Excerpt from Emma, Lady Hamilton: A Biographical Essay With a Catalogue of Her Published Portraits Yet, after all, even in those days, virtue was not easier for women than for men, although men believed it so, or made believe. Women had their wild emotions and their longings, but they had to hide them under the crochet cover, and show a smiling face when their honour'd sir came home from hunting, or drinking, or dicing, or other manly pleasures. Willy-milly, the respectable woman had to pose in a strained and unnatural position on the pedestal of man's conceit and selfishness. And woe betide her if she fall! Then there would be fine sport for virtuous men and women, for Lady Sneerwell, and Mrs. Candour, and Sir Benjamin Backbite, for the wits of the coffee houses, the sots of the tavern, the Grub-street hacks, and for all those malicious, prating, prudent gossips, both male and female, who murder character to kill time, to flatter their vanity, or to earn a guinea. The men especially would go a-hunting with a gay Tally-ho! And chase a woman's reputation through the foulest mud, in a brave and gallant way, tearing the clothes off her back when they brought her to the ditch, and, generally, the man who had first ruined her honour, was the one to put the hounds on the scent and ride hardest after the poor quarry. He, of course, was a blameless gentleman, with not a stain upon his character. It was only the woman who had sinned, and she must pay the price. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.