Note 18: — Chapter XII

'Why call woman, miserable, oppressed, and impotent, woman—crushed, and then insulted—why call her to independence—which not nature, but the barbarous and accursed laws of society, have denied her? This is mockery! Even you, wise and benevolent as you are, can mock the child of slavery and sorrow! "Excluded, as it were, by the pride, luxury, and caprice, of the world, from expanding my sensations, and wedding my soul to society, I was constrained to bestow the strong affections, that glowed consciously within me, upon a few."18 Love, in minds of any elevation, cannot be generated but upon a real, or fancied, foundation of excellence. But what would be a miracle in architecture, is true in morals—the fabric can exist when the foundation has mouldered away. Habit daily produces this wonderful effect upon every feeling, and every principle. Is not this the theory which you have taught me?