At the mention of this request, that lady conveyed so much confusion into her countenance, that Arabella, extremely embarrassed by it, though she knew not why, thought it necessary to apologise for the disturbance she seemed to have occasioned in her.
Pardon me, madam, replied the countess, recovering herself, if the uncommoness of your request made a moment's reflection necessary to convince me that a young lady of your sense and delicacy could mean no offence to decorum by making it. The word adventures carries in it so free and licentious a sound in the apprehensions of people at this period of time, that it can hardly with propriety be applied to those few and natural incidents which compose the history of a woman of honour. And when I tell you, pursued she with a smile, that I was born and christened, had a useful and proper education, received the addresses of my Lord —— through the recommendation of my parents, and married him with their consents and my own inclination, and that since we have lived in great harmony together, I have told you all the material passages of my life; which upon enquiry you will find differ very little from those of other women of the same rank, who have a moderate share of sense, prudence and virtue.
Since you have already, madam, replied Arabella blushing, excused me for the liberty I took with you, it will be unnecessary to tell you it was grounded upon the customs of ancient times, when ladies of the highest rank and sublimest virtue were often exposed to a variety of cruel adventures, which they imparted in confidence to each other, when chance brought them together.
Custom, said the countess, smiling, changes the very nature of things; and what was honourable a thousand years ago, may probably be looked upon as infamous now—A lady in the heroic age you speak of, would not be thought to possess any great share of merit, if she had not been many times carried away by one or other of her insolent lovers: whereas a beauty in this could not pass through the hands of several different ravishers, without bringing an imputation on her chastity.
The same actions which made a man a hero in those times would constitute him a murderer in these—And the same steps which led him to a throne then, would infallibly conduct him to a scaffold now.
But custom, madam, said Arabella, cannot possibly change the nature of virtue or vice: and since virtue is the chief characteristic of a hero, a hero in the last age will be a hero in this—Though the natures of virtue or vice cannot be changed, replied the countess, yet they may be mistaken; and different principles, customs, and education, may probably change their names, if not their natures.
Sure, madam, said Arabella a little moved, you do not intend by this inference to prove Oroondates, Artaxerxes, Juba, Artaban, and the other heroes of antiquity bad men?
Judging them by the rules of Christianity, and our present notions of honour, justice, and humanity, they certainly are, replied the countess.
Did they not possess all the necessary qualifications of heroes, madam, said Arabella, and each in a superlative degree? Was not their valour invincible, their generosity unbounded, and their fidelity inviolable?
It cannot be denied, said the countess, but that their valour was invincible; and many thousand men less courageous than themselves, felt the fatal effects of that invincible valour, which was perpetually seeking after occasions to exert itself. Oroondates gave many extraordinary proofs of that unbounded generosity so natural to the heroes of his time. This prince being sent by the king his father, at the head of an army, to oppose the Persian monarch, who had unjustly invaded his dominions, and was destroying the lives and properties of his subjects; having taken the wives and daughters of his enemy prisoners, had by these means an opportunity to put a period to a war so destructive to his country: yet out of a generosity truly heroic, he released them immediately without any conditions; and falling in love with one of those princesses, secretly quitted his father's court, resided several years in that of the enemy of his father and country, engaged himself to his daughter, and when the war broke out again between the two kings, fought furiously against an army in which the king his father was in person, and shed the blood of his future subjects without remorse; though each of those subjects, we are told, would have sacrificed his life to save that of their prince, so much was he beloved. Such are the actions which immortalize the heroes of romance, and are by the authors of those books styled glorious, godlike, and divine. Yet judging of them as Christians, we shall find them impious and base, and directly opposite to our present notions of moral and relative duties.