For my own part," continued she, "I never was in love yet,
nor, I believe, were any of these young ladies." (Miss Cope looked a
little silly upon this.) "And who can better instruct us to guard _our
hearts_, than a lady who has so well defended _her own_?"
"Why then, Madam, if I must speak, I think, what gives the other sex
the greatest advantage over even many of the most deserving ones,
is that dangerous foible, the _love of praise_, and the desire to be
_flattered_ and _admired_, a passion I have observed to predominate,
more or less, from sixteen to sixty, in most of our sex. We are too
generally delighted with the company of those who extol our graces of
person or mind: for, will not a _grateful_ lady study hard to return
a_ few_ compliments to a gentleman who makes her so _many_! She is
concerned to _prove_ him a man of distinguished sense, or a polite
man, at least, in regard to what she _thinks_ of herself; and so the
flatterer shall be preferred to such of the sincere and worthy, as
cannot say what they do not think. And by this means many an excellent
lady has fallen a prey to some sordid designer.
"Then, I think, nothing can give gentlemen so much advantage over our
sex, as to see how readily a virtuous lady can forgive the capital
faults of the most abandoned of the other; and that sad, sad notion,
_that a reformed rake makes the best husband_; a notion that has
done more hurt, and discredit too, to our sex (as it has given more
encouragement to the profligate, and more discouragement to the sober
gentlemen), than can be easily imagined.
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