drawn into any
concessions inconsistent with the strictest honor. We are not half such
terrible animals as mammas, nurses, and novels represent us; and, if my
opinion is of any weight, I am inclin'd to believe those tremendous
men, who have designs on the whole sex, are, and ever were, characters
as fabulous as the giants of romance.

Women after twenty begin to know this, and therefore converse with
us on the footing of rational creatures, without either fearing or
expecting to find every man a lover.

To do the ladies justice however, I have seen the same absurdity in
my own sex, and have observed many a very good sort of man turn pale at
the politