Page:Vindication Women's Rights (Wollstonecraft).djvu/142

136 liberty of mind is neceary even to form the peron; and this may be one reaon why ome gentle wives have o few attractions beide that of ex. Add to this, edentary employments render the majority of women ickly—and fale notions of female excellence make them proud of this delicacy, though it be another fetter, that by calling the attention continually to the body, cramps the activity of the mind.

Women of quality eldom do any of the manual part of their dres, conequently only their tate is exercied, and they acquire, by thinking les of the finery, when the buines of their toilet is over, that eae, which eldom appears in the deportment of women, who dres merely for the ake of dreing. In fact, the obervation with repect to the middle rank, the one in which talents thrive bet, extends not to women; for thoe of the uperior clas, by catching, at leat, a mattering of literature, and convering more with men, on general topics, acquire more knowledge than the women who ape their fahions and faults without haring their advantages. With repect to virtue; to ue the word in a comprehenive ene, I have een mot in low life. Many poor women maintain their children by the weat of their brow, and keep together families that the vices of the fathers would have cattered abroad; but gentle-women are too indolent to be actively virtuous, and are oftened rather than refined by civilization. Indeed, the good ene which I have met with, among the poor women who have had few advantages of education, and yet have acted heroically, trongly firmed&ensp;