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ON FEMALE EXTRAVAGANCES

No. 435.] SATURDAY, JULY 19, 1712. [ADDISON.]

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Nec duo sunt at forma duplex, nec fœmina dici

Nec puer ut possint, neutrumque et utrumque videntur.
OVID. Met. iv. 378.

Both bodies in a single body mix,

A single body with a double sex.

OST of the papers I give the public are written on subjects that never vary, but are for ever fixed and immutable. Of this kind are all my more serious essays and discourses; but there is another sort of speculations, which I consider as occasional papers, that take their rise from the folly, extravagance, and caprice of the present age. For I look upon myself as one set to watch the manners and behaviour of my countrymen and contemporaries, and to mark down every absurd fashion, ridiculous custom, or affected form of speech, that makes its appearance in the world during the course of my speculations. The petticoat no sooner began to swell, but I observed its motions. The party-patches had not time to muster themselves before I detected them. I had intelligence of the coloured hood the very first time it appeared in a public assembly. I might here mention several other the like contingent subjects, upon which I have bestowed distinct papers. By this means I have so effectually quashed those irregularities which gave occasion to them, that I am afraid posterity will scarce have a sufficient idea of them to relish those discourses which were in no little vogue at the time they were written. They will be apt to think that the fashions and customs I attacked were some fantastic conceits of my own, and that their great grandmothers could not be so whimsical as I have represented them. For this reason, when I think on the figure my several volumes of speculations will make about a hundred years hence, I consider them as so many pieces of old plate, where the weight will be regarded, but the fashion lost.

Among the several female extravagances I have already taken notice of, there is one which still keeps its ground. I mean, that of the ladies who dress themselves in a hat and feather, a riding coat and periwig, or at least tie up their hair in a bag or riband, in imita

tion of the smart part of the opposite sex. As in my yesterday's paper I gave an account of the mixture of two sexes in one commonwealth, I shall here take notice of this mixture of two sexes in one person. I have already shown my dislike of this immodest custom more than once; but, in contempt of everything I have hitherto said, I am informed that the highways about this great city are still very much infested with these female cavaliers.

I remember when I was at my friend Sir Roger de Coverley's about this time twelvemonth, an equestrian lady of this order appeared upon the plains which lay at a distance from his house. I was at the time walking in the fields with my old friend; and as his tenants ran out on every side to see so strange a sight, sir Roger asked one of them who came by us, what it was? To which the country fellow replied, "'Tis a gentlewoman, saving your worship's presence, in a coat and hat.' This produced a great deal of mirth at the knight's house, where we had story at the same time of another of his tenants, who, meeting this gentleman-like lady on the highway, was asked by her whether that was Coverley-hall? The honest man seeing only the male part of the querist, replied, 'Yes, Sir;' but upon the second question, whether Sir Roger de Coverley was a married man? having dropped his eye upon the petticoat, he changed his note into 'No, Madam.'

Had one of these hermaphrodites appeared in Juvenal's days, with what an indignation should we have seen her described by that excellent satirist! He would have represented her in a riding habit, as a greater monster than the centaur. He would have called for sacrifices of purifying waters, to expiate the appearance of such a prodigy. He would have invoked the shades of Portia or Lucretia, to see into what the Roman ladies had transformed themselves.

For my own part, I am for treating the sex with greater tenderness, and have all along made use of the most gentle methods to bring them off from any little extravagance into which they have sometimes unwarily fallen. I think it however absolutely necessary to keep up the partition between the two sexes, and to take notice of the smallest encroachment which the one makes upon the other. I hope therefore I shall not hear any more complaints on this subject. I am sure my she-disciples, who peruse these my daily lectures, have profited but little by them, if they are capable of giving in to such an amphibious dress. This I should not have mentioned, had I not lately met one of these my female readers in Hyde-park, who

looked upon me with a masculine assurance, and cocked her hat full in my face.

For my part, I have one general key to the behaviour of the fair sex. When I see them singular in any part of their dress, I conclude it is not without some evil intention: and therefore question not but the design of this strange fashion is to smite more effectually their male beholders. Now to set them right in this particular, I would fain have them consider for themselves, whether we are not more likely to be struck by a figure entirely female, than with such an one as we may see every day in our glasses. Or, if they please, let them reflect upon their own hearts, and think how they would be affected should they meet a man on horseback, in his breeches and jack-boots, and at the same time dressed up in a commode and a nightrail.

