The Adventures of David Simple (1904)/Chapter 18
CHAPTER VII
David went exactly at the time appointed the next day; and, after some little discourse, Cynthia went on with her story, as follows—
"I think I left off at my going abroad with my lady. My cousin went home to live with her mother; as they had but a very small income to keep them, I should have been heartily glad if it had been in my power to have increased it. I forgot to tell you, that my brother died at school, when he was fifteen; for he had but a weakly constitution, and the continual tormenting and whipping him, to make him learn his book, (which was utterly impossible) had such an effect on the poor boy, it threw him into a consumption, of which he died. I shall not undertake to give you a description of the countries through which we passed; for as we were only to make the tour of France and Italy, I suppose you have read a hundred descriptions of them already. The lady I went with had something very amiable in her manner, and at first behaved to me with so much good-nature, that I loved her with the utmost sincerity. I dwelt with pleasure on the thoughts of the obligations I owed her, as I fancied she was generous enough to delight in conferring them; and I had none of that sort of pride, by fools mistaken for greatness of mind, which makes people disdain the receiving obligations; for I think the only meanness consists in accepting, and not gratefully acknowledging them. I had learned French, that is, I had read some French books with the help of a dictionary, to satisfy my own curiosity, for nobody had ever taught me anything: on the contrary, I was to be kept back as much as possible, for fear I should know too much. But the little I had learned by myself helped me, when I came into the country, to talk it tolerably well. My Lady ——— could not speak it at all; and as she did not care to take much pains while we were at Paris, which was a whole winter, we herded mostly amongst the English.
"I was now in the place of the world I had often most wished to go to, where I had everything in great plenty, and yet I was more miserable than ever. Perhaps you will wonder what caused my unhappiness; but I was to appear in a character I could not bear, namely, that of a toad-eater: and what hurt me most, was, that my lady herself soon began to take pains to throw me into it as much as possible."
David begged an explanation of what she meant by a toad-eater; for he said it was a term he had never heard before. On which Cynthia replied, "I don't wonder, sir, you never heard of it; I wish I had spent my life without knowing the meaning of it: it is a metaphor taken from a mountebank's boy who eats toads, in order to show his master's skill in expelling poison: it is built on a supposition, (which I am afraid is too generally true) that people who are so unhappy as to be in a state of dependance, are forced to do the most nauseous things that can be thought on, to please and himour their patrons. And the metaphor may be carried on yet farther; for most people have so much the art of tormenting, that every time they have made the poor creatures they have in their power swallow a toad, they give them something to expel it again, that they may be ready to swallow the next they think proper to prepare for them: that is, when they have abused and fooled them, as Hamlet says, to the top of their bent, they grow soft and good to them again, on purpose to have it in their power to plague them the more. The satire of the expression, in reality, falls on the person who is mean enough to act in so cruel a manner to their dependant; but as it is no uncommon thing for people to make use of terms they don't understand, it is generally used, by way of derision, to the unfortunate wretch who is thrown into such a miserable situation.
"I remember once I went with my Lady ——— to visit some English ladies, where there happened to be a great deal of company: as we went out of the room, I heard somebody mention the word toad-eater; I thoaght it was me they were speaking of, and dropped my fan for an excuse to make a stop at the door, when I heard one lady say to another, 'What a creature it is! I believe she is dumb, for she has not spoke one word since she has been here; but yet I do not dislike to see her, for I love ridicule above all things, and there is certainly nothing so ridiculous as a toad-eater.' I could not stay to bear any more; but I despised both these women too much to let it be in their power to give me any pain, for I knew by their manner of talking they were fine ladies; and that is the character in life I have the greatest contempt for."
David begged of her to let him know what she meant by fine ladies. On which she replied, "Indeed, sir, you have imposed on me the hardest task in the world: I know them when I meet with them; but they have so little of what we call character, that I do not know how to go about the describing them. They are made up of caprice and whim; they love and hate, are angry and pleased, without being able to assign a reason for any of these passions. If they have a characteristic, it is vanity, to which everything else seems to be subservient; they always affect a great deal of good-nature, are frighted out of their wits at the sight of any object in bodily pain, and yet value not how much they rack people's minds. But I must justify them so far as to say, I believe this is owing to their ignorance; for as they have no minds of their own, they have no idea of other's sensations. They cannot, I think, well be liable to the curse attending Eve's transgression, as they do not enjoy the benefit proposed by it, of knowing good from evil. They are so very wise, as to think a person's being ignorant of what is utterly impossible they should know, is a perfect sign of folly. Congreve seems to me to have known them the best of any one: my Lady Wish-for't at her toilette is a perfect picture of them, where she insults over, and thinks herself witty on a poor ignorant wench, because she does not know what she has never been taught or used to. That fine ridicule of the brass thimble and the nutmeg jingling in her pocket, with the hands dangling like bobbins, is exactly their sort of wit; and then they never call any one by their right names; creatures, animals, tilings, all the words of contempt they can think of, are what they delight in. Shakespeare has made Hamlet give the best description imaginable of them in that one line which he addresses to Ophelia; 'Ye lisp, and ye amble, and ye nickname God's creatures.' An expression I never understood, til I knew the world enough to have met with some of these sort of women. They are not confined to any station; for I have known, while the lady has been insulting her waiting-woman in the dressing-room, the chamber-maid has been playing just the same part below-stairs, with the person she thought her inferior, only with a small variation of terms. But I will dwell no longer on them; for I am tired of them, as I have often been in life.
