of beauty is but short, but the empire of virtue is durable; nor is there an instance to be met with of its decline. If it be yet possible to reform the world, it is possible for the fair. By the constitution of human nature, they must always appear as the ornament of human life, and be the objects of fondness and affection; so that if any thing can make head against the selfish and overbearing dispositions of man, it is his respectful regard for the sex. But mere fondness has but little of the rational creature in it, and we see it harbour every day in the breast that is filled with the meanest and most turbulent passions. No where is it so strong as in the harems of the east; and as long as the women ask nothing of the men but fondness and admiration, they will get nothing else—they will never be respected. But let them rouse themselves, assert their dignity, by shewing their own elevated sentiments of human nature, and by asking up to this claim, and they may then command the world.
V. Another good consequence that should result from the account that has been given of the proceedings of this conspiracy is, that since the fascinating picture of human life, by which men have been wheedled into immediate anarchy and rebellion, is insincere, and a mere artificial creature of the imagination, it can have no steadiness, but must be changed by every freak of fancy, or by every ingenious sophist, who can give an equal plausibility to whatever suits his present views. It is as much an airy phantom as any other whim of Free Masonry, and has no prototype, no original pattern in human nature, to which recourse may always be had, to correct mistakes, and keep things in a constant tenor. Has not France given the most unequivocal proofs of this? Was not the declaration of the Rights of Man, the production of their most brilliant Illuminators, a picture, in abstracto, where man was placed at