In the conversation and actions of the Russian ladies, there is hardly any thing of that softness and delicacy which distinguishes the sex in other parts of Europe. Even their exercises and diversions have more of the masculine than the feminine. The present empress, with the ladies of her court, sometimes divert themselves by shooting at a mark. Drunkenness, the vice of almost every cold climate, they are so little ashamed of, that not many years ago, when a lady got drunk at the house of a friend, it was customary for her to return next day, and thank him for the pleasure he had done her. Females, however, in Russia, possess several advantages. They share the rank and splendor of the families from which they are sprung, and are even allowed the supreme authority. This a few years ago, was enjoyed by an empress, whose head did honor to her nation and to her sex; although, on some occasions, the virtues of her heart have been much suspected. The sex, in general, are protected from insult, by many salutary laws; and, except among the peasants, are exempted from every kind of toil and slavery. Upon the whole, they seem to be approaching fast to the enjoyment of that consequence, to which they have already arrived in several parts of Europe. THE IDEA OF FEMALE INFERIORITY. It is an opinion pretty well established, that in strength of mind, as well as of body, men are greatly superior to women. Men are endowed with boldness and courage, women are not. The reason is plain, these are beauties in our character; in theirs they would be blemishes. Our genius often leads to the great and the arduous; theirs to the soft and the pleasing; we bend our thoughts to make life convenient; they turn theirs to make it easy and agreeable. If the endowments allotted to us by nature could not be easily acquired by women, it would be as difficult for us to acquire those peculiarly allotted to them. Are we superior to them in what belongs to the male character? They are no less so to us, in what belongs to the female character. Would it not appear rather ludicrous to say, that a man was endowed only with inferior abilities, because he was not expert in the nursing of children, and practising the various effeminacies which we reckon lovely in a woman? Would it be reasonable to condemn him on these accounts? Just as reasonable, as it is to reckon women inferior to men, because their talents are in general not adapted to tread the horrid path of war, nor trace the mazes and intricacies of science. The idea of the inferiority of female nature has drawn after it several others the most absurd, unreasonable, and humiliating to the sex. Such is the pride of man, that in some countries he has considered immortality as a distinction too glorious for women. Thus degrading the fair partners of his nature, he places them on a level with the beasts that perish.