Some offences, chiefly those which concern propriety and chasteness, are so repugnant to a woman's disposition that they excite a fanaticism which sometimes is slow, and sometimes eager, to condemn the reputed offender. That is to say, the same disposition is competent to give credence to an accusation slowly, or to give it impetuously and with loathing. If there be a case involving testimony, it is not deliberately weighed, its intricacies patiently pursued, its implications as well as its statements justly rated, and all the parts of it fitted to an opinion of innocence or guilt; but there results instead a state of feeling from previous opinions and assumptions, which no testimony, however strong, can do much to reverse. Women, indeed, naturally shrink from familiarity with the testimony, and do not wish to reach an opinion by probing it. The defendant may enjoy the immunity of a woman's assumption that the charge is in his case incredible, and refuted by all her previous associations with his life; or he may suffer from her want of any feeling derived from previous knowledge of his life, or from considerations dependent upon personal sentiment. Woman's instinct of purity is specially intolerant towards the unfortunate members of her own sex. She will not hear a word: she is deprived of the power to weigh circumstance, environment, the complicity of others, the wile and treachery of life. The outcast does not even have the benefit of a trial. No court is held in which mercy seasons justice, like one that was long ago extemporized over the woman who knelt on the pavement of the Temple. The men in that crowd were chiefly interested to convict the Master, and not the sinner. If women were present, as is quite probable, they composed a jury that was adverse to the ruling of the court, unless they fell into sympathy from pique at the mock chastity of the men. In the first scene of the "Midsummer Night's Dream," Hermia and Lysander are in love with each other. Demetrius, who was once deep in love for Helena, has transferred his midsummer inclination to this Hermia, leaving Helena as deep in love with him as ever, but finding Hermia full of disdain. Now Hermia's father would have her marry Demetrius; so she and Lysander, to escape from this paternal preference, agree to meet at night, and fly together from Athens to a darling old aunt who lived at some Hellenic Gretna Green. At this point, Helena enters, who loves Demetrius as much as he now dislikes her. The lovers confide to her their purpose of flight; and Hermia, for comfort, says that she will soon be beyond the reach of Demetrius. Then Helena is left alone to her reflections, during which she says,--