To render women truly useful members of society, I argue that
they should be led, by having their understandings cultivated on
a large scale, to acquire a rational affection for their country,
founded on knowledge, because it is obvious that we are little
interested about what we do not understand. And to render this
general knowledge of due importance, I have endeavoured to shew
that private duties are never properly fulfilled unless the
understanding enlarges the heart; and that public virtue is only
an aggregate of private. But, the distinctions established in
society undermine both, by beating out the solid gold of virtue,
till it becomes only the tinsel-covering of vice; for whilst
wealth renders a man more respectable than virtue, wealth will be
sought before virtue; and, whilst women's persons are caressed,
when a childish simper shews an absence of mind -- the mind will
lie fallow. Yet, true voluptuousness must proceed from the mind
-- for what can equal the sensations produced by mutual
affection, supported by mutual respect? What are the cold, or
feverish caresses of appetite, but sin embracing death, compared
with the modest overflowings of a pure heart and exalted
imagination? Yes, let me tell the libertine of fancy when he
despises understanding in woman -- that the mind, which he
disregards, gives life to the enthusiastic affection from which
rapture, short-lived as it is, alone can flow! And, that, without
virtue, a sexual attachment must expire, like a tallow candle in
the socket, creating intolerable disgust. To prove this, I need
only observe, that men who have wasted great part of their lives
with women, and with whom they have sought for pleasure with
eager thirst, entertain the meanest opinion of the sex. --
Virtue, true refiner of joy! -- if foolish men were to fright
thee from earth, in order to give loose to all their appetites
without a check -- some sensual wight of taste would scale the
heavens to invite thee back, to give a zest to pleasure!
