Page:Vindication Women's Rights (Wollstonecraft).djvu/254

248 Fale, indeed, mut be the light when the drapery of ituation hides the man, and makes him talk in maquerade, dragging from one cene of diipation to another the nerveles limbs that hang with tupid litneneslistlessness [sic], and rolling round the vacant eye which plainly tells us that there is no mind at home.

I mean, therefore, to infer that the ociety is not properly organized which does not compel men and women to dicharge their repective duties, by making it the only way to acquire that countenance from their fellow-creatures, which every human being wihes ome way to attain. The repect, conequently, which is paid to wealth and mere peronal charms, is a true northeat blat, that blights the tender blooms of affection and virtue. Nature has wiely attached affections to duties, to weeten toil, and to give that vigour to the exertions of reaon which only the heart can give. But, the affection which is put on merely becaue it is the appropriated inignia of a certain character, when its duties are not fulfilled, is one of the empty compliments which vice and folly are obliged to pay to virtue and the real nature of things.

To illutrate my opinion, I need only oberve, that when a woman is admired for her beauty, and uffers herelf to be o far intoxicated by the admiration he receives, as to neglect to dicharge the indipenable duty of a mother, he ins againt herelf by neglecting to cultivate an affection that would equally tend to make her ueful and happy. True happines, I mean all the contentment, and virtuous atisfaction, that can be natched in this&ensp;