In literature, the corruption of particular authors inspiring their writings, keeps them floating by the motive power of their unchaste wishes; and we should not, I imagine, look for noble creations from these young authorlings who, not blushing to sell themselves to old mistresses, by whom they are paid, desert them as soon as they meet with the favours of another who pays them better. Their code of morals must be that of the contemporaries of Plautus, claiming that rich women should choose their lovers, but that poor ones must love the man rich enough to buy them. This absence of true and deep seated feelings, this mercenary species of love, gives birth to a mass of scribblers without principles—of would-be poets of the affections, who, being neither poets nor in love, prostitute their pen to every subject, as they do their person to every harlot. What shall we expect, moreover, from the art of observation? Why should our numerous “Messieurs aux camélias” after what they call their term of youthful folly, and when they have become faithful husbands, tender fathers, upholders by conviction of the family institution, become indignant at seeing an abandoned woman attain to their own nobleness of sentiment? Why should not the stage have the right to exhibit for us these fellows, just liberated from college restraint, who get up _women’s parties_? Why should it spare those far-seeing fathers, who take as much pains to procure modest mistresses for their sons as to buy them pure-bred horses? Art and literature, let it not be forgotten, are the reflections of the state of society; let not sweet-smelling odours be looked for from an atmosphere loaded with infection. Let us no longer behave as insensates, who, after breaking a mirror that shows them uglier than they are, credit themselves with as many more attractions as they see fewer. The theatre, which is the mirror of our manners, ought even to go so far as to produce, on the stage, the courtesan in person, and to have her applauded in those “tableaux vivants” of which she is the heroine. V. “In short, the truth must be spoken. Woe to those who speak it not, and woe to you if you are not worthy of hearing it.” _Letter from Fènèlon to Louis XIV._ The investigation of this melancholy subject has placed before us the progress of the evil, through the destitution and dependence of the young women of the lower classes; and the impunity, and even the protection, of the agents and accomplices of profligacy. This too clear and a thousand times attested degradation of the woman by discomfort and poverty, this glut in the supply of prostitution on the market in seasons of dearth of employment, enables us to understand the error of certain anti-economical doctrines representing that the man, who is the bread-winner for _four_, is ever his wife’s and mother’s and child’s protector at his fireside.[50]