and that cannot lie.  Has not a woman the same needs as a man, but without the same right to make them known?  Her fate would be too cruel if she had no language in which to express her legitimate desires except the words which she dare not utter.  Must her modesty condemn her to misery?  Does she not require a means of indicating her inclinations without open expression?  What skill is needed to hide from her lover what she would fain reveal!  Is it not of vital importance that she should learn to touch his heart without showing that she cares for him?  It is a pretty story that tale of Galatea with her apple and her clumsy flight.  What more is needed?  Will she tell the shepherd who pursues her among the willows that she only flees that he may follow?  If she did, it would be a lie; for she would no longer attract him.  The more modest a woman is, the more art she needs, even with her husband.  Yes, I maintain that coquetry, kept within bounds, becomes modest and true, and out of it springs a law of right conduct.

One of my opponents has very truly asserted that virtue is one; you cannot disintegrate it and choose this and reject the other.  If you love virtue, you love it in its entirety, and you close your heart when you can, and you always close your lips to the feelings which you ought not to allow.  Moral truth is not only what is, but what is good; what is bad ought not to be, and ought not to be confessed, especially when that confession produces results which might have been avoided.  If I were tempted to steal, and in confessing it I tempted another to become my accomplice, the very confession of my temptation would amount to a yielding to that temptation.  Why do you say that modesty makes women false?  Are those who lose their modesty more sincere than the rest?  Not so, they are a thousandfold more deceitful.  This degree of depravity is due to many vices, none of which is rejected, vices which owe their power to intrigue and falsehood. [Footnote:  I know that women who have openly decided on a certain course of conduct profess that their lack of concealment is a virtue in itself, and swear that, with one exception, they are possessed of all the virtues; but I am sure they never persuaded any but fools to believe them.  When the natural curb is removed from their sex, what is there left to restrain them?  What honour will they prize when they have rejected the honour of their sex?  Having once given the rein to passion they have no longer any reason for self-control.  “Nec femina, amissa pudicitia, alia abnuerit.”  No author ever understood more thoroughly the heart of both sexes than Tacitus when he wrote those words.]

On the other hand, those who are not utterly shameless, who take no pride in their faults, who are able to conceal their desires even from those who inspire them, those who confess their passion most reluctantly, these are the truest and most sincere, these are they on whose fidelity you may generally rely.