and those which we fear the least are, peradventure, most to be feared;
their sins that make the least noise are the worst:

"Offendor maecha simpliciore minus."

["I am less offended with a more professed strumpet."
--Idem, vi. 7,6.]

There are ways by which they may lose their virginity without
prostitution, and, which is more, without their knowledge:

"Obsterix, virginis cujusdam integritatem manu velut explorans, sive
malevolentia, sive inscitia, sive casu, dum inspicit, perdidit."

["By malevolence, or unskilfulness, or accident, the midwife,
seeking with the hand to test some maiden's virginity, has sometimes
destroyed it."--St. Augustine, De Civit. Dei, i. 18.]

Such a one, by seeking her maidenhead, has lost it; another by playing
with it has destroyed it. We cannot precisely circumscribe the actions,
we interdict them; they must guess at our meaning under general and
doubtful terms; the very idea we invent for their chastity is ridiculous:
for, amongst the greatest patterns that I have is Fatua, the wife of
Faunus: who never, after her marriage, suffered herself to be seen by any
man whatever; and the wife of Hiero, who never perceived her husband's
stinking breath, imagining that it was common to all men. They must
become insensible and invisible to satisfy us.

Now let us confess that the knot of this judgment of duty principally