Women do not want judgment to determine, penetration to foresee, nor resolution to execute; and Providence has not given them beauty to create love, without understanding to preserve it. The pleasures of which they are susceptible, are proportioned to the capacity and just extent of their feelings. They are not made for those raptures which transport them beyond themselves: these are a kind of convulsions, which can never last. But there are infinite numbers of pleasures, which, though they make slighter impressions, are nevertheless more valuable. These are renewed every day under different forms, and instead of excluding each other, unite together in happy concert, producing that temperate glow of mind which preserves it vigorous, and keeps it in a delightful equanimity. How much are those of the fair-sex to be pitied who are insensible to such attainments, and who look upon life as gloomy, which is exempt from the agitation of unruly passions! As such prepossessions deprive them of pleasures which are much preferable to those which arise from dangerous attachments, the duchess knew how to make choice of her amusements, and _improved_ her _understanding_ at the same time that she _gratified_ her _feelings_. Life to those who know how to make a proper use of it, is strewed with delights of every kind, which, in their turn, flatter the senses and the mind; but the latter is never so agreeably engaged as in the conversation of intelligent persons, who are capable of conveying both instruction and entertainment. The duchess preferred the conversation of _such_, to _men of the world_; being sensible she had every thing _to gain_ on _one side_, and every thing _to lose_ on _the other_.