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.' Such a woman ought to be an angel -- or
she is an ass -- for I discern not a trace of the human
character, neither reason nor passion in this domestic drudge,
whose being is absorbed in that of a tyrant's.
