Hunt, Henry, 1773-1835; Social reformers -- Great Britain -- Biography
The usual serenity and cheerful disposition of my wife soon returned. She
was young, blooming, fair and sprightly; and whatever pleasure I had in
view, I never half enjoyed it unless she were a partaker of it. I have
always been one of those mortals who think that women were formed to
participate in all our rational pleasures and amusements; and therefore,
with the exception of hunting, I seldom formed any scheme of pleasure
where my wife could not make one of the party. Young, gay and thoughtless,
as I was, and prone to enter into all the scenes of hospitable and
cheerful society, (one fault of which I admit, at that period, consisted
in general of much too free an indulgence of the bottle after dinner) yet,
however unfashionable it might have appeared, I never admitted any such
visitors at my table as rendered it necessary for females to leave the
room almost as soon as the cloth was removed. No language or conversation
was ever tolerated at my board, to which the most chaste female ear might
not listen without a blush. In fact, no man was ever permitted to enter my
door a second time who once dared to utter an indelicate double entendre
in the presence of a female; even if that female were only a servant. It
was, therefore, always the practice at my table for females to stay as
long as they found it pleasant, without being liable to a disgusting hint
to depart, in order that the men who remained might have an opportunity of
disgracing themselves by obscene and loathsome conversation. What a
disgrace this to the national character! what a blot upon the very name of
polished society! what an everlasting stigma upon British hospitality!
what an indelible stain upon English manners! I always found that young
men who had been bred at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge were the
most difficult to keep within the bounds of decorum. The life which these
men lead at college is so dissolute that few of them ever know how to
relish the sweets of domestic virtuous society. This is the greatest
drawback upon the religion of the country, and I blush for the name of
religion while I relate it. I have, in one hour, heard more blasphemy and
more lewd language at the table of one of these clergymen of the
established church, than ever polluted the walls of my house in all my
life. I have heard more obscenity flow from the lips of one of these
hoary-headed dignified pastors of the church of England, aye, one who
resides in this county too, than I ever heard come from the lips of all
the reformers I was ever acquainted with in my life. I can point out half
a score clergymen of this county, some of them magistrates, who are in
this respect a disgrace to human nature, whose debaucheries would fill a
volume, and whose daily conversation over their bottles, after they have
driven their wives and families from their tables, is so degrading, and
consists of such obscenities, that it would even be scouted at the table
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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