Jacob Bouten

“ It is very much to Mary's credit that she emphatically pointed out that "they forfeit the right who do not fulfil the duty." In her claims for equality with men, far from being prompted by sordid motives of envy, or by a desire to obtain power or influence for her sex, she aims at enabling women to discharge the duties of womanhood, among which that of educating their own children occupies the first place. She was always ready herself to take more than her share of those duties, and no one at present doubts her sincerity when saying that she pleads for her sex rather than for herself. ”

“ Chapone thought pride and vanity the worst vices. Men were particularly addicted to the former, since to be proud is to admire oneself; and women to the latter, for vain is she who desires to be admired by others. It is the vice of little minds, chiefly conversant with trifling subjects, and brings affectation in its train.
The vain woman turns exaggerated weakness to account to ensure her empire over the stronger sex. Thus arises that false sensibility which will weep for a fly and leads to a thousand excesses. ”

“ It was again Mary Wollstonecraft who extended this implicit faith in the perfectibility of humanity to the case of woman. All that women needed was to be given a good education, and the rest would follow. So convinced were these idealists of the incontestability of their arguments that they refused to make any concessions, however slight, to those who held different views. This very inflexibility became the means of ruining their best intentions. They did not stop at intellectual and moral enfranchisement, their daring schemes comprised complete social and political emancipation. ”

“ But what called down a storm of feminist indignation upon his head was the sweeping conclusion he drew from the natural law that man, having physical strength on his side, must always play the active part in the intercourse between people of different sexes, while woman has to be always content with the passive rôle. "The sole object of women," says Rousseau, "ought consequently to be to please men, on whom their relative weakness has made them dependent", and goes on to assert that all female education should as a natural consequence be "relative to men". ”

“ There is, in the first place, that physical enfranchisement which makes the woman cease to be the willess, and therefore irresponsible and soulless, slave to the caprices of a brutal master. There is, in the second place, the intellectual emancipation of women, admitting the female sex to the participation of Reason and granting them that education of the mind which is to place them on a par with the other half of humanity ”

“ The education which Mary and Caroline receive is nothing but a dreary course of constant admonition, in which the word liberty would be utterly misplaced. She has entirely failed to catch the spirit of Rousseau's Emile, in which the instructor only prevents the pupil from hurting himself overmuch through his ignorance, leaving him otherwise free to draw the conclusions of awakening Reason, and above all allowing him to live out his life. ”

“ Seldom was a purer, more unselfish love wasted upon a more unworthy recipient. Imlay was a "mere man", of a cheerful disposition and to a certain extent good-natured, but easy-going, self-indulgent, inconstant and incapable of appreciating a noble love which he himself could not cherish. He evidently looked upon his relation to Mary as the amusement of a day,—she lavished upon him that which might have made a greater soul happy for life. ”

“ There are, according to Rousseau, a male empire and a female one. The former rests upon a foundation of superior physical strength and mental superiority; but although the stronger sex are masters in appearance, they in reality depend on the weaker. For the female empire, established by Nature herself, derives its strength from those delicate feminine charms which command the worship of that gallantry which Nature again has instilled into the hearts of men. ”

“ She wants none of his cold kindness and distant civilities, but wishes to have him about her, enjoying life and love. The picture of sweet domesticity, of parents sharing the sacred duty of education, of pleasant evenings of homely tenderness spent at the fireside, recurred to her mind with a sense of aching regret. She would far sooner struggle with poverty than go on living this unnatural life of separation. ”

“ There was in this new form of courtship,—which in literature often took a pastoral form,—an element of idealism which placed the weaker sex on a pedestal in putting the adored one far beyond the reach of the lover, who only aspired the more faithfully for not having his passion gratified. In this lay the dormant power of womanhood, which might be successfully turned into a means of improving their position in society ”

