Note 339 — Chapter II · MORAL INFLUENCE

Women “may accept of our service unto a certain measure, and make us honestly perceive how they disdain us not; for the law which enjoineth them to abhor us, because we adore them, and to hate us forasmuch as we love them, is doubtless very cruel.... A queen of our time said wittily that to refuse men’s kind summons is a testimony of much weakness, and an accusing of one’s own facility, and that an unattempted lady could not vaunt of her chastity.... If rareness be in any thing worthy estimation, it ought to be in this.” And again: “In my time, the pleasure of reporting and blabbing what one hath done (a pleasure not much short of the act itself in sweetness) was only allowed to such as had some assured, trusty and singular friend; whereas nowadays the ordinary entertainments and familiar discourses of meetings and at tables are the boastings of favours received, graces obtained, and secret liberalities of ladies. Verily it is too great an abjection and argueth a baseness of heart, so fiercely to suffer those tender, dainty, delicious joys to be persecuted, pelted and foraged by persons so ungrateful, so indiscreet, and so giddy-headed.” (Montaigne, Bk. III., cap. v.)