Page:Vindication Women's Rights (Wollstonecraft).djvu/233

Rh figure, their perons, much would be done towards the attainment of purity of mind. But women only dres to gratify men of gallantry; for the lover is always bet pleaed with the imple garb that fits cloe to the hape. There is an impertinence in ornaments that rebuffs affection; becaue love always clings round the idea of home.

As a ex, women are habitually indolent; and every thing tends to make them o. I do not forget the purts of activity which enibility produces; but as thee flights of feelings only increae the evil, they are not to be confounded with the low, orderly walk of reaon. So great in reality is their mental and bodily indolence, that till their body be trengthened and their undertanding enlarged by active exertions, there is little reaon to expect that modety will take place of bahfulnes. They may find it prudent to aume its emblance; but the fair veil will only be worn on gala days.

Perhaps there is not a virtue that mixes o kindly with every other as modety.—It is the pale moon-beam that renders more intereting every virtue it oftens, giving mild grandeur to the contracted horizon. Nothing can be more beautiful than the poetical fiction, which makes Diana with her ilver crecent, the goddes of chatity. I have ometimes thought, that wandering with edate tep in ome lonely reces, a modet dame of antiquity mut have felt a glow of concious dignity when, after contemplating the oft hadowy landcape, he has invited with placid fervour the mild reflection of her iters beams to turn to her chate boom. Rh