Wherever I go I find these books: cheek to cheek they repose on the carved table of the lady's boudoir; shoulder to shoulder they stand on the library shelf; _tete-a-tete_ they give the rich centre-table an equivocal aspect. Young men and maidens, old men and matrons, children and chambermaids read them; yet they have no social effect. Woman understands love and herself; Man thinks he understands both; and the fictitious fervor of Monsieur Michelet has no more effect upon either than so much prismatic froth. It addresses itself piquantly to the eye, and murmurs like a shell in the ear; but once out of sight and hearing, and it is only an excuse for light talk and laxity of thought. I am glad to record this; it shows that our national morality is in no danger of being wrecked on the French coast by any such tropical gales as Michelet, Feydeau, or Dumas can blow. Let our publishers bring over a few more cargoes from the Augæan stables of French literature in English bottoms, and I will guarantee them large profits. We will read them, and immediately forget all about it. But to return to Michelet again. Our women read his "Woman," and imagine that it compliments their sex--flatters them. Fortunate is it, that flattery very seldom changes a woman's character, though it may sway her judgment. She accepts it as her right, but seldom believes it. Queen Elizabeth graciously extended her hand to be kissed when her noble lover compared her to "the sun, whose faintest ray extinguishes the brightest planet;" yet that same hand had signed the flatterer's death-warrant. At the moment she was pleased, and her good sense dazed; but her heart was not reached. Flattery, skillfully administered, may add fuel to a woman's love; but the fire must first be kindled with something more sympathetic. An American woman may read "La Femme," and complacently receive its subtle _equivoques_ as so much fuel added to her vanity; but that vanity was kindled into existence in the first place by the genuine homage of some honest man. It was Michelet's "Woman," my boy, that suggested this letter; yet I did not intend, at the outset, to devote so much space to his unwholesome sophistry. If I have shown, however, that Michelet's "Woman" is only such a being as he would have created under that name, could he have changed places with the Deity, I have not wasted time and ink. Thank fortune, there is but one French deity, and his proper name commences with a D. Now, let me give my own idea of Woman--not "La Femme." As she stands before me in the light of Nature, she is no "enigma," as voluntarily-puzzled poets have called her; but a being easily defined, and not more nearly related to the angels than man. To the best of her sex we attribute one natural weakness and one virtue--Curiosity and Modesty. Everybody must allow this much. But why should we make such a distinction between these two qualities? Let us trace them back to their exemplar: