* The mass of mankind are rather the slaves of their appetites
than of their passions.
The comparison with the rich still occurs to me; for, when men
neglect the duties of humanity, women will follow their example; a
common stream hurries them both along with thoughtless celerity.
Riches and honours prevent a man from enlarging his understanding, and
enervate all his powers by reversing the order of nature, which has
ever made true pleasure the reward of labour. Pleasure- enervating
pleasure is, likewise, within women's reach without earning it. But,
till hereditary possessions are spread abroad, how can we expect men
to be proud of virtue? And, till they are, women will govern them by
the most direct means, neglecting their dull domestic duties to
catch the pleasure that sits lightly on the wing of time.
'The power of the woman,' says some author, 'is her sensibility;'
and men, not aware of the consequence, do all they can to make this
power swallow up every other. Those who constantly employ their
sensibility will have most: for example; poets, painters, and
composers.* Yet, when the sensibility is thus increased at the expence
of reason, and even the imagination, why do philosophical men complain
of their fickleness? The sexual attention of man particularly acts
on female sensibility, and this sympathy has been exercised from their
youth up. A husband cannot long pay those attentions with the
passion necessary to excite lively emotions, and the heart, accustomed
to lively emotions, turns to a new lover, or pines in secret, the prey
of virtue or prudence.
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