"But this would have had no effect on me, had my lady behaved well herself. To her usage was owing all my misery; for by that time I had remained with her two or three months, she began to treat me as a creature born to be her slave: whenever I spoke, I was sure to offend her; if I was silent, I was out of humour; if I said anything in the softest terms, to complain of the alteration of her affection, I was whimsical and ungrateful. I think it impossible to be in a worse situation. She had raised my love by the obligations she had conferred on me, and yet continually provoked my rage, by her ill-nature; I could not, for a great while, any way account for this conduct. I thought, if she did not love me, she had no reason to have given herself any trouble about me ; and yet I could not think she could have used one for whom she had had the least regard in so cruel a manner. At last, I reflected, it must be owing to a love of tyranny; and as we are born in a country where there is no such thing as public legal slavery, people lay plots to draw in others to be their slaves, with the pretence of having an affection for them: and what is yet more unfortunate, they always choose the persons who are least able to bear it. It is the fierce mettled courser {who must be brought to their lure by fawning and stroking) that they love to wring, and gird the saddle on; whilst the mule, which seems born to bear their burdens, passes by them unheeded and neglected. I was caught, like the poor fish, by the bait which was treacherously extended for me, and did not observe the hook which was to pierce my heart, and be my destruction. You cannot imagine what I felt; for to be used ungratefully by any one I had conferred favours on, would have been nothing to me, in comparison of being ill-used by the person I thought myself obliged to. I was to have no passions, no inclinations of my own; but was to be turned into a piece of clock-work, which her ladyship was to wind up or let down as she pleased. I had resolution enough to have borne any consequence that might have attended my leaving her; but I could not bear the thoughts of even the imputation of ingratitude; for there are very few people who have any notion of obligations which are not pecuniary. But, in my opinion, those persons who give up their time, and sacrifice all their own inclinations, to the humours of others, cannot be overpaid by anything they can do for them. Men never think a slave obliged to them for giving him bread, when he has performed his task. And certainly it is a double slavery to be made servile under the pretence of friendship; for no labour of the body could have been so painful to me, as the having my mind thus teazed and tortured. My wit, which I had heard so much of, was now all fled; for I was looked on in so contemptible a light, that nobody would hearken to me: the only comfort I had, was in the conversation of a led captain who came abroad with a gentleman of my lady's acquaintance. There are two sorts of led captains; the one is taken a fancy to by somebody much above him, seated at his superior's table, and can cringe and flatter, fetch and carry nonsense for my lord; thinking himself happy in being thus admitted into company whom his sphere of fife gives him no pretensions to keep. The other is a sort of male toad-eater, who by some misfortune in life is thrown down below his proper station, meets wih a patron who pretends to be his friend, and who by that means draws him in to be sincerely his. This gentleman's case and mine were so much alike, that our greatest pleasure was in comparing them; but I was much more astonished at his patron's behaviour than at my Lady ———'s; for although she had a tolerable understanding, yet it was not of that sort which would make one wonder at her frailties. But he was remarkable for his sense and wit, and yet could not forbear making this poor gentleman feel all the weight of dependance. He was so inconsistent with himself, he could not bear he should see his tyranny, because he was very fond of gaining everybody's esteem; not considering his aim would have been lost, if the other had not been sensible of his behaviour: but because he saw him uneasy under it, he took a perfect aversion to him. I have heard of a gentleman, who would never go to another's house, if he had ever so many coaches and six to carry him in, without horses of his own; saying the only way to be treated well, was to show people he had it in his power to leave them whenever he pleased. And I think he was perfectly in the right; for melancholy experience has taught me how miserable it is to abandon one's self to another's power. But now to show you the unaccountable caprice of human nature, I must tell you, that this very gentleman, who had thus groaned under the affliction of another's using him ill, coming to an estate which was entailed on him by a cousin's dying without children, became the greatest tyrant in the world; and kept a led captain, whom he used much worse than his former patron had ever done him: and instead of avoiding the treating another in a manner he himself had found difficult to bear, he seemed so as if he resolved to revenge his former sufferings on a person who was perfectly innocent of them.
"I know not to what malignity it is owing, but I have observed, in all the families I have ever been acquainted with, that one part of them spend their whole time in oppressing and teazing the other; and all this they do like Drawcansir, only because they dare, and to show their power; while the other part languish away their days in bemoaning their own hard fate, which has just subjected them to the whims and tyranny of wretches, who are so totally void of taste, as not to desire the affection of the very people they appear willing to oblige. It is late to-night; but if you have a curiosity to hear the remainder of my story, to-morrow I will proceed."
David, who never desired any one to do what was the least irksome, took his leave for that evening, and returned the next day, according to Cynthia's own appointment.