The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Dream Classics)

by Anne Brontë

I maintain that, if she were more perfect, she would be less interesting.’

have picked it up myself; only I did not want to disturb the cat.’ ‘Mary, dear, that won’t excuse you in Mr Markham’s eyes,’ said Eliza; ‘he hates cats, I dare say, as cordially as he does old maids—like all other gentlemen—Don’t you, Mr Markham?’

What is it that constitutes virtue, Mrs Graham? Is it the circumstance of being able and willing to resist temptation; or that of having no temptations to resist?—Is

‘Well, but you affirm that virtue is only elicited by temptation;—and you think that a woman cannot be too little exposed to temptation, or too little acquainted with vice, or anything connected therewith—It must be, either, that you think she is essentially so vicious, or so feeble-minded, that she cannot withstand temptation,—and though she may be pure and innocent as long as she is kept in ignorance and restraint, yet, being destitute of real virtue, to teach her how to sin is at once to make her a sinner, and the greater her knowledge, the wider her liberty, the deeper will be her depravity,—whereas, in the nobler sex, there is a natural tendency to goodness, guarded by a superior fortitude, which, the more it is exercised by trials and dangers, is only the further developed—’

‘Well then, it must be that you think they are both weak and prone to err, and the slightest error, the merest shadow of pollution, will ruin the one, while the character of the other will be strengthened and embellished—his education properly finished by a little practical acquaintance with forbidden things.

You would have us encourage our sons to prove all things by their own experience, while our daughters must not even profit by the experience of others.