ON THE FOLLY OF FASHIONABLE OSTENTATION IN THE MIDDLE CLASSES OF LIFE

(From Mrs. West’s Letters to a Young Lady).

The Lady’s Magazine January 1807 at 21-22

Would to heaven our sex could be vindicated from the heavy censure that must fall upon those who, to purchase the eclat of a few years, not the happiness of an hour, involve themselves and families in destruction! An impartial review of living manners compels me to confess that we are on this point often more culpable than our weakly indulgent partners. It is Eve who again entreats Adam to eat the forbidden fruit; he takes it, and is undone. Men in this rank of life have generally less taste than women; they are amused by their business through the day, and at its weary close they would generally be contented with the relaxation which their own families afforded, if those families were social, domestic, cheerful, and desirous to promote their amusement. But since the potent decree of fashion determined it to be unfit for the wife of a man in reputable circumstances to employ herself in domestic arrangement or useful needle-work, time has proved a severe burden to people who are destitute of inclination for literature. To relieve themselves from a load the weight of which they are too proud to acknowledge, they have felt obliged to mingle with what is called the world. Did any of these adventurous dames consider the heavy services which this association requires; did they fairly rate the fatigue, the perplexity, the slavery of being very genteel upon a limited scale; they would think it better to prefer a plain system of social comfort even at the expense of that ridicule, which, I lament to say, such a deviation from refinement would now incur. Yet, when there is no house-keeper in the spice-room, nor butler at the side-board an elegant entertainment occasions more labour and perplexity to the mistress of the house than she would undergo by a regular performance of services highly beneficial and praiseworthy what anxiety is there that every part of the splendid repast should be properly selected well-dressed and served up in style! What care to keep the every day garb of family economies out of sight, and to convince the guests that this is the usual style of living; though, if they credit the report, it must only confirm their suspicion that their hostess is actually insane! What blushing confusion do these demi-fashionista discover if detected in any employment that seems to indicate a little remaining regard for prudence and economy! What irregularity and inconvenience must they daily experience during the days immediately following the gala! What irritation of temper, what neglect of children, what disregard of religious and social offices? And for what is all this sacrifice? To procure the honour of being talked of; for happiness or even comfort, are rarely expected at such entertainments. Notwithstanding all due preparations something goes wrong, either in the dinner or the company. The face of the inviter displays mortification instead of exultation, and the invited disguise the sneer of ridicule under the fixed simper of affected politeness. Nor let the giver of the feast complain of disappointment. She aimed not to please, but to dazzle; not to gratify their guests by the cheerful hilarity of her table, but to announce her own superiority in taste or in expense. When the hospitable hostess spreads her plain but plentiful board for friendship and kindred for those whom she loves and respects, those whom she seeks to oblige or those to whom she wishes to acknowledge obligation, where vanity and self are kept out of sight and real generosity seeks no higher praise than that of giving a sufficient and comfortable repast with a pleasant welcome a fastidious observance of any accidental mistake, or trivial error, might be justly called ill-nature or ingratitude; but when ostentation summons her myrmidons to behold the triumph, let ridicule join the party and proclaim the defeat.

But this insatiable monster, a rage for distinction, is not content with spoiling the comforts of the cheerful regale; luxury has invented a prodigious number of accommodation in the department of moveables; and the mistress of a tiny villa at Hackney, or a still more tiny drawing-room in Crutched Friars only waits to know if her grace has placed them in her baronial residence, to pronounce that they are comforts without which no soul can exist. Hence it becomes an undertaking of no little skill to conduct one’s person through an apartment twelve feet square, furnished in style by a lady of taste without any injury to ourselves or to the fantenil, candelabras, console tables, jardiniers, chiffoniers, &c. Should we, at entering an apartment, escape the work-boxes, foot-stools, and cushions for lap-dogs, our debut may still be celebrated by the overthrow of half a dozen top-gallant screens, as many perfume jars, or even by the total demolition of a glass cabinet stuck full of stuffed monsters. But an inadvertent remove of our chair backwards, we may thrust it through the paper frame of the book stand, or the pyramidal flower-basket, and our nearer approach to the fire is barricaded by nodding mandarins and branching lustres. It is well if the height of the apartment permits us to glide secure under the impending danger of crystal lamps, chandeliers, and gilt bird-cage, inhabited by screaming canaries. An attempt to walk would be too presumptuous amidst the opposition of a host of working-tables, sofas, rout chairs, and ottomans. To return from a visit of this kind without having committed or suffered any depredations is an event almost similar to the famous expedition of the argonauts. The fair mistress, indeed, generally officiates as pilot, and by observing how she folds or unfurls her redundant train, and enlarges or contracts the waiving of her plumes, one may practice the dilating or diminishing graces according to the most exact rules of geometrical proportion; happy if we can steal a moment from the circumspection that our arduous situation requires to admire the quantity of pretty things which are collected together, and inquire if they are really of any use.