Nevertheless, virtuous women there certainly are:
Yes, those who have never been tempted and those who die at their first child-birth, assuming that their husbands had married them virgins;
Yes, those who are ugly as the Kaifakatadary of the Arabian Nights;
Yes, those whom Mirabeau calls "fairy cucumbers" and who are composed of atoms exactly like those of strawberry and water-lily roots. Nevertheless, we need not believe that!
Further, we acknowledge that, to the credit of our age, we meet, ever since the revival of morality and religion and during our own times, some women, here and there, so moral, so religious, so devoted to their duties, so upright, so precise, so stiff, so virtuous, so—that the devil himself dare not even look at them; they are guarded on all sides by rosaries, hours of prayer and directors. Pshaw!
We will not attempt to enumerate the women who are virtuous from stupidity, for it is acknowledged that in love all women have intellect.
In conclusion, we may remark that it is not impossible that there exist in some corner of the earth women, young, pretty and virtuous, whom the world does not suspect.
But you must not give the name of virtuous woman to her who, in her struggle against an involuntary passion, has yielded nothing to her lover whom she idolizes. She does injury in the most cruel way in which it can possibly be done to a loving husband. For what remains to him of his wife? A thing without name, a living corpse. In the very midst of delight his wife remains like the guest who has been warned by Borgia that certain meats were poisoned; he felt no hunger, he ate sparingly or pretended to eat. He longed for the meat which he had abandoned for that provided by the terrible cardinal, and sighed for the moment when the feast was over and he could leave the table.
What is the result which these reflections on the feminine virtue lead to? Here they are; but the last two maxims have been given us by an eclectic philosopher of the eighteenth century.
XVIII.
A virtuous woman has in her heart one fibre less or one fibre more
than other women; she is either stupid or sublime.