Spain, and every man thinks he has her." "He that loses his wife and a farthing hath great loss of his farthing." "If the mother had never been in the oven, she would not have looked for her daughter there." "He that marries a widow and three children marries four thieves." "He that tells his wife news is but newly married." "A dead wife's the best goods in a man's house." "A man of straw is worth a woman of gold." "A woman conceals what she knows not." "As great a pity to see a woman weep as to see a goose go barefoot." "A woman's mind and winter's wind change oft." "There is no mischief in the world done but a woman is always one." "Commend a wedded life, but keep thyself a bachelor." "Where there are women and geese, there wants no noise." "Neither women nor linen by candle-light." "Glasses and lasses are brittle ware." "Two daughters and a back-door are three thieves." "Women commend a modest man, but like him not." "Women in mischief are wiser than men." "Women laugh when they can and weep when they will." "Women, priests, and poultry never have enough."
Evening Scene in the Parlor of an American Boarding-house.