the emotions raised by the expectation of new conquests, endeavour
to forget the mortification her love or pride has received? When
the husband ceases to be a lover--and the time will inevitably
come, her desire of pleasing will then grow languid, or become a
spring of bitterness; and love, perhaps, the most evanescent of all
passions, gives place to jealousy or vanity.

I now speak of women who are restrained by principle or prejudice;
such women though they would shrink from an intrigue with real
abhorrence, yet, nevertheless, wish to be convinced by the homage
of gallantry, that they are cruelly neglected by their husbands;
or, days and weeks are spent in dreaming of the happiness enjoyed
by congenial souls, till the health is undermined and the spirits
broken by discontent. How then can the great art of pleasing be
such a necessary study? it is only useful to a mistress; the chaste
wife, and serious mother, should only consider her power to please
as the polish of her virtues, and the affection of her husband as
one of the comforts that render her task less difficult, and her
life happier. But, whether she be loved or neglected, her first
wish should be to make herself respectable, and not rely for all
her happiness on a being subject to like infirmities with herself.

The amiable Dr. Gregory fell into a similar error. I respect his
heart; but entirely disapprove of his celebrated Legacy to his
Daughters.

He advises them to cultivate a fondness for dress, because a
fondness for dress, he asserts, is natural to them. I am unable to
comprehend what either he or Rousseau mean, when they frequently
use this indefinite term. If they told us, that in a pre-existent