The passions thus pampered, whilst the judgment is left unformed, what
can be expected to ensue?- Undoubtedly, a mixture of madness and
folly!
This observation should not be confined to the fair sex; however, at
present, I only mean to apply it to them.
Novels, music, poetry, and gallantry, all tend to make women the
creatures of sensation, and their character is thus formed in the
mould of folly during the time they are acquiring accomplishments, the
only improvement they are excited, by their station in society, to
acquire. This overstretched sensibility naturally relaxes the other
powers of the mind, and prevents intellect from attaining that
sovereignty which it ought to attain to render a rational creature
useful to others, and content with its own station: for the exercise
of the understanding, as life advances, is the only method pointed out
by nature to calm the passions.
Satiety has a very different effect, and I have often been
forcibly struck by an emphatical description of damnation:- when the
spirit is represented as continually hovering with abortive
eagerness round the defiled body, unable to enjoy any thing without
the organs of sense. Yet, to their senses, are women made slaves,
because it is by their sensibility that they obtain present power.
And will moralists pretend to assert, that this is the condition
in which one half of the human race should be encouraged to remain
with listless inactivity and stupid acquiescence? Kind instructors!
what were we created for? To remain, it may be said, innocent; they
mean in a state of childhood.
Pages:
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107