There is certainly nothing which contrasts so beautifully with the restless activity and feverish impatience of man, as the calm and subdued countenance of woman in the hour of resignation, amid the stern powers that are at work around her. How beautiful, how transcendently lovely does the Thekla of Schiller's Wallenstein appear in the camp surrounded by soldiers encased in iron. I borrow from the graphic pen of M. B. Constant. "Sa voix si douce au travers le bruit des armes, sa form delicate au milieu des hommes tout couverts de fer, la pureté de son âme opposée a leurs calculs avides, son calm celeste qui contraste avec leurs agitations, remplissent le spectateur d'une emotion constante et melancholique, telle que ne la fait ressentir nulle tragedie ordinaire." [Footnote 1: These beautiful lines are taken from the Ocean Hymn, published in the 10th number of the Messenger, from the pen of Mrs. Emma Willard.] Again, I have already explained how it happens that woman is capable of suffering more than man in silence, without wearing even such an aspect of countenance as may betray the internal agony. For the same reason, of course, she has more resignation and fortitude. Lastly, her physical organization renders her much more liable than man to constitutional derangements, to periodical sickness, and physical infirmities of all descriptions. Disease gradually inures the mind to resignation and patience, and at last teaches us to bear with fortitude all the ills we have. "We seldom," says Bulwer, "find men of great animal health and power, possessed of much delicacy of mind. That impetuous and reckless buoyancy of spirit which mostly accompanies a hardy and iron frame, is not made to enter into the infirmities of others;" and he might well have added, is not made to bear its own infirmities and calamities with resignation and fortitude, when at last overtaken by them. It is well, perhaps, in the order of nature, that we should be afflicted sometimes. It improves all our sensibilities, and strengthens our patience and resignation, to have our thoughts occasionally directed to "The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave, The deep damp vault, the darkness, and the worm." "Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco," is the noble motto which disease and infirmity have written on the heart of many a female.