“ Too much attention to the delights of a well-provided table makes them fat and unwieldy and soon changes the natural pink of their complexions to a sallow hue. They are uncleanly of their persons, and vanity is more inherent in them than taste. Their ignorance is even more profound than that of the males, and Mary once had the compliment paid her that "she asked men's questions."
The peasantry of Sweden impressed her as more really polite and obliging than the better-situated classes, whose cold politeness consisted chiefly in tiresome ceremonies. ”

“ Those who regard women from the all-human standpoint, holding the functions of sex to be only a passing incident in the great scheme of life, will be inclined to take the former view; those, on the other hand, who believe that a woman's life derives its colour from considerations of sex which refuse to be ignored, may well wonder where a rigorous application of perfect equality will land us in the end. ”

“ Mary Wollstonecraft pleads the necessity of giving woman an education like that which is granted to man, that she may learn to take Reason for her guide. Only then will she be able to perform the specific duties of her sex. But there is a weightier argument for the cultivation of Reason in women. Their deplorable deficiency in this quality has so far made them consider only earthly interests and disqualified them from looking beyond the affairs of this world to the promise of that eternity for which only the soul can fit them. ”

“ To him, there is no original tendency towards either good or evil. Everything depends upon guidance; give a child a good education and all its possibilities for good will be developed and bear fruit. The sole aim of education is not social influence or intellectual culture, but merely what he calls "l'amour de la vertu". And who can be fitter for such a task than the girl's own mother? "A good mother", says Fénelon, "is infinitely preferable to the best convent". ”

“ But eighteenth century society regarded philosophy as an intellectual pastime rather than as bringing the hope of relief to the oppressed millions, and if it occasionally dabbled in social problems, the misery of the multitude did not touch the majority of those who lived lives of comfort and luxury, and were utterly unacquainted with suffering, very deeply. No direct attempt at improvement, therefore, was to be expected from them, they were talking in theory about things of the practice of which they knew nothing. ”

“ Her friendship for Lady Mary found its origin in the circumstance that she saw in the latter's talents the conclusive evidence of that mental equality of the sexes which she made it her business to demonstrate. "I confess I am malicious enough to desire that the world should see to how much better purpose the Ladies travel than their Lords; and that, whilst it is surfeited with male travels all in the same tone, and stuffed with the same trifles, a lady has the skill to strike out a new path and to embellish a worn-out subject with variety of fresh and elegant entertainment." ”

“ It was not until the second half of the century that the great humanitarian movement began to make rapid progress; before that great dawn British society remained undisturbed while pursuing their round of pleasure which was interrupted only by death. Of the heralds of a better time, who acted according to their lights, and of whom some were doomed to failure, while others were to see their efforts crowned with ultimate success, it is gratifying to think that a fair percentage were women. ”

“ Of all Chesterfield's insinuations this is certainly the worst.
But how is woman to be pleased? The scheme for social promotion involves an effort to please on an even more general scale. Women feel a contempt for men who pass their time in "ruelles", making themselves their voluntary slaves; they value those most who are held in the highest esteem among their fellowmen; for this will render their conquest by a woman worth her while. However, to please men, and gain influence among them, the concurrence of women is indispensable, and so forth, ad nauseam. ”

“ In the strict retirement of the cloisters they filled their time with prayer and sacred literature. Thus, in the dark age, the ideal of womanhood became the Virgin, who lived her life of devotion far from the temptations of a wicked world with which she had nothing in common. Those women—and they were the majority—who did not pursue so lofty an ideal, sank lower and lower, and came to be regarded as mere sexual instruments, without any claim to consideration, by men whose only interest was war, and among whom learning was regarded with contempt. ”

“ This close alliance between the female sex and the men of culture was in some respects the best education the former could have chosen. They were bent on proving once for all, as Fléchier puts it, that "l'esprit est de tout sexe" and that nothing was wanting to make women the intellectual equals of men, but the habit of being instructed and the liberty of acquiring useful knowledge. Women became the unchallenged arbitresses of morals, taste, language, literature and wit, in all of which they themselves set the example. ”

