Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World.: To which are added rules for determining the precise figure, the degree of beauty, the habits, and the age of women, notwithstanding the aids and disguise of dress.Anonymous
History
Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World.: To which are added rules for determining the precise figure, the degree of beauty, the habits, and the age of women, notwithstanding the aids and disguise of dress.
Anonymous
Women
so she regulates all the household affairs. This is proper, when the
husband allows it; and he ought to do so, when his wife is capable of
managing these things; but when the inclinations of his Eve run
perversely, when he is conscious that he has reason on his side, and she
only folly, and yet he is vacillating and yielding, he is unmanly and
inconsistent; he sacrifices future happiness to present peace. Every
woman, it must be granted, is not a sensible one; and "there is
nothing," as Lord Burleigh observed to his son, "more fulsome than a she
foole." If Socrates had properly controlled his Xantippe before her
disorder had increased beyond cure, it would have contributed to her
happiness and his own. Prince Eugene observed, on one occasion, rather
satirically, that love was a mere amusement, and calculated for nothing
more than to enlarge the influence of the woman, and abridge the power
of the man. Goldsmith's Hermit said to his lovely visiter,--
"And love is still an emptier sound,
The modern fair one's jest;
On earth unseen, or only found
To warm the turtle's nest."
But love is an actual, a powerful, and a beneficial principle, if it be
properly regulated. Among married persons there ought to be as much love
as would induce either to yield in trifling matters; and there ought to
be as much reason as would enable both to act correctly. Matrimony
should be something like the union of the ivy and the oak: the latter is
firm, and capable of supporting its more tender companion; the ivy,
however, must follow in some measure the humors and windings of the oak;
but they grow together, and the longer they continue the more closely
they are united. There have been many instances of great attachment.
Porcia, the wife of Brutus, when she heard of her husband's death
swallowed burning coals that she might go with him. Alceste, wife of
Admetus king of Thessaly, sacrificed herself for the safety of her
husband. This monarch was ill; and when the oracle was consulted, it was
declared that he would not recover except some friend would die for him;
and as no one else would do so, the wife heroically drank a cup of
poison. Paulina the wife of Seneca in his old age, was young, beautiful,
and accomplished; and she was so much attached to her husband, that when
the veins of Seneca were opened by the command of Nero, she caused her
own to be cut, that she might also bleed to death. When Conrad III. had
taken the town of Winsberg in Bavaria, he allowed only the women to go
out; but they had leave to carry with them as much as they pleased. They
loaded themselves, therefore, with their husbands and children, and
brought them all out on their shoulders! When love is genuine; when
professions are sincere, and the practice agreeable therewith; when
health is enjoyed, and as many comforts as are necessary for this life;
when children grow up in vigor, good behaviour, and mental improvement;
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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