Women likewise acquire, from a supposed necessity, an equally
artificial mode of behaviour. Yet truth is not with impunity to
be sported with, for the practised dissembler, at last, becomes
the dupe of his own arts, loses that sagacity, which has been
justly termed common sense; namely, a quick perception of common
truths: which are constantly received as such by the
unsophisticated mind, though it might not have had sufficient
energy to discover them itself, when obscured by local
prejudices. The greater number of people take their opinions on
trust to avoid the trouble of exercising their own minds, and
these indolent beings naturally adhere to the letter, rather than
the spirit of a law, divine or human. 'Women,' says some author,
I cannot recollect who, 'mind not what only heaven sees.' Why,
indeed, should they? it is the eye of man that they have been
taught to dread -- and if they can lull their Argus to sleep,
they seldom think of heaven or themselves, because their
reputation is safe; and it is reputation, not chastity and all
its fair train, that they are employed to keep free from spot, not as a virtue, but to
preserve their station in the world.
