Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/216

200 Every day we read in books, and papers, the most beautiful effusions of masculine indignation, if some unworthy individual so degrades himself as to flatter some man of money or of power, or a party or even the populace, or sacrifices his principles to attain this or that egotistic aim. But those same moralizers, who condemn such degradation, are capable, at any moment, to deluge any woman who happens to attract their attention by rosy cheeks, or sparkling eyes, or a luxuriant figure, with flatteries and assurances, every letter of which is a hypocrisy, and every phrase of which contains a humiliation. And why? Often this mendacity is due to a mere habit, but for the most part it is meant to deceive, and to further low ends. Men who, in a circle of men, overflow with honor and character, degrade themselves to play the contemptible part of the hypocritical flatterer, before every pretty woman. For the sake of a glance, they become actors; for a kiss, they become rhetoricians; for a favor, they become valets de chambre. And as soon as they have gained their end, they at once rise from the position of valet de chambre to that of tyrant. But for all that, they are always "men!" But I say they are liars. .Either that is a lie, which they call honor, and character, before men, or its opposite, which they manifest before women, deserves the name. I at least cannot conceive how a man, who really possesses honor and character, can put it on and off as he pleases, like a badge, to signify whether he is associating with men or women.