fairy cucumbers" and who are composed
of atoms exactly like those of strawberry and water-lily roots.
Nevertheless, we need not believe that!

Further, we acknowledge that, to the credit of our age, we meet, ever
since the revival of morality and religion and during our own times,
some women, here and there, so moral, so religious, so devoted to their
duties, so upright, so precise, so stiff, so virtuous, so--that the
devil himself dare not even look at them; they are guarded on all sides
by rosaries, hours of prayer and directors. Pshaw!

We will not attempt to enumerate the women who are virtuous from
stupidity, for it is acknowledged that in love all women have intellect.

In conclusion, we may remark that it is not impossible that there exist
in some corner of the earth women, young, pretty and virtuous, whom the
world does not suspect.

But you must not give the name of virtuous woman to her who, in her
struggle against an involuntary passion, has yielded nothing to her
lover whom she idolizes. She does injury in the most cruel way in which
it can possibly be done to a loving husband. For what remains to him of
his wife? A thing without name, a living corpse. In the very midst of
delight his wife remains like the guest who has been warned by Borgia
that certain meats were poisoned; he felt no hunger, he ate sparingly or
pretended to eat. He longed for the meat which he had abandoned for that
provided by the terrible cardinal, and sighed for the moment when the
feast was over and he could leave the table.

What is the result which these reflections on the feminine virtue lead
to? Here they are; but the last two maxims have been given us by an
eclectic philosopher of the eighteenth century.

XVIII.
A virtuous woman has in her heart one fibre less or one fibre more
than other women; she is either stupid or sublime.

XIX.
The virtue of women is perhaps a question of temperament.

XX.
The most virtuous women have in them something which is never chaste.

XXI.
"That a man of intellect has doubts about his mistress is conceivable,
but about his wife!--that would be too stupid."

XXII.
"Men would be insufferably unhappy if in the presence of women they
thought the least bit in the world of that which they know b