Profound thought in fact belongs to, and is the power of, the man. That woman's capacity is not for intense application, her little aptitude for the perception of complicated truths, and all abstract studies, sufficiently shows. Unable to embrace the whole of anything, or to follow up the chain of an argument from its first principles to its remote consequences, she pauses upon minutiæ, and only remarks individually. By constitution also averse to the tediousness of deduction, and to a wearisome multiplicity of evidence, can she be expected to hold fairly the balance between latent truth and varnished error? To understand things well, they must be looked at in all their various relations; and these being almost endless, female knowledge can hardly fail to be imperfect. The imaginative faculty in woman displays, indeed, a very remarkable versatility of its own; it is of the firefly kind, ever in motion-but in unmeaning motion, and often without a direction. We are astonished by its quickness of passage, as it hurries to and fro on most rapid wing, and flutters about from one blossom of opinion to VOL. I. D another: but, meantime, the judgment thus bandied about like a shuttlecock between contrary opinions, is able to effect a complete investigation of nothing! § 2-Decision is a grand characteristic of mind; for there can scarcely be much consequence of character where there is no strength of intellect. The inference we are obliged to draw, is, that women are wanting in mental character; they do in fact appear to be, as a sex, stamped by nature with mental identity. There is no broad characteristic outline, no idiosyncrasy in the female mind: it can boast no distinct stock of native ideas-none such as produce others spontaneously; all that it has are acquired,—one by one, and with difficulty. A distinguished poet thus commences his → Essay on Woman" Most women have no character at al; And best disangusted by black, brown, and fur.” ← Les joumes unt ez.rémes,” says La Brugere. Where there is any character it may be observed to be generally in extremes; it has no genuine and fixed standard of moderation. Guided by no principle, impelled only by passion and feeling, they exist the mere creatures of sensibility; and, as the same author has observed, "it commonly happens that those whom they love form even their manners." Frequently has man been termed "an imitative animal:" the female division of the species is, however, entitled in a more exclusive degree to be so styled. From her cradle to her grave, woman is but learning to do what she sees others do;—and though to do things by example, and upon confidence of another's judgment, may be a point in prudence, it is only second wisdom, and writing as it were by a copy. Viewed in her strongest light, woman is still but an echo of the man; she owes, with the camelion, the colour she assumes to the colour of the object near her; and her mind, planet-like, is not brilliant in itself, but shines by aid of a borrowed light. "If situation influences the mind, and if uniformity of conduct be frequently occasioned by uniformity of condition, there must be a greater diversity of male than female characters." §3.-Physiognomy, though perhaps not one of the perfect sciences, has in it, like most things, some germ of truth: and need we look further than the soft, silly, simpering faces of those who make up the mere lump of the sex, to fathom the perceptible depth of their understandings? "Eternal smiles their emptiness betray, As shallow streams run dimpling all the way.” POPE. Look around you upon the ordinary specimens of the sex, and look with indulgence; you will for the most part discover at a glance the narrow space between the centre and the surface of their wit. "Who can suppose," asks Lavater, " that a nose denoting power of mind can be debased to the insignificant pointed nose of a girl?" If there be lustre, there is not always character in the eye; and beautiful as the female counte nance may be, we have commonly to look there in vain for outward evidence of talent. * Richardson. The more usual expression in women (and it is one eminently becoming them) is that of good nature: it is difficult, however, to distinguish the good-natured look from the unmeaning one. Expression in the human countenance may be serious---but seriousness may be affectation; it may be precise-but this again may be the mere offshoot of caprice: gravity alone (and how rarely have women that!) proclaims maturity in the mind, and is the outward symbol of intellectual strength. If, indeed, the business of the mind were nothing else or more than to comprehend the economy of the tea-table; to set off a bad face, or heighten the effect of a good one; to invent a fashion and determine the proper latitude of a cap by the meridian of mere whim; to display the utmost quickness in solving charades, in devising albums, and so forth; if, to be infinitely skilled in all this, betokened intellectual excellence, then indeed (but not otherwise), must the capacity of every-day women be admitted not simply to rival, but greatly to surpass, that which belongs to, and is characteristic of man. |
