Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 1.djvu/68

56 be so good as to inform me, why you make this distinction? Is it that you think she has no virtue?"

"Assuredly not."

"Well, but you affirm that virtue is only elicited by temptation;—and you think that a woman cannot be too little exposed to temptation, or too little acquainted with vice, or any thing connected therewith—It must be, either, that you think she is essentially so vicious, or so feeble-minded that she cannot withstand temptation,—and though she may be pure and innocent as long as she is kept in ignorance and restraint, yet, being destitute of real virtue, to teach her how to sin, is it at once to make her a sinner, and the greater her knowledge, the wider her liberty, the deeper will be her depravity,—whereas, in the nobler sex, there is a natural tendency to goodness, guarded by a superior fortitude, which, the more it is exercised by trials and dangers, is only the further developed—"