Page:Vindication Women's Rights (Wollstonecraft).djvu/189

Rh acred tak. He denies woman reaon, huts her out from knowledge, and turns her aide from truth; yet his pardon is granted, becaue 'he admits the paion of love.' It would require ome ingenuity to hew why women were to be under uch an obligation to him for thus admitting love; when it is clear that he admits it only for the relaxation of men, and to perpetuate the pecies; but he talked with paion, and that powerful pell worked on the enibility of a young encomiat. 'What ignifies it,' purues this rhapodit, 'to women, that his reaon diputes with them the empire, when his heart is devotedly theirs.' It is not empire,—but equality, that they hould contend for. Yet, if they only wihed to lengthen out their way, they hould not entirely trut to their perons, for though beauty may gain a heart, it cannot keep it, even while the beauty is in full bloom, unles the mind lend, at leat, ome graces.

When women are once ufficiently enlightened to dicover their real interet, on a grand cale, they will, I am peruaded, be very ready to reign all the prerogatives of love, that are not mutual, peaking of them as lating prerogatives, for the calm atisfaction of friendhip, and the tender confidence of habitual eteem. Before marriage they will not aume any inolent airs, nor afterwards abjectly ubmit; but endeavouring to act like reaonable creatures, in both ituations, they will not be tumbled from a throne to a tool.

Madame Genlis has written everal entertaining books for children; and her Letters on Education afford many ueful hints, that enible Rh