At all times satire has endeavoured to make invidious distinctions between the sexes: this is not fair. Women are generally what men have made them. In a physical, and, consequently, to a certain degree in a moral point of view, their organization is essentially different from ours; therefore, a masculine woman is as intolerable as an effeminate man. The education of females tends in a great measure to increase that susceptibility to trifling excitements, which in after-life urges them to the extremes of good or evil. While the toys and amusements of boys are of a manly nature, a girl is taught to practise upon her darling doll all the arts which a few years after she will practise upon herself. Many intelligent writers have doubted the expediency of giving woman any education beyond the sphere of her domestic pursuits and occupations; Erasmus wrote largely on this subject to Budaeus. Vives treats of it in his _Institutio foeminae Christianae_; and a German authoress, Madame Schurman, has published a treatise on the problem, "_Num foeminae Christianae conveniat studium literarum?_" It is this nervous flexibility in women that exposes them to that constant succession of emotions which are expressed by a rapid transition from tears to smiles; and, anomalous as it may appear, they are more exposed to fond impressions in their grief than at any other moment; they then feel more helpless, and stand in greater need of consolation. The story of the Matron of Ephesus is not so great a libel on the sex as one might imagine. Their mind is prone to romantic enthusiasm; they delight in the extraordinary, the terrible, and as Madame de Sevigne, who well knew her sex, expresses it, they enjoy in chivalric tales _les grands coups d'epee_. Prudence preventing them too frequently from expressing their thoughts, thinking becomes more intense; and Publius Syrus has said, "_Mulier quae sola cogitat, male cogitat_:" but when the suppressed volcano bursts forth, its eruptions are boundless; it is then that one may exclaim, "_Notumque fuerit quid foemina possit_." No passion is more overwhelming than when it has been kept down by dissimulation; opportunity is their curse: Montaigne has too truly said, "_Oh le furieux avantage que l'opportunite_!" and our Denham has beautifully illustrated its fearful circumstances: Opportunity, like a sudden gust, Hath swell'd my calmer thoughts into a tempest. Accursed opportunity! That works our thoughts into desires; desires To resolutions; those being ripe and quickened, Thou giv'st them birth, and bring'st them forth to action. It is a perilous ordeal for such to whom the lines of Ovid might apply, Quae, quia non liceat, non facit; illa facit.