I acknowledge that
on some occasions it might render you more agreeable as companions,
but it would make you less amiable as women: an important
distinction, which many of your sex are not aware of."
This desire of being always women, is the very consciousness that
degrades the sex. Excepting with a lover, I must repeat with
emphasis, a former observation--it would be well if they were only
agreeable or rational companions. But in this respect his advice
is even inconsistent with a passage which I mean to quote with the
most marked approbation.
"The sentiment, that a woman may allow all innocent freedoms,
provided her virtue is secure, is both grossly indelicate and
dangerous, and has proved fatal to many of your sex." With this
opinion I perfectly coincide. A man, or a woman, of any feeling
must always wish to convince a beloved object that it is the
caresses of the individual, not the sex, that is received and
returned with pleasure; and, that the heart, rather than the
senses, is moved. Without this natural delicacy, love becomes a
selfish personal gratification that soon degrades the character.
I carry this sentiment still further. Affection, when love is out
of the question, authorises many personal endearments, that
naturally flowing from an innocent heart give life to the
behaviour; but the personal intercourse of appetite, gallantry, or
vanity, is despicable.
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