It is a
foolish prejudice that deprives me of such a pleasure. I could always go in
a mask."
"Can you put a mask upon your mind, and preserve that unstained in an
atmosphere of corruption? Indeed, your ladyship does not know what you
are asking for. To sit and simper through a comedy in which the filthiest
subjects are discussed in the vilest language; to see all that is foolish
or lascivious in your own sex exaggerated with a malignant licence, which
makes a young and beautiful woman an epitome of all the vices, uniting the
extreme of masculine profligacy with the extreme of feminine silliness.
Will you encourage by your presence the wretches who libel your sex? Will
you sit smiling to see your sisters in the pillory of satire?"
"I should smile as at a fairy tale. There are no such women among my
friends----"
"And if the satire hits an enemy, it is all the more pungent," said Lady
Sarah.
"An enemy! The man who can so write of women is your worst enemy. The day
will come, perhaps, long after we are dust, when the women in _Epsom Wells_
will be thought pictures from life. 'Such an one,' people will say, as
they stand to read your epitaph, 'was this Lady Sarah, whose virtues are
recorded here in Latin superlatives.
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