Page:A father's legacy to his daughters - Gregory - 1808.djvu/131

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MARRIAGE.
105

gentleman's real sentiments. That may sometimes be the case. Sometimes they plead the decorum of their sex, which enjoins an equal behaviour to all men, and forbids them to consider any man as a lover till he has directly told them so.—Perhaps few women carry their ideas of female delicacy and decorum so far as I do. But I must say you are not intitled to plead the obligation of these virtues, in opposition to the superior ones of gratitude, justice, and humanity. The man is intitled to all these, who prefers you to the rest of your sex, and perhaps whose greatest weakness is this very preference.