Still I know that it will require a considerable length of time
to eradicate the firmly rooted prejudices which sensualists have
planted; it will also require some time to convince women that
they act contrary to their real interest on an enlarged scale,
when they cherish or affect weakness under the name of delicacy,
and to convince the world that the poisoned source of female
vices and follies, if it be necessary, in compliance with custom,
to use synonymous terms in a lax sense, has been the sensual
homage paid to beauty: -- to beauty of features; for it has been
shrewdly observed by a German writer, that a pretty woman, as an
object of desire, is generally allowed to be so by men of all
descriptions; whilst a fine woman, who inspires more sublime
emotions by displaying intellectual beauty, may be overlooked or
observed with indifference, by those men who find their happiness
in the gratification of their appetites. I foresee an obvious
retort -- whilst man remains such an imperfect being as he
appears hitherto to have been, he will, more or less, be the
slave of his appetites; and those women obtaining most power who
gratify a predominant one, the sex is degraded by a physical, if
not by a moral necessity.
