“I hope you are mistaken in your estimate of men, Frank; I have a better opinion of your sex than to adopt your ideas. But if it be as you say, if selfishness be so active a principle among _men_, then have the virtues taken up their abode in the hearts of _women_.” “Do they possess the chivalric spirit, Grace?—courage and all?” “You need not laugh, I can prove what I say.” “No, no, Grace, I am willing to allow your sex all superiority in goodness and purity of feeling, but the virtues of women are of a passive nature,—they have fortitude to suffer, patience to endure, but rarely energy to act. Men _make_ sacrifices—women _suffer_ them.” “How little you know of the sex when you make such an assertion, Frank. A woman’s sacrifices are of daily and hourly occurrence; she lives but to minister to others, and to forget herself. If her courage is of a more passive nature it is because her sphere of action is very properly limited. She is not called to stem the tide of battle, or to face death in warrior’s array; but is it nothing to look calmly upon the king of terrors in the chamber of pestilence—to wait for his fatal blow, with placid fortitude, when assailed by sudden peril—to gaze, unmoved, upon the weltering wave—or to perish with unquailing courage amid flames and tortures? Yet all this has been done by women. Awaken but a woman’s feelings, arouse the hidden strength of her affections, and earth holds not a peril which she will not brave.” “You are eloquent, cousin Grace, but you scarcely make out your own case; according to your own evidence woman must have a personal motive for action; her strength of character must be called forth by some individual affection, or to use a less gentle term, by some selfish impulse.” “According to your way of viewing character, then, Frank, the noblest impulses of our nature arise from selfishness.” “I should like to hear you draw a parallel between the sexes, cousin Grace; you seem to be so impartial—to concede so much goodness to _man’s_ fallen nature, while you exalt so highly the weaker sex, that I am a little curious to know how you would distinguish them.” “You would probably only dispute my positions, and make a jest of my distinctions, Frank.” “I will promise to do neither, Grace.”