Yes, among the four hundred thousand honest women whom we have so carefully sifted out from all the European nations, we indulge the belief that there are a certain number, say three hundred thousand, who will be sufficiently self-willed, charming, adorable, and bellicose to raise the standard of Civil War.
To arms then, to arms!
THIRD PART
RELATING TO CIVIL WAR.
“Lovely as the seraphs of Klopstock,
Terrible as the devils of Milton.”
—DIDEROT.
MEDITATION XXIII.
OF MANIFESTOES.
The Preliminary precepts, by which science has been enabled at this point to put weapons into the hand of a husband, are few in number; it is not of so much importance to know whether he will be vanquished, as to examine whether he can offer any resistance in the conflict.
Meanwhile, we will set up here certain beacons to light up the arena where a husband is soon to find himself, in alliance with religion and law, engaged single-handed in a contest with his wife, who is supported by her native craft and the whole usages of society as her allies.
LXXXII.
Anything may be expected and anything may be supposed of a woman who is in love.