gacity of the Orientals in the art of pleasure is altogether
expressed by this ordinance of the caliph Hakim, founder of the
Druses, who forbade, under pain of death, the making in his
kingdom of any shoes for women. It seems that over the whole
globe the tempests of the heart wait only to break out after the
limbs are at rest!"

What an admirable manoeuvre it would be to make a wife dance, and to
feed her on vegetables!

Do not believe that these observations, which are as true as they are
wittily stated, contradict in any way the system which we have
previously prescribed; by the latter, as by the former, we succeed in
producing in a woman that needed listlessness, which is the pledge of
repose and tranquility. By the latter you leave a door open, that the
enemy may flee; by the former, you slay him.

Now at this point it seems to us that we hear timorous people and
those of narrow views rising up against our idea of hygiene in the
name of morality and sentiment.

"Is not woman endowed with a soul? Has she not feelings as we have?
What right has any one, without regard to her pain, her ideas, or her
requirements, to hammer her out, as a cheap metal, out of which a
workman fashions a candlestick or an extinguisher? Is it because the
poor creatures are already so feeble and miserable that a brute claims
the power to torture them, merely at the dictate of his own fancies,
which may be more or less just? And, if by this weakening or heating
system of yours, which draws out, softens, hardens the fibres, you
cause frightful and cruel sickness, if you bring to the tomb a woman
who is dear to you; if, if,--"

This is our answer:

Have you never noticed into how many different shapes harlequin and
columbine change their little white hats? They turn and twist them so
well that they become, one after another, a spinning-top, a boat, a
wine-glass, a half-moon, a cap, a basket, a fish, a whip, a dagger, a
baby, and a man's head.

This is an exact image of the despotism with which you ought to shape
and reshape your wife.

The wife is a piece of property, acquired by contract; she is part of
your furniture, for possession is nine-tenths of the law; in fact, the
woman is not, to speak correctly, anything but an adjunct to the man;
therefore abridge, cut, file this article as you choose; she is in
every sense yours. Take no notice at all of her murmurs, of her cries,
of her sufferings; nature has ordained her f