oice in her and be
thankful."[130]

Love was hardly distinguished from mere animal desire. The poets wrote
of it coldly and conventionally, as of a thing which existed only in
name. The lover could only beg his mistress "to ease his pain." But the
conventionality which extended through all thoughts and expressions
relating to the higher emotions of the human soul, had no effect in
diminishing the coarseness of thought and conversation. Men were
conventional as regards the nobler sentiments of life, but they were
not conventional in the spirit which excludes from conversation and
literature the gross and the immoral. Chesterfield wrote to his son of
honor, justice, and so forth, as qualities of which he should know the
names, but of no consequence compared to "manners, good-breeding, and
the graces." If a man blushed, it was not at his own indecency, nor at
his own vice, but at the supposition that he could be so weak as to be
influenced by sentiments of delicacy. Coarseness is, of course, quite
separate from immorality, although the two are usually found together.
In the earlier part of the eighteenth century there was a marked
distinction between them. Swift's Stella, a woman of refinement, was
highly indignant at remarks being made before her of a licentious
character, but she herself used expressions of the grossest description
without a thought of impropriety. The same distinction is seen in the
essays and novels of the time. Swift, Defoe, Fielding, Richardson, all
had a moral object in their fictions--the exposure and condemnation of
vice, the encouragement of virtue. And yet most of these novels,
especially intended to exert a good influence, are of so coarse a
nature, and describe scenes so licentious that no parent would now
allow them in their children's hands. The essayists wrote principally
what we should now look upon as sermons, or moral teachings, and yet
very many of their papers are unfit to be read in a mixed society. Men
and women were made then of coarser stuff than we. Their eyes and ears
were less sensitive. They were, at best, accustomed to think and speak
of things which to us seem disgusting, and of which, therefore, we
think and speak as little as possible. In view of the circumstances
which influenced society in the last century, this condition was a
perfectly natural one. We must bear it in mind in reading contemporary
literature, that we may not mistake an author's intention. But we must
be