Note 123 — Chapter IX · The Old Maid and Her Relation to Society

Speaking of the prostitute Lecky says: “But for her, the unchallenged purity of countless happy homes would be polluted, and not a few who, in their pride of untempted chastity, think of her with an indignant shudder, would have known the agony of remorse and despair. On that one degraded and ignoble form are concentrated the passions that might have filled the world with shame” (History of European Morals, London, 1899, Vol. II, p. 283).