Yet, true voluptuousness must proceed from the
mind- for what can equal the sensations produced by mutual
affection, supported by mutual respect? What are the cold, or feverish
caresses of appetite, but sin embracing death, compared with the
modest overflowings of a pure heart and exalted imagination? Yes,
let me tell the libertine of fancy when he despises understanding in
woman- that the mind, which he disregards, gives life to the
enthusiastic affection from which rapture, short-lived as it is, alone
can flow! And, that, without virtue, a sexual attachment must
expire, like a tallow candle in the socket, creating intolerable
disgust. To prove this, I need only observe, that men who have
wasted great part of their lives with women, and with whom they have
sought for pleasure with eager thirst, entertain the meanest opinion
of the sex.- Virtue, true refiner of joy!- if foolish men were to
fright thee from earth, in order to give loose to all their
appetites without a check- some sensual wight of taste would scale the
heavens to invite thee back, to give a zest to pleasure!
That women at present are by ignorance rendered foolish or
vicious, is, I think, not to be disputed; and, that the most
salutary effects tending to improve mankind might be expected from a
REVOLUTION in female manners, appears, at least, with a face of
probability, to rise out of the observation. For as marriage has
been termed the parent of those endearing charities which draw man
from the brutal herd, the corrupting intercourse that wealth,
idleness, and folly, produce between the sexes, is more universally
injurious to morality than all the other vices of mankind collectively
considered.
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