SPEAKING of Moses, I cannot forbear observing, that the primitive plan of felicity infinitely surpasses all others; and I cannot form an idea Of paradise, more like a paradise, than the state in which our first parents were placed: That proved of short duration, because they were unacquainted with the world; and it is for the same reason, that so few love matches prove happy. Eve was like a silly child, and Adam was not much enlightened. When such people come together, their being amorous is to no purpose, for their affections must necessarily be short-lived. In the transports of their love, they form supernatural ideas of each other. The man thinks his mistress an angel, because she is handsome; and she is enraptured with the merit of her lover, because he adores her. The first decay of her complexion deprives her of his adoration; and the husband, being no longer an adorer, becomes hateful to her who had no other foundation for her love. By degrees, they grow disgustful (sic) to each other; and, after the example of our first parents, they do not fail to reproach each other With the crime of their mutual imbecillity (sic). After indifference, contempt comes apace, and they are convinced, that they must hate each other, because they are married. Their smallest defects swell in each other's view, and they grow blind to those charms, which, in any other object, would affect them. A commerce founded merely on sensation can be attended with no other consequences.
A MAN, when he marries the object of his affections, should forget that she appears to him adorable, and should consider her merely as a mortal, subject to disorders, caprice, and ill temper; he should arm himself with fortitude, to bear the loss of her beauty, and should provide himself with a fund of complaisance, which is requisite to support a constant intercourse with a person, even of the highest understanding and the greatest equanimity. The wife, on the other hand, should not expect a continued course of adulation and obedience, she should dispose herself to obey in her turn with a good grace: A science very difficult to attain, and consequently the more estimable in the opinion of a man who is sensible of the merit. She should endeavour to revive the charms of the mistress, by the solidity and good sense of the friend.
WHEN a pair who entertain such rational sentiments, are united by indissoluble bonds, all nature smiles upon them, and the most common objects appear delightful. In, my opinion, such a life is infinitely more happy and more voluptuous, than the most ravishing and best regulated gallantry.
A WOMAN who is capable of reflection, can consider a gallant in no other light than that of a seducer, who would take advantage of her weakness, to procure a momentary pleasure, at the expence of her glory, her peace, her honour, and perhaps, her life. A highwayman, who claps a pistol to your breast, to rob you of your purse, is less dishonest and less guilty; and I have so good an opinion of myself, as to believe, that if I was a man, I should be as capable of assuming the character of an assassin, as that of defiling an honest woman, esteemed in the world, and happy in her husband, by inspiring her with a passion, to which she must sacrifice her honour, her tranquillity, and her virtue.
SHOULD I make her despicable, who appears amiable in my eyes? Should I reward her tenderness, by making her abhorred by her family, by rendering her children indifferent to her, and her husband detestible (sic)? I believe that these reflections would have appeared to me in as strong a light, if my sex had not rendered them excusable in such cases; and I hope, that I should have had more sense, than to imagine vice the less vicious, because it is the fashion.
N. B. I AM much pleased with the Turkish manners; a people, though ignorant, yet, in my judgment, extremely polite. A gallant, convicted of having debauched a married Woman, is regarded as a pernicious being, and held in the same abhorrence as a prostitute with us. He is certain of never making his fortune; and they would deem it scandalous to confer any considerable employment on a man suspected of having committed such enormous injustice.
WHAT would these moral people think of our antiknights-errant, who are ever in pursuit of adventures to reduce innocent virgins to distress, and to rob virtuous women of their honour; who regard beauty, youth, rank, nay virtue itself, as so many incentives, which inflame their desires, and render their efforts more eager; and who, priding themselves in the glory of appearing expert seducers, forget, that with all their endeavours, they can only acquire the second rank in that noble order, the devil having long since been in possession of the first?
OUR barbarous manners are so well calculated for the establishment of vice and wretchedness, which are ever inseparable, that it requires a degree of understanding and sensibility, infinitely above the common, to relish the felicity of a marriage, such as I have described. Nature is so weak, and so prone to change, that it is difficult to maintain the best grounded constancy, in the midst of those dissipations, which our ridiculous customs have rendered unavoidable.
IT must pain an amorous husband, to see his wife take all the fashionable liberties; it seems harsh not to allow them; and, to be conformable, he is reduced to the necessity of letting every one take them that will; to hear her impart the charms of her understanding to all the world, to see her display her bosom at noon-day, to behold her bedeck herself for the ball, and for the play, and attract a thousand and a thousand (sic) adorers, and listen to the insipid flattery of a thousand and a thousand coxcombs. Is it possible to preserve an esteem for such a creature? or, at least, must not her value be greatly diminished by such a commerce?
I MUST still resort to the maxims of the East, where the most beautiful women are content to confine the power of their charms to him who has a right to enjoy them; and they are too sincere, not to confess, that they think themselves capable of exciting desires.