It might be that she was not true to these hopes. She was taken into
what is called "the world," froth and scum as it mostly is on the
social caldron. There, she saw fair Woman carried in the waltz close
to the heart of a being who appeared to her a Satyr. Being warned by a
male friend that he was in fact of that class, and not fit for such
familiar nearness to a chaste being, the advised replied that "women
should know nothing about such things." She saw one fairer given in
wedlock to a man of the same class. "Papa and mamma said that 'all men
were faulty at some time in their lives; they had a great many
temptations.' Frederick would be so happy at home; he would not want
to do wrong." She turned to the married women; they, O tenfold horror!
laughed at her supposing "men were like women." Sometimes, I say, she
was not true, and either sadly accommodated herself to "Woman's lot,"
or acquired a taste for satyr-society, like some of the Nymphs, and
all the Bacchanals of old. But to those who could not and would not
accept a mess of pottage, or a Circe cup, in lieu of their birthright,
and to these others who have yet their choice to make, I say, Courage!
I have some words of cheer for you. A man, himself of unbroken purity,
reported to me the words of a foreign artist, that "the world would
never be better till men subjected themselves to the same laws they
had imposed on women;" that artist, he added, was true to the thought.
The same was true of Canova, the same of Beethoven. "Like each other
demi-god, they kept themselves free from stain;" and Michael Angelo,
looking over here from the loneliness of his century, might meet some
eyes that need not shun his glance.

In private life, I am assured by men who are not so sustained and
occupied by the worship of pure beauty, that a similar consecration is
possible, is practised; that many men feel that no temptation can be