“ Norway seemed to Mary Wollstonecraft the country of the greatest individual freedom. The king of Denmark, it is true, was an absolute monarch, but the state of imbecility to which illness had reduced him placed the reins of government into the hands of his son the prince royal and of his wise and moderate minister Count Bernstorff. Under their almost patriarchal authority every man was left to enjoy an almost unlimited amount of freedom. ”

“ She combined in her person the rarest gifts of both head and heart; as a quick perception, enabling her to grasp a situation very rapidly; a never-flinching determination to use the divine gift of Reason in the pursuit of useful knowledge, and a boundless devotion to what she considered the obvious task of her life. Once she had discovered her vocation she flung herself into her work with indomitable zeal, trying to do herself violence in asserting the superiority of reason over sentiment, and to put a restraint on the passions that threatened to overpower her. ”

“ The bookseller's feeble remonstrance that authors have to comply with the manners and disposition of those who are to read them, is met with the indignant remark that they should first of all correct the vices and follies of their age. To give examples of domestic virtue would surely be more useful to women than to inflame their minds with the deeds of great heroines. "True female praise arises not from the pursuit of public fame, but from an equal progress in the path marked out for them by their great Creator." ”

“ The outer revolution which was to assert the rights of the species was followed by an inner revolution in the individual which came to constitute the tragedy of Mary Wollstonecraft's life. The Father of Nature, whom she thanked for having made her so intensely alive to happiness, had also implanted in her breast an overwhelming capacity for sorrow, and after a short taste of the former, the latter became her portion to such an extent that life seemed to her unendurable. ”

“ Sophie's love of needlework is accounted for not so much by considerations of usefulness as by the reflection that this delicate occupation will make her appear to advantage to her admirer. The same train of thoughts makes her abominate the useful occupation of cooking, by which her hands might become soiled. Did Rousseau actually imagine that his much-recommended simplicity in dress would hold out against the innate love of finery which was to help in the accomplishment of what he considered the chief aim of womanhood? ”

“ What Fénelon did not sufficiently realise, was the indispensable connection between a moral and an intellectual education. The theory that perfect virtue arises out of the intellect and derives its chief value from a rational source, was a further step in the same direction which it was left to his successors to take. But he was instrumental in preparing the enfranchisement of the female education from the narrow principles of that church to which he belonged heart and soul. ”

“ In the solution he proposes to the problem of female erudition, Defoe was equally effective. He recognises that it will not do to fit all women into a universal harness. Allowance must be made for individuality. "To such whose genius would lead them to it" he would deny no sort of learning. He is even roused to an ecstatic pitch of enthusiasm by the contemplation of the ideal female which his imagination conjures up before his mind's eye. ”

“ Nous traitons la nature en elles comme dans nos jardins, nous cherchons à l'orner en l'étouffant." And d'Alembert makes an appeal to the philosophers of the age to destroy so pernicious a prejudice, to shake off the barbarous yoke of custom and to set the example by giving their daughters the same education as their sons, that they may be saved from idleness and the evils that follow inevitably in its train. And the cause of woman thus became incorporated in the great scheme of Liberty and Equality which was slowly maturing in the master minds of the nation. ”

“ To Mary Wollstonecraft female education was merely one of the milestones in the march towards perfection; to Hannah More it seemed that women might be made instrumental "to raise the depressed tone of public morals and to awaken the drowsy spirit of religious principle", and also that they might be called upon "to come forward and contribute their full and fair proportion towards the saving of their country." With Hannah More, high morality and patriotism necessarily went hand in hand. ”

“ More extreme in her views, and more determined in her claims than her Bluestocking sisters, she stands out the one great apostle of female emancipation among the revolutionary leaders who held out the hope of lasting social improvement to all mankind. That she aimed too high and failed to find that recognition among her contemporaries to which her spirit of ready sacrifice entitled her, lends her a certain tragic dignity which adds materially to the interest felt by posterity in her striking personality. ”