This letter
he gave to Edgeworth to deliver. 'I took the packet; my friend
requested that I would go to the Palace and deliver it myself. I
went, and I delivered it with real satisfaction to Honora. She
desired me to come next morning for an answer. ... I gave the answer
to Mr. Day, and left him to peruse it by himself. When I returned, I
found him actually in a fever. The letter contained an excellent
answer to his arguments in favour of the rights of men, and a clear,
dispassionate view of the rights of women.
'Miss Honora Sneyd would not admit the unqualified control of a
husband over all her actions. She did not feel that seclusion from
society was indispensably necessary to preserve female virtue, or to
secure domestic happiness. Upon terms of reasonable equality she
supposed that mutual confidence might best subsist. She said that,
as Mr. Day had decidedly declared his determination to live in
perfect seclusion from what is usually called the world, it was fit
she should decidedly declare that she would not change her present
mode of life, with which she had no reason to be dissatisfied, for
any dark and untried system that could be proposed to her.
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