to cry, "Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my imagination."
The essence of the absurdity now under consideration was dissimulation, and dissimulation was, we find, exalted by these writers as the pole-star to the wandering bark of women's lives. As indicated by these sages, womanly prudence and virtue consist in one long series of pretences. Behaviour, appearance, decorum, the applause of Mrs. Grundy, “constant attention to keep the varnish fresh," are set before women as ends to be sedulously sought for on account of their bearing on the grand aim of women's existence, the admiration of the other sex. To this end everything else was subordinated. Even piety is recommended in one of Dr. Fordyce's sermons, not because it bends the whole power of the nature more intently on its duty to God and man, but because piety is becoming to the face and figure. He recommends holiness as a cosmetic. “Never," exclaims the preacher, “perhaps, does a fine woman strike more deeply than when composed into pious recollection; . . . she assumes, without knowing it, superior dignity, and new graces; so that the beauties of holiness seem to radiate about her." On this passage Mary Wollstonecraft exclaims that the intrusion of the idea of conquest and admiration as influencing a woman at her devotions, gives her a "sickly qualm." Profanation could hardly go lower than this; but there was much more modelled on the same pattern. Cowardice, as well as physical weakness, was regarded as part of what every woman ought to aim at. Ignorance was likewise extolled.
