ALDA.

I abhor the spirit of ridicule--I dread it and I despise it. I abhor it
because it is in direct contradiction to the mild and serious spirit of
Christianity; I fear it, because we find that in every state of society
in which it has prevailed as a fashion, and has given the tone to the
manners and literature, it marked the moral degradation and approaching
destruction of that society; and I despise it, because it is the usual
resource of the shallow and the base mind, and, when wielded by the
strongest hand with the purest intentions, an inefficient means of good.
The spirit of satire reversing the spirit of mercy which is twice
blessed, seems to me twice accursed;--evil in those who indulge it--evil
to those who are the objects of it.

MEDON.

"Peut-etre fallait-il que la punition des imprudens et des faibles fut
confiee a la malignite, car la pure vertu n'eut jamais ete assez
cruelle."

ALDA.

That is a woman's sentiment.

MEDON.

True--it _was_; and I have pleasure in reminding you that a female
satirist by profession is yet an anomaly in the history of our
literature, as a female schismatic is yet unknown in the history of our
religion. But to what do you attribute the number of satirical women we
meet in society?

ALDA.

Not to our nature; but to a state of society in which the levelling
spirit of _persiflage_ has been long a fashion; to the perverse
education which fosters it; to affections disappointed or unemployed,
which embitter the temper; to faculties misdirected or wasted, which
oppress and irritate the mind; to an utter ignorance of ourselves, and
the common lot of humanity, combined with quick and refined perceptions
and much superficial cultivation; to frivolous habits, which make
serious thought a burden, and serious feeling a bane if suppressed, if
betrayed, a ridicule. Women, generally speaking, are by nature too much
subjected to suffering in many forms--have too much of fancy and
sensibility, and too much of that faculty which some philosophers call
_veneration_, to be naturally satirical. I have known but one woman
eminently gifted in mind and person, who is also distinguished for
powers of satire as bold as merciless; and she is such a compound of all
that nature can give of good, and all that society can teach of evil--

MEDON.

That she reminds us of the dragon