A
solitary philosopher would imagine ladies born with an exemption from
care and sorrow, lulled in perpetual quiet, and feasted with unmingled
pleasure; for what can interrupt the content of those, upon whom one age
has laboured after another to confer honours, and accumulate immunities;
those to whom rudeness is infamy, and insult is cowardice; whose eye
commands the brave, and whose smiles soften the severe; whom the sailor
travels to adorn, the soldier bleeds to defend, and the poet wears out
life to celebrate; who claim tribute from every art and science, and for
whom all who approach them endeavour to multiply delights, without
requiring from them any returns but willingness to be pleased?
Surely, among these favourites of nature, thus unacquainted with toil
and danger, felicity must have fixed her residence; they must know only
the changes of more vivid or more gentle joys: their life must always
move either to the slow or sprightly melody of the lyre of gladness;
they can never assemble but to pleasure, or retire but to peace.
Such would be the thoughts of every man who should hover at a distance
round the world, and know it only by conjecture and speculation. But
experience will soon discover how easily those are disgusted who have
been made nice by plenty and tender by indulgence.
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