It is a well-attested fact, especially since the sacred precincts of
established truth have been raided by every puerile pedant and
sciolist who can handle a pen, that any absurdity whatever, so long as
it is clad "in the lion's skin" and no matter how loudly it brays, has
some fatal claim upon the rambling credulity of the multitude. And a
method of reasoning, though resting upon a general assertion which is
utterly false, has won its own disciples time and again with an easy
effort.

Even in this trifling stigma which denies us women the privilege of
being faithful to one another it is easy to see how a fraction of
truth has been led astray. It is the outgrowth of a high-sounding
syllogism, which deduces the sweeping general assertion that "all
women are traitors" from the more limited one, which is unfortunately
true and deplorable, that some women are traitors. Nevertheless, I
fail to see what relationship can possibly exist between the two parts
of the syllogism. The general is as undeniably false as the particular
is undeniably true.

I cannot conceive what pleasure human beings can derive from a
conviction into which they have coaxed themselves by earnest labor,
which has for its object the total destruction of their natural and
simple faith in their fellow creatures. We are all of us innocent
until by our words or deeds we are branded guilty And we have an
unquestionable right to the respect of other men so long as it has not
been forfeited by such actions as are reckoned misdemeanors in the
social world.

Hortense de Beaumont and I signed our treaty of friendship before we
had, either of us, awakened to a suspicion of those probable