Page:Vindication Women's Rights (Wollstonecraft).djvu/92

86 they act contrary to their real interet on an enlarged cale, when they cherih or affect weaknes under the name of delicacy, and to convince the world that the poioned ource of female vices and follies, if it be neceary, in compliance with cutom, to ue ynonymous terms in a lax ene, has been the enual homage paid to beauty:—to beauty of features; for it has been hrewdly oberved by a German writer, that a pretty woman, as an object of deire, is generally allowed to be o by men of all decriptions; whilt a fine woman, who inpires more ublime emotions by diplaying intellectual beauty, may be overlooked or oberved with indifference, by thoe men who find their happines in the gratification of their appetites. I foreee an obvious retort—whilt man remains uch an imperfect being as he appears hitherto to have been, he will, more or les, be the lave of his appetites; and thoe women obtaining mot power who gratify a predominant one, the ex is degraded by a phyical, if not by a moral neceity.

This objection has, I grant, ome force; but while uch a ublime precept exits, as, 'be pure as your heavenly Father is pure;' it would eem that the virtues of man are not limited by the Being who alone could limit them; and that he may pres forward without conidering whether he teps out of his phere by indulging uch a noble ambition. To the wild billows it has been aid, 'thus far halt thou go, and no further; and here hall thy proud waves be tayed.' Vainly then do they beat and foam, retrained by the power that confines the truggling planets in their&ensp;