Anonymous

“ A French lover, with the word sentiment perpetually in his mouth, seems by every action to have excluded it from his heart. He places his whole confidence in his exterior air and appearance. He dresses for his mistress, dances for her, flutters constantly about her, helps her to lay on her rouge, and to place her patches. He attends her round the whole circle of amusements, chatters to her constantly, whistles and sings, and plays the fool with her. ”

“ If the delicacy of woman must render her familiar with pain and sickness, let us remember that her charms, her pleasures, and her happiness, arise also from the same attractive quality. She is a being, to use the forcible and elegant expression of a poet,
“Fine by defect, and admirably weak.” There is, perhaps, no charm by which she more effectually secures the tender admiration and the lasting love, of the more hardy sex, than her superior endurance, her mild and graceful submission to the common evils of life. ”

“ To be conscious of the existence of a man’s wives seems a crime; and he looks surly and offended if their health is inquired after. In every country, honor consists in something upon which the possessor sets the highest value. This, with the Hindoo, is the chastity of his wives; a point without which he must not live.
In the midst of slaughter and devastation, throughout all the East, the harem is a sanctuary. Ruffians, covered with the blood of a husband, shrink back with veneration from the secret apartment of his wives. ”

“ The world is good-natured enough to give a lady credit for all the merit she can possess or acquire, without affectation. But the least shade or coloring of this odious foible brings certain and indelible obloquy on the most elegant accomplishments. The blackest suspicion inevitably rests on every thing assumed. She who is only an ape of others, or prefers formality in all its gigantic and preposterous shapes, to that plain, unembarassed conduct which nature unavoidably produces, will assuredly provoke an abundance of ridicule, but never can be an object either of love or esteem. ”

“ At the same time, however, it must be owned, that they often by the inevitable lot of humanity, make way for the bitterest pains which the breast can experience. Happy beyond the common condition of her sex, is she who has found a friend indeed; open hearted, yet discreet; generously fervent, yet steady; thoroughly virtuous, but not severe; wise, as well as cheerful! Can such a friend be loved too much, or cherished too tenderly? If to excellence and happiness there be any one way more compendious than another, next to friendship with the Supreme Being, it is this. ”

“ Would we conceive properly of that simplicity which is the sweetest expression of a well-informed and well-meaning mind, which every where diffuses tenderness and delicacy, sweetens the relations of life, and gives a zest to the minutest duties of humanity, let us contemplate every perceptible operation of nature, the twilight of the evening, the pearly dew-drops of the early morning, and all that various growth which indicates the genial return of spring. ”

“ The rank which the courtezans enjoyed, even in the brightest ages of Greece, and particularly at Athens, is one of the greatest singularities in the manners of any people. By what circumstances could that order of women, who debase at once their own sex and ours—in a country where the women were possessed of modesty, and the men of sentiment, arrive at distinction, and sometimes even at the highest degree of reputation and consequence? ”

“ The various artifices of the sex discover themselves at a very early period. A passion for expense and show is one of the first they exhibit. This gives them a taste for refinement, which divests their young hearts of almost every other feeling, renders their tempers desultory and capricious, regulates their dress only by the most fantastic models of finery and fashion, and makes their company rather tiresome and awkward, than pleasing or elegant. ”

“ When your present violence of passion subsides, however, and a more cool and tranquil affection takes its place, be not hasty to censure yourself as indifferent, or to lament yourself as unhappy; you have lost that only which it was impossible to retain, and it were graceless amid the pleasures of a prosperous summer to regret the blossoms of a transient spring. Neither unwarily condemn your bride’s insipidity till you have recollected that no object however sublime, no sounds however charming, can continue to transport us with delight when they no longer strike us with novelty. ”

“ The profligacy of Rome in its worst days was comparatively thrown into the shade. Religion and marriage became a mockery, and every form of impure and vindictive passion walked abroad, with the consciousness that public opinion did not require them to assume even a slight disguise. The fish-women of Paris will long retain an unenviable celebrity for the brutal excess of their rage. The goddess of Reason was worshipped by men, under the form of a living woman entirely devoid of clothing; and in the public streets ladies might be seen who scarcely paid more attention to decorum. ”

“ And leave in so cool and defensive a state, that sex, which in all other climates is apt to be the most offensive and indecent? To whatever length the spirit of intrigue may be carried in Asia and Africa, however the passions of the women may prompt them to excite desire, and to throw themselves in the way of gratification, we have the strongest reasons to reprobate all these stories, which would make us believe, that they are so lost to decency as to attack the other sex: such a system would be overturning nature, and inverting the established laws by which she governs the world. ”

“ Public amusements are not indeed so expensive as is sometimes imagined, but they tend to alienate the minds of married people from each other. A well chosen society of friends and acquaintance, more eminent for virtue and good sense than for gaiety and splendor, where the conversation of the day may afford comment for the evening, seems the most rational pleasure this great town can afford.
That your own superiority should always be seen, but never felt, seems an excellent general rule. A wife should outshine her husband in nothing, not even in her dress. ”

