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Untitled Article
nature , ) that they who are the first to resist a degrading wrong , are the last who would betray an honourable trust ; the same spirit which spurns the false , prizes the true ; and the mind most accessible to disgust from the mean , is the most susceptible to delight from the magnificent . My zeal may be warm , because
it is vital ; but it is worthy , because it embraces the best interests of all ; for the subject I advocate is the spring head of happiness . I know my inspiration , and am therefore above imputation ; I have the fond fearlessness of the surgeon who cuts to cure . If I stood upon a precipice and a plunge could save nay cause , I believe I have so much of the spirit of Decius , that I would make that plunge .
Some proof of this I may be allowed to say I have given . Reputation and reward rarely lie in the path of opposition . I have preferred trusting to the labour of the oar , rather than to taking advantage of the wind . My sheet-anchor is a spirit of independence which makes the hermit ' s fare sweeter to me than the parasite ' s feast . If I have little , I want even less , and thus am richer than those who have much , and want yet more .
Far be it from me , ( and , oh ! let this burst of egotism into which I have been betrayed , be forgiven me , ) far be it from me to violate any of the altars at which true devotion worships—to undervalue the beauty of fidelity , the grandeur of fortitude ,, the grace of patient endurance . But the character of passive , vapid , uninquiring , I may say unfeeling , amability impressed upon women , and from motives of policy praised into pre-eminence ,
comprehends none of these fine qualities—these primary colours of the moral prism . And , save in one case perhaps in a million , I deny the real existence of such a character . The faith , fondness , and forgiveness , which at last rewards the questionable reformation of the heart-harrowing rake—the marriage or reunion
which is deemed reward for all the suffering and sacrifices of woman—teaches that the moral ruffian docs enough , if at any time , and after any manner , he comes back to the path of decency ; and that he , with his fraction of affection and integrity , stands as high as she who has not one item of the whole sum of either blotted . This is the fatal and infectious code of fiction ! I
believe in my heart that Captain Macheath and Tom Jones , and such like heroes , have created more disciples to vice and dissipation than , if calculable , would be credible ; and whenever real life realizes these instances of uncomplaining , all loving , female martyrs , the refuge and reward of the unworthy , the state of
female slavery and dependence deserves the meed , not the natural and sincere feeling of the sex . Nature makes us shriek when we suffer agony , and smile when we experience joy ; they who c « m smile alike in both cases , must be more indebted to the discipline of art than the dictates of truth
Untitled Article
Female Education . 109
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1835, page 109, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2642/page/29/
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