“That may be; and had you proposed in season, I might not have rejected you. I am glad, however, that you did not, for I might have loved you, and you alone, and then I should never have become a philanthropist, and devoted all my sympathies and energies to the emancipation of my sex, and to the development and progress of my race. You would have engrossed all my thoughts and affections, and have been my tyrant.” “But if I had loved you in return, and laid my own heart at your feet?” “That would have made the matter worse. In loving me you would only have loved yourself, and sought only your own pleasure. Men usually love only to sacrifice her they love to themselves; while woman, when she loves, is ready to sacrifice herself to her beloved. Man’s love is selfish; woman’s is disinterested.” “Women are disinterested creatures, and never exact any return for their love!” “They are more disinterested than you believe. There is nothing that a true woman will not do for him she loves. She will abandon herself without reserve to his wishes, go through fire and water, nay, hell itself, for him, and take delight in damning her own soul, to please him.” “That is because her love is an instinct, a blind passion, a sort of madness or frenzy, not a sober, rational affection.” “Perhaps so; but it is rather because her love is love. Unhappily, woman feels, she does not reason, or if she reasons, it is only in the interest of her feeling. Reason is cold, calculating; love is warm and self-sacrificing. It is heedless of consequences.” “And therefore is the better for having reason or prudence for a companion.” “It is clear that you have never loved.” “Perhaps not; but at any rate I think I could have loved you very much in your own fashion.” “That is not improbable, at least, as far as it is in your calculating nature; for I have been thought to have my attractions, and it would not be difficult to make any man my slave—unless I loved him. Yet you would always have loved me as a master, and have always held me in subjection. There are natures born to command. You would never have loved me as my dear James loves me, and never have been the meek, submissive, quiet, dear good man that he is. His love is not tyrannical, and it imposes no burden on me. He interferes with none of my plans, restrains none of my movements, and is satisfied with feeling that he is my husband and belongs to me, without once presuming to think of me as his wife and as belonging to him.” “That is charming, and must, no doubt, entirely satisfy your heart.” “That is my own affair. But I will tell you that it does not, and that it does.” “But that is a riddle; pray rede it.”