“ Many instances occur in the history of the Romans of the Gauls and Germans, and of other nations in subsequent periods; where women being driven to despair by their enemies, have bravely defended their walls, or waded through fields of blood to assist their countrymen, and free themselves from slavery or from ravishment. Such heroic efforts are beauties, even in the character of the softer sex, when they proceed from necessity: when from choice, they are blemishes of the most unnatural kind, indicating a heart of cruelty, lodged in a form which has the appearance of gentleness and peace. ”

“ We ought therefore, perhaps, to desire the friendship of a man upon great occasions; but, for general happiness, we must prefer the friendship of a woman.
With regard to female intimacies, it may be taken for granted that there is no young woman who has not, or wishes not to have, a companion of her own sex, to whom she may unbosom herself on every occasion. That there are women capable of friendship with women, few impartial observers will deny. There have been many evident proofs of it, and those carried as far as seemed compatible with the imperfections of our common nature. ”

“ No event is more important, and none is conducted, on many occasions, with less prudence, than Marriage. Providence has allowed the passions to exercise a powerful influence in this matter, otherwise the cares and anxieties with which it is attended would deter most persons from launching their bark of earthly happiness on the great ocean of matrimony. But too frequently the passions are the only guide, and these stimulate to bewilder: they exhibit pleasing and attractive imagery, and then the possession destroys the bliss. ”

“ There we meet with that inexpressible softness and delicacy of manners, which, cultivated by education, appears as much superior to what it does without it, as the polished diamond appears superior to that which is rough from the mine. In some parts of the world, women have attained to so little knowledge and so little consequence, that we consider their virtues as merely of the negative kind. ”

“ By this, I mean, that if a man is equally respected, esteemed, and beloved by his dependants and domestics, you may justly conclude, he has that true good nature, that real benevolence, which delights in communicating felicity, and enjoys the satisfaction it diffuses. But if by these he is despised and hated, served merely from a principle of fear, devoid of affection, which is ever easily discoverable, whatever may be his public character, however favorable the general opinion, be assured, that his disposition is such as can never be productive of domestic happiness. ”

“ There are so many evils attending the loss of virtue in women, and so greatly are the minds of that sex depraved when they have deviated from the path of rectitude, that a general contamination of their morals may be considered as one of the greatest misfortunes that can befal a state, as in time it destroys almost every public virtue of the men. Hence all wise legislators have strictly enforced upon the sex a particular purity of manners; and not satisfied that they should abstain from vice only, have required them even to shun every appearance of it. ”

“ Blessed art thou, O Lord of heaven, and earth, who has created man in thine own likeness, and hast appointed woman to be his partner and companion! Blessed art thou, who fillest Zion with joy for the multitude of her children! Blessed art thou who sendest gladness to the bridegroom and his bride; who hast ordained for them, love, joy, tenderness, peace and mutual affection. ”

“ The feelings of children are under no kind of restraint, but pure as the fire, free as the winds, honest and open as the face of heaven. Their joys incessantly flow in the thickest succession, and their griefs only seem fleeting and evanescent. To the calls of nature they are only attentive. They know no voice but hers. Their obedience to all her commands is prompt and implicit. They never anticipate her bounties, nor relinquish her pleasures. This situation renders them independent of artifice. ”

“ There is so much ignorance, perverseness, undue inclination for power, disposition to contradict, anger, jealousy, hatred, and versatility among human beings that many unpleasant occurrences will necessarily arise, and especially in the marriage state, because here most of these feelings are brought into action, and are most sensibly felt by those who are subject to their influence. He that paints the experience of human life in brilliant colors only gives a flattering and deceptive representation,—he may just as well pretend that the heavens are always cloudless. ”

“ Love is a pleasing but exciting passion. The eye is delighted by form, manners, and the expression of the features, the ears by musical language, and the imagination paints future joys; all of which contribute to one great principle, that of receiving happiness from those we love, and evincing love for those from whom we derive our happiness. ”

“ The perpetuity of marriage, under pleasing circumstances, is its most lovely character; but the same peculiarity, under a different aspect, is its principal source of misery. It is too frequently a state of bondage, “which thousands once fast-chained to quit no more.” But what exists, and cannot be removed, should always be borne as patiently as possible; and thus we may keep a cheerful heart, when another, less prudent, would be gloomy. Besides, an ill temper makes every condition of life unhappy; a cheerful disposition will throw a gleam of sunshine over the scenery of a November day. ”

“ Wherever sincerity prevails and is felt, all the smiling and benevolent virtues flourish most, disclose their sweetest lustre, and diffuse their richest fragrance.
Heaven has not a finer or more perfect emblem on earth than a woman of genuine simplicity. She affects no graces which are not inspired by sincerity. Her opinions result not from passion and fancy, but from reason and experience. ”