She moves about exhibiting her brightness and freshness to
people she does not know, but whose homage flatters her, while the
desire she excites charms her, though she is indifferent to those who
feel it. During the hours which she spends in private, in pleasure,
and in the care of her person, she amuses herself by caroling the
sweetest strains. For her France and Italy ordain delightful concerts
and Naples imparts to the strings of the violin an harmonious soul.
This species is in fine at once the queen of the world and the slave
of passion. She dreads marriage because it ends by spoiling her
figure, but she surrenders herself to it because it promises
happiness. If she bears children it is by pure chance, and when they
are grown up she tries to conceal them.
These characteristics taken at random from among a thousand others are
not found amongst those beings whose hands are as black as those of
apes and their skin tanned like the ancient parchments of an _olim_;
whose complexion is burnt brown by the sun and whose neck is wrinkled
like that of a turkey; who are covered with rags; whose voice is
hoarse; whose intelligence is nil; who think of nothing but the bread
box, and who are incessantly bowed in toil towards the ground; who
dig; who harrow; who make hay, glean, gather in the harvest, knead the
bread and strip hemp; who, huddled among domestic beasts, infants and
men, dwell in holes and dens scarcely covered with thatch; to whom it
is of little importance from what source children rain down into their
homes.
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