But she is a person of admirable
dignity and discretion: it is not until the conclusion, when she has
not left them a leg to stand upon, that she magnanimously waives all
the advantages to accrue from their humiliation, and merely bids them
in future to know their true place. The composition is in every way
worthy of these elevated sentiments. Sophia need not have announced
herself a person of quality: there is evidence of it on every leaf of
her book. One recognizes the accomplished gentlewoman of a hundred
years ago, with her solid reading, her strong common sense, her sober
religious convictions, her household science. No doubt she loved fine
lace and old china; there are recondite internal proofs that she was
pretty; and on closing the book a far-off rustle of her brocade
reaches us as she makes her spreading curtsey. But we will let her
speak for herself a little. Her first position is certainly a strong
one: "If this haughty sex would have us believe they have a natural
right of superiority over us, why don't they prove their charter from
Nature by making use of reason to subdue themselves?.
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