Why, for instance, should the following caution be given, when art
of every kind must contaminate the mind; and why entangle the grand
motives of action, which reason and religion equally combine to
enforce, with pitiful worldly shifts and slight of hand tricks to
gain the applause of gaping tasteless fools? "Be even cautious in
displaying your good sense.* It will be thought you assume a
superiority over the rest of the company-- But if you happen to
have any learning keep it a profound secret, especially from the
men, who generally look with a jealous and malignant eye on a woman
of great parts, and a cultivated understanding." If men of real
merit, as he afterwards observes, are superior to this meanness,
where is the necessity that the behaviour of the whole sex should
be modulated to please fools, or men, who having little claim to
respect as individuals, choose to keep close in their phalanx.
Men, indeed, who insist on their common superiority, having only
this sexual superiority, are certainly very excusable.
(*Footnote. Let women once acquire good sense--and if it deserve
the name, it will teach them; or, of what use will it be how to
employ it.)
There would be no end to rules for behaviour, if it be proper
always to adopt the tone of the company; for thus, for ever varying
the key, a FLAT would often pass for a NATURAL note.
Surely it would have been wiser to have advised women to improve
themselves till they rose above the fumes of vanity; and then to
let the public opinion come round--for where are rules of
accommodation to stop? The narrow path of truth and virtue
inclines neither to the right nor left, it is a straight-forward
business, and they who are earnestly pursuing their road, may bound
over many decorous prejudices, without leaving modesty behind.
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