Or the persecutions which made that of the fair Elisa miserable?
Or, in fine, the various distresses of many other fair and virtuous princesses: such as those which happened to Olympia, Bellamira, Parisatis, Berenice, Amalazontha, Agione, Albysinda, Placidia, Arsinoe, Deidamia, and a thousand others I could mention.
To the names of many of these illustrious sufferers I am an absolute stranger, replied the doctor.
The rest I faintly remember some mention of in those contemptible volumes with which children are sometimes injudiciously suffered to amuse their imaginations; but which I little expected to hear quoted by your ladyship in a serious discourse.
And though I am very far from catching occasions of resentment, yet I think myself at liberty to observe, that if I merited your censure for one indelicate epithet, we have engaged on very unequal terms, if I may not likewise complain of such contemptuous ridicule as you are pleased to exercise upon my opinions by opposing them with the authority of scribblers, not only of fictions, but of senseless fictions; which at once vitiate the mind and pervert the understanding; and which if they are at any time read with safety, owe their innocence only to their absurdity.
From these books, sir, said Arabella, which you condemn with so much ardour, though you acknowledge yourself little acquainted with them, I have learnt not to recede from the conditions I have granted, and shall not therefore censure the licence of your language, which glances from the books upon the readers.
These books, sir, thus corrupt, thus absurd, thus dangerous alike to the intellect and morals, I have read; and that I hope without injury to my judgment, or my virtue.
The doctor, whose vehemence had hindered him from discovering all the consequences of his position, now found himself entangled, and replied in a submissive tone—
I confess, madam, my words imply an accusation very remote from my intention.
It has always been the rule of my life, not to justify any words or actions because they are mine.