I will use the preacher's own words. "Let it be observed, that in
your sex manly exercises are never graceful; that in them a tone
and figure, as well as an air and deportment, of the masculine
kind, are always forbidding; and that men of sensibility desire in
every woman soft features, and a flowing voice, a form not robust,
and demeanour delicate and gentle."
Is not the following portrait--the portrait of a house slave? "I
am astonished at the folly of many women, who are still reproaching
their husbands for leaving them alone, for preferring this or that
company to theirs, for treating them with this and the other mark
of disregard or indifference; when, to speak the truth, they have
themselves in a great measure to blame. Not that I would justify
the men in any thing wrong on their part. But had you behaved to
them with more RESPECTFUL OBSERVANCE, and a more EQUAL TENDERNESS;
STUDYING THEIR HUMOURS, OVERLOOKING THEIR MISTAKES, SUBMITTING TO
THEIR OPINIONS in matters indifferent, passing by little instances
of unevenness, caprice, or passion, giving SOFT answers to hasty
words, complaining as seldom as possible, and making it your daily
care to relieve their anxieties and prevent their wishes, to
enliven the hour of dulness, and call up the ideas of felicity:
had you pursued this conduct, I doubt not but you would have
maintained and even increased their esteem, so far as to have
secured every degree of influence that could conduce to their
virtue, or your mutual satisfaction; and your house might at this
day have been the abode of domestic bliss.
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