The Friendships of Women

by William Rounseville Alger

Those who, now-a-days, have a reputation as good talkers are rather declaimers, haranguers, orators, than conversers. True conversationalists seem to be nearly obsolete; because our social gatherings, whether in the drawing-room or at the table, do not furnish the needed conditions. To shine as a talker, one must override others by sheer vociferation and monopoly, treading his way amidst insincere applause and general dislike, over the injured self- love of every one present, to the throne of monologue. Such a condition is equally incompatible with what is best in character, in manners, and in personal communion.

For the revival of conversation, an improvement of character is necessary—a purification and deepening of the interior life. It grows out of friendship and the fervor of noble interests. And to these the fickleness and thinness of soul attendant on ignorance and selfishness, as well as on miscellaneous dissipation, are fatal.

For sparks electric only strike
On souls electrical alike;
The flash of intellect expires
Unless it meet congenial fires.

There can be no deep and enduring union of human beings without truthfullness, earnestness, aspiration. It is glorious for people to meet who ascend to meet. For social conquests, as well as for private content, the aggrandizement of individual character and experience is the mightiest talisman. As with the increase of esteem and confidence the spiritual veils are lifted, one by one, the person itself charms because the soul is seen, and seen to be divine. Even in those examples where beauty is the hook, grace is the bait, and virtue the line, with which hearts are caught. When we see wisdom and goodness the guests of another's eyes, love becomes the guest of our own. The great evil of an excessive devotion to society and fashion is the mechanical hollowness and insincerity it breeds—an evil as fatal to happiness as it is to virtue. Economy of force is the governing standard with those who are too constantly in contact with the world, too much given to the spirit of crowded company and fashion. Conscientious truthfullness, earnest discrimination, and a behavior honestly adapted to the facts of feeling and duty, are too expensive, would quickly drain to death the fop, the self-seeker, and the coquette. Accordingly, indifference is the shield of polite society, and affectation is the valve of artificial characters; but sincerity of soul is the first charm of manners, and extent of sympathy is the proper measure of happiness. The soul, dried and hardened by the heat and wear of crowds, or exhausted by dissipation, measures its success by how much it can exclude, how much it despises, how much it can save; but the glory of youth, the joy of genius, the height and charm of life, is the exuberance of the expenditure of force they can afford. Their standard of success is how much their sympathies can include, how much they can revere and love and serve. It is littleness and misery to make a private hoard of the good of the universe. The amount it lavishes measures the wealth of the rich and happy soul. That will be a blessed day when we make our social parties not for the purpose of ostentation or luxury, not to give dinners or suppers in return for those to which we have been invited, not to secure acquaintances who will aid in gratifying our external ambition, but simply to enjoy the society of friends whom we honor and love, to enhance our interior life by sincere spiritual intercourse, the reflection of minds and hearts. Wherever human beings meet, the bazaar of Fate stands open.

Another duty, closely allied with the foregoing, and especially incumbent on the finest and highest women, is to improve the common standard of good manners. This is a region of influence of momentous importance, and for which the most honored and beloved women have a pre-eminent adaptation by their beauty, grace, docility, and sympathetic ease of self-sacrifice. To associate with a quick-witted woman is an education. The last words of Madame Pompadour, addressed to her withdrawing confessor, just before her final breath, were, "Wait a moment, father; and we will go out together." In a democratic age and country like ours, many causes are at work to lower the average standard of manners by generating universal self-assertion, arrogance, and irreverence. As compared with the gracious type of chivalric manners exhibited in the best specimens of three or four centuries ago, it must be confessed that sweetness of dignity, abundance of courtesy, gentleness, magnanimity, have suffered badly. No gentle and lofty mind can turn from the reading of Digby's "Broad Stone of Honor" to that of Thackeray's "Book of Snobs," without deep pain. Here is a field of influence superlatively fitted for the activity of women, and worthy of the aspirations of the most favored and admirable representatives of the sex. Opinions may ascend; but manners descend.

The chief source of complacency to petty natures is in contemplating the weaknesses of their superiors. Pride nourishes itself by gazing on inferiors, and heightening the contrast. But the true habit of virtue is to stoop graciously, to lift inferiors towards itself, and to look reverentially on the merits of superiors, lifting itself with aspiring docility towards them.

Among the people of the present age, there is no need of teaching the lessons of social scorn or envy; but there is need of teaching the lessons of disinterested reverence and aspiration. It must therefore be a profitable service to hold up for the contemplation and study of women the examples of the noble sway, the delightful charm exerted by such women as the grand Duchess Louise of Weimar, Madame Récamier, Madame Swetchine, or the Duchess of Orleans. Each one of these deserves the homage of being patterned after:

For she was of that better clay
That treads not oft this earthly stage:
Such charmed spirits lose their way,
But once or twice into an age.

They seemed to shed dignity, wisdom, virtue, repose, and bliss around them wherever they moved, and to put all persons in their debt by the boons unconsciously emitted from their being and their manners. We cannot hold too constant or too worshipful communion with such characters: it is equally a culture and an enjoyment. The secret of their divine skill is not flattery, but deferential treatment. They take for granted, that their friends have noble qualities and admirable aims, and treat them accordingly, with a respectful attention which heightens the self-respect of its recipients. Neglect is insolent, and contempt is injurious. He who suffers them is hurt and lowered. One blessed magic there is, as guileless as it is supreme. This charm, this witchcraft, is a sincere and honoring attention.

Woman can more keenly than man "taste the pure enjoyment that results from the mere growth and exercise of good feelings." Who so well as she knows how much more true pleasure there is in one peaceful moment of modest goodness than in all the excitement that waits on the gaudy game of ambition? She is never so happy, as when doing most and asking least.