m. What am I saying? Am I so bold as to play the
iconoclast with an accredited superstition? What temerity! Do I not
deserve to be persecuted by all women for attacking their favorite
cult?

I am sorry for them; it was so lovely, when they felt the movements of
love, to be exempt from blushing, to be able even to congratulate
themselves, and lay the blame upon the operations of a god. But what
had poor humanity done to them? Why misunderstand it and seek for the
cause of its weakness in the Heavens? Let us remain on earth, we shall
find it there, and it is its proper home.

In truth, I have never in my letters openly declaimed against love; I
have never advised you not to take the blame of it. I was too well
persuaded of the uselessness of such advice; but I told you what love
is, and I therefore diminished the illusion it would not have failed
to create in your mind; I weakened its power over you and experience
will justify me.

I am perfectly well aware that a very different use is made of it in
the education of females. And what sort of profit is there in the
methods employed? The very first step is to deceive them. Their
teachers strive to inspire them with as much fear of love as of evil
spirits. Men are depicted as monsters of infidelity and perfidy. Now
suppose a gentleman appears who expresses delicate sentiments, whose
bearing is modest and respectful? The young woman with whom he
converses will believe she has been imposed upon; and as soon as she
discovers how much exaggeration there has been, her advisers will lose
all credit so far as she is concerned. Interrogate such a young woman,
and if she is sincere, you will find that the sentiments the alleged
monster has excited in her heart are far from being the sentiments of
horror.

They are deceived in another manner also, and the misery of it is, it
is almost impossible to avoid it. Infinite care is taken to keep from
them the knowledge, to prevent them from having even an idea that they
are liable to be attacked by the senses, and that such attacks are the
most dangerous of all for them. They are drilled in the idea that they
are immaculate spirits, and what happens then? Inasmuch as they have
never been forewarned of the species of attacks they must encounter,
they are left without defense. They have never mistrusted that their
most redoubtable enemy is the one that has never been mentioned: how
then can they be on their guard against him? It is not me