All your fine ladies are nurtured on novels, plays, and judicial excitements; yet they are neither vulgar, nor trivial, nor comparable to curb-stones sullied by the mud of the streets; what you tell them, therefore, is no more true than kind. But if you pay them doubtful compliments, which they do not deserve, you absolve them too easily, in turn. Listen to our principles, that you may not run the risk of appearing unjust with respect to us. Corruption in our eyes, is not merely the want of chastity, or the shameful suit of gallantry, but all habitual improper sentiment, all weakening of the moral sense, and we absolutely condemn everything which has power to lessen the sensibility of the soul, and to turn it aside from the practice of justice, of virtue, and of self-respect. In consequence, we profess that the spectacles of criminal courts habituate the heart to insensibility, and should be avoided as much as executions. We profess that the modern drama is generally evil, because it excites interest for adulterers, robbers, seducers and prostitutes; that the intellect is subjected in theatres to an unhealthy and enervating atmosphere. We profess, lastly, that novels should be read with great moderation, because, in general, when they do not corrupt the morals, they pervert the judgment and waste precious time. Though we love and esteem Art, we are indignant at the bad use which is made of it, and we have little esteem for those who avail themselves of it to lead the heart astray, and to pervert the moral sense. We say to woman: Educate yourselves, be worthy and chaste; life is earnest, employ it earnestly. You see that _woman in the image of the stained curb-stone_, is by no means the ideal of which we dream. Can you, a man of heart, can you treat women as wretched and corrupt because they are willing no longer to be slaves? And besides, do you think that liberty, which in man engenders individuality and virtue, would produce in woman moral degradation? Ah! leave these calumnies to those who have no heart; they ill befit you, who may deceive yourself through the lofty poetry of your soul, but who can wish for evil only because you believe it to be good.