I must observe that this fashion was first of all brought to us from France, a country which has infected all the nations of Europe with its levity. I speak not this in derogation of a whole people, having more than once found fault with those general reflections which strike at kingdoms or commonwealths in the gross: a piece of cruelty, which an ingenious writer of our own compares to that of Caligula, who wished that the Roman people had all but one neck, that he might behead them at a blow. I shall therefore only remark, that, as liveliness and assurance are in a peculiar manner the qualifications of the French nation, the same habits and customs will not give the same offence to that people which they produce among those of our own country. Modesty is our distinguishing character, as vivacity is theirs: and when this our national virtue appears in that female beauty for which our British ladies are celebrated above all others in the universe, it makes up the most amiable object that the eye of man can possibly behold.

C.

CUSTOM

No. 447.] SATURDAY, AUGUST 2, 1712. [ADDISON.]

TH

Φημὶ πολυχρονίην μελέτην ἔμμεναι, φίλε· καὶ δὴ
Ταύτην ἀνθρωποῖσι τελεύτωσαν φύσιν εἶναι.

Long exercise, my friend, inures the mind;

And what we once disliked, we pleasing find.

HERE is not a common saying which has a better turn of sense in it, than what we often hear in the mouths of the vulgar, that "custom is a second nature." It is indeed able to form the man anew, and to give him inclinations and capacities altogether different from those he was born with. Dr. Plot, in his history of Staffordshire, tells us of an idiot, that, chancing to live within the sound of a clock, and always amusing himself with counting the hour of the day whenever the clock struck, the clock being spoiled by accident, the idiot continued to strike and count the hour without the help of it, in the same manner as he had done when it was entire. Though I dare not vouch for the truth of this story, it is very certain that custom has a mechanical effect upon the body, at the same time that it has a very extraordinary influence upon the mind.

I shall in this paper consider one very remarkable effect which custom has upon human nature, and which, if rightly observed, may lead us into very useful rules of life. What I shall here take notice of in custom, is its wonderful efficacy in making everything pleasant to us. A person who is addicted to play or gaming, though he took but little delight in it at first, by degrees contracts so strong an inclination towards it, and gives himself up so entirely to it, that it seems the only end of his being. The love of a retired or busy life will grow upon a man insensibly, as he is conversant in the one or the other, until he is utterly unqualified for relishing that to which he has been for some time disused. Nay, a man may smoke, or drink, or take snuff, until he is unable to pass away his time without it; not to mention how our delights in any particular study, art, or science, rises and improves in proportion to the application which we bestow upon it. Thus, what was at first an exercise, becomes at length an entertainment. Our employments are changed into

our diversions. The mind grows fond of those actions which she is accustomed to, and is drawn with reluctancy from those paths in which she has been used to walk.

Not only such actions as were at first indifferent to us, but even such as are painful, will by custom and practice become pleasant. Sir Francis Bacon observes in his natural philosophy, that our taste is never pleased better than with those things which at first created a disgust in it. He gives particular instances, of claret, coffee, and other liquors, which the palate seldom approves upon the first taste; but, when it has once got a relish for them, generally retains it for life. The mind is constituted after the same manner; and, after having habituated herself to any particular exercise or employment, not only loses her first aversion towards it, but conceives a certain fondness and affection for it. I have heard one of the greatest geniuses this age has produced, who had been trained up in all the polite studies of antiquity, assure me, upon his being obliged to search into several rolls and records, that, notwithstanding such an employment was at first very dry and irksome to him, he at last took an incredible pleasure in it, and preferred it even to the reading of Virgil or Cicero. The reader will observe that I have not here considered custom as it makes things easy, but as it renders them delightful; and though others have often made the same reflections, it is possible they may not have drawn those uses from it, with which I intend to fill the remaining part of this paper.

If we consider attentively this property of human nature, it may instruct us in very fine moralities. In the first place, I would have no man discouraged with that kind of life, or series of action, in which the choice of others, or his own necessities, may have engaged him. It may perhaps be very disagreeable to him at first; but use and application will certainly render it not only less painful, but pleasing and satisfactory.

In the second place, I would recommend to every one that admirable precept which Pythagoras is said to have given to his disciples, and which that philosopher must have drawn from the observation I have enlarged upon. Optimum vitæ genus eligito, nam consuetudo faciet jucundissimum; "Pitch upon that course of life which is the most excellent, and custom will render it the most delightful." Men, whose circumstances will permit them to choose their own way of life, are inexcusable if they do not pursue that which their judgment tells them is the most laudable. The voice of reason is

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