- In the
society of his wife he is still alone, unless when the man is sunk
in the brute. 'The charm of life,' says a grave philosophical
reasoner, is 'sympathy; nothing pleases us more than to observe in
other men a fellow-feeling with all the emotions of our own breast.'
But, according to the tenour of reasoning, by which women are kept
from the tree of knowledge, the important years of youth, the
usefulness of age, and the rational hopes of futurity, are all to be
sacrificed to render women an object of desire for a short time.
Besides, how could Rousseau expect them to be virtuous and constant
when reason is neither allowed to be the foundation of their virtue,
nor truth the object of their inquiries?
But all Rousseau's errors in reasoning arose from sensibility, and
sensibility to their charms women are very ready to forgive! When he
should have reasoned he became impassioned, and reflection inflamed
his imagination instead of enlightening his understanding. Even his
virtues also led him farther astray; for, born with a warm
constitution and lively fancy, nature carried him toward the other sex
with such eager fondness, that he soon became lascivious. Had he given
way to these desires, the fire would have extinguished itself in a
natural manner; but virtue, and a romantic kind of delicacy, made
him practise self-denial; yet, when fear, delicacy, or virtue,
restrained him, he debauched his imagination, and reflecting on the
sensations to which fancy gave force, he traced them in the most
glowing colours, and sunk them deep into his soul.
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