Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/42

26 models of noble manhood by the ladies, is due to those senseless romanticists who have sought for the spirit of poesy in opposition to reason. Otherwise it would have been obvious to every child that a man made up of vulgarity from top to toe, whose only study consisted in riding and killing, was not capable of any truly noble attachment to woman, even if, through the fashionable exaggeration of a coxcombical gallantry, he should have reached such a stage of eccentricity as to allow himself to be despatched out of the world for the sake of his lady-love. How delicate the sentiments of these heroes were in practice is shown by the fact that when they had to absent themselves from home for the purpose of slaying, they would place a solidly wrought lock on the adored body of their "noble lady" in order to facilitate her leading a chaste life.

What the knights were as lovers, the minstrels in many respects were as poets of love. The object in view rarely was to give poetic expression of real sentiments which could bear the test of reason, but as a rule only the versified exaggeration of an artificial emotion, in order to satisfy the prevailing fashion. Thus as gallantry and killing were the stereotyped modes of amusement, so the poetical praise of these arts was also treated as an entertaining handicraft. Women could not find a true recognition and appreciation