Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/373

Rh and goodness, and both can suffice without physical beauty; they can even conciliate one with homeliness, or shall I say that they actually preclude homeliness? Just as there is no true physical beauty, without the expression of soul, so the expression of the soul can compensate for the lack of physical beauty. These two indispensable qualities, grace and goodness, can bestow advantages and charms to a woman under circumstances and at a period of life when a man sees his disappear or turn into their opposites. There are few fathers, who, at an advanced age, can still inspire their children with interest in them, while the filial love for a mother, especially that of sons, can increase with her age.

On this occasion I should also like to protest against the prejudice, confirmed by many facts, that the physical charms of a woman are a necessary condition for the duration of man's love. To be sure, it cannot be a matter of indifference to any man, whether the object of his regard retains or loses the agreeable appearance which she possessed in Schiller's "beautiful time of young love;" but if he cannot fold her in his arms as tenderly after she has become the emaciated inmate of the sickbed, as he embraced her on the bridal couch, then he lies when he asserts that he ever really loved her. But it is a sad fact that most men, as they are now educated, lose the capacity for true love, together with the true respect for women, before they have had any opportunity to test this love.