The idea that a staunch and unswerving friendship is capable of
existing between two women has become quite obsolete and exploded in
our day. It is generously admitted that the frivolous tendencies which
are innate in us have too much of the upper hand to sanction any
sentiment which pre-supposes a self abnegation or exalted
disinterestedness on our part. This is a serious heresy which may
possibly be accounted for simply enough.
It is a well-attested fact, especially since the sacred precincts of
established truth have been raided by every puerile pedant and
sciolist who can handle a pen, that any absurdity whatever, so long as
it is clad "in the lion's skin" and no matter how loudly it brays, has
some fatal claim upon the rambling credulity of the multitude. And a
method of reasoning, though resting upon a general assertion which is
utterly false, has won its own disciples time and again with an easy
effort.
Even in this trifling stigma which denies us women the privilege of
being faithful to one another it is easy to see how a fraction of
truth has been led astray. It is the outgrowth of a high-sounding
syllogism, which deduces the sweeping general assertion that "all
women are traitors" from the more limited one, which is unfortunately
true and deplorable, that some women are traitors. Nevertheless, I
fail to see what relationship can possibly exist between the two parts
of the syllogism. The general is as undeniably false as the particular
is undeniably true.
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