betraying the least disgust or
uneasiness at his appearance, holds a long conversation with
him, calls back her fugitive companions, and reprimands them
very sharply for their timorousness. Had such an adventure,
Sir, happened to your Harriet, how do you think she would
have behaved? she who was not able, without the utmost
palpitation, nor unless her trembling hand had been guided,
to sign the marriage articles with her beloved Grandison.
Instead of giving assistance to the naked hero, she would
have wanted help herself; the _dear creature_ would have
fainted away. Among the northern nations in America, who
lead a simple life, and where conjugal fidelity is very
strictly observed, it is customary for parents to provide
their guests with companions for the night in the persons of
their daughters. They reckon it a necessary branch of
hospitable duty, and the young ladies think themselves
affronted, if their embraces are rejected. Had Pamela and
Clarissa been bred up near the great lake of Hurons, they
would have gone to bed to Booby and Lovelace, without any
scruple, had they come to their father's houses, in the
character of English envoys; and had an Iroquois damsel
received her education in Northamptonshire, under the wings
of grandmamma Shirley, and kept company constantly with Lucy
and Nancy Selby, she would have been as delicate as Harriet
herself. From whence does this mighty difference proceed,
among creatures of the same species, all endued with the
same passions, appetites, and desires? Undoubtedly from
custom, habit, and education; and the reason that women of
candid and open dispositions, who can freely examine into
themselves, are never sensible of it, and cannot make the
discovery, is this; they feel these principles immoveably
rooted in their minds, and they had received them so early,
that they never remember the time when they had them not.
This chastity, this delicacy, _&c._ may probably enough be
termed political; some people have reckoned it the meer
invention of the statesman or politician; but, as I observed
before, its fitness and propriety are founded on the nature
of things and of human society. In all societies there are
families, inheritances, and distinctions of ranks and
orders. To keep these separate and distinct, to prevent them
from falling into confusion, on all which the good oeconomy
and internal happiness of the state much depend, the
chastity and continence of women are absolutel