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It is a melancholy truth; yet such is the blessed effect of
civilization! the most respectable women are the most oppressed;
and, unless they have understandings far superiour to the common run
of understandings, taking in both sexes, they must, from being treated
like contemptible beings, become contemptible. How many women thus
waste life away the prey of discontent, who might have practised as
physicians, regulated a farm, managed a shop, and stood erect,
supported by their own industry, instead of hanging their heads
surcharged with the dew of sensibility, that consumes the beauty to
which it at first gave lustre; nay, I doubt whether pity and love
are so near akin as poets feign, for I have seldom seen much
compassion excited by the helplessness of females, unless they were
fair; then, perhaps, pity was the soft handmaid of love, or the
harbinger of lust.
How much more respectable is the woman who earns her own bread by
fulfilling any duty, than the most accomplished beauty!- beauty did
I say?- so sensible am I of the beauty of moral loveliness, or the
harmonious propriety that attunes the passions of a well-regulated
mind, that I blush at making the comparison; yet I sigh to think how
few women aim at attaining this respectability by withdrawing from the
giddy whirl of pleasure, or the indolent calm that stupifies the
good sort of women it sucks in.
Proud of their weakness, however, they must always be protected,
guarded from care, and all the rough toils that dignify the mind.
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