practise the most rigid, or contract debts, which I had too
much reason to fear would never be paid. I despised this paltry privilege
of a wife, which can only be of use to the vicious or inconsiderate, and
determined not to increase the torrent that was bearing him down. I was
then ignorant of the extent of his fraudulent speculations, whom I was
bound to honour and obey.

"A woman neglected by her husband, or whose manners form a striking
contrast with his, will always have men on the watch to soothe and
flatter her. Besides, the forlorn state of a neglected woman, not
destitute of personal charms, is particularly interesting, and rouses
that species of pity, which is so near akin, it easily slides into love.
A man of feeling thinks not of seducing, he is himself seduced by all the
noblest emotions of his soul. He figures to himself all the sacrifices a
woman of sensibility must make, and every situation in which his
imagination places her, touches his heart, and fires his passions.
Longing to take to his bosom the shorn lamb, and bid the drooping buds of
hope revive, benevolence changes into passion: and should he then
discover that he is beloved, honour binds him fast, though foreseeing
that he may afterwards be obliged to pay severe damages to the man, who
never appeared to value his wife's society, till he found that there was
a chance of his being indemnified for the loss of it.

"Such are the partial laws enacted by men; for, only to lay a stress on
the dependent state of a woman in the grand question of the comforts
arising from the possession of property, she is [even in this article]
much more injured by the loss of the husband's affection, than he by that
of his wife; yet where is she, condemned to the solitude of a deserted
home, to look for a compensation from the woman, who seduces him from
her? She cannot drive an unfaithful husband from his house, nor separate,
or tear, his children from him, however culpable he may be; and he, still
the master of his own fate, enjoys the smiles of a world, that would
brand her with infamy, did she, seeking consolation, venture to
retaliate.

"These remarks are not dictated by experience; but merely by the
compassion I feel for many amiable women, the _out-laws_ of the world.
For myself, never encouraging any of the advances that were made to me,
my lovers dropped off like the untimely shoots of spring. I did not even
coquet with them; because I found, on examining my