Justice & Law Quote by Margaret Cavendish

There is a sly, self-protective intelligence in Cavendish framing her courtly inexperience as a kind of principled limitation. She opens by admitting the obvious: a Court is a machine for producing "wit" and social knowledge. But she immediately pivots to a disarming confession - "dull, fearful and bashful" - that reads less like simple modesty than a preemptive defense against a world that punished women for the very fluency it demanded. In a culture where reputation was both currency and trap, ignorance can be a strategy.

The subtext is that court life offers education at a price. Cavendish suggests she could have "advanced my understanding" through proximity to power, gossip, and performance, yet she presents her refusal (or inability) to absorb it as loyalty and honesty: she focused only on "what belonged to my loyal duty" and her "honest reputation". Duty here doubles as a socially acceptable reason to opt out of the court's competitive theater; reputation becomes the boundary she cannot cross without risking scandal.

Context sharpens the stakes. Cavendish moved close to royal circles during a period of political fracture and precarious patronage, when courts were not merely glamorous but dangerous, and women were hyper-visible, easily reduced to rumor. Her sentence performs the tightrope she walked as a female author: claiming seriousness while acknowledging the court's seductive, corrupting curriculum. It's an early modern version of saying, I saw how the game is played - and I chose survivability over sparkle.