Women even who have been reckless and dissipated, and have ruined their husbands by their extravagance, have frequently reformed in adversity, and become the stay and solace of their husbands when stript of all their possessions. It is then we may truly say of the reformed woman in the language of holy writ, "she looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness." Even Bulwer, in his England and the English, makes his fictitious Mrs. Thurston, after ruining her husband by her extravagance, occasioned by vanity and ambition, consent with cheerfulness to assume the coarser and more homely garments of penury, and forget her own proud self in the desire to console and comfort her ruined husband. And Miss Edgeworth too, in that beautiful romance, "The Absentee," after misfortune had visited the Clonbronny family, makes the vain and haughty Lady Clonbronny, who was so desirous to reside in London, and whose very heart and soul yearned after the society of the fashionable circles of that great metropolis, consent to return to her deserted castle in Ireland, on the _reasonable condition_ that she might never be mortified with the sight of the old _yellow damask curtains_ which hung in the windows of the hall. Well then may we truly say of woman what Cicero so beautifully asserted of the genuine friend. She doubles our enjoyments by the pleasures which they afford her, and she halves our sorrows by the comforts, and consolations, and sympathies which _she_ affords us. "'Tis woman's smiles that lull our cares to rest; Dear woman's charms that give to life its zest: 'Tis woman's hand that smooths affliction's bed, Wipes the cold sweat, and stays the sinking head." _Intellectual Differences between the Sexes_. I shall now proceed to the consideration of the differences between the sexes in regard to their intellectual powers; and here we shall find differences of the most marked and important character, which perhaps have more puzzled the philosophers, and given rise to more speculation, sophism and false reasoning, than any others observable between the sexes. At one time a spirit of gallantry and blind devotion, at another time of revenge and jealousy, has mixed itself more or less with the spirit of speculation upon this subject, and of course warped and biassed the conclusions of authors. Hobbes, in his writings, has asserted that if the interests or passions of men, could ever be steadily opposed to the mathematical axiom that the whole is equal to all the parts, its truth would quickly be denied and boldly reasoned against. It stands because neither interest nor feeling is opposed to it. Out feelings are more or less to be guarded against in all our moral speculations, but particularly in discussions relative to the comparative merits of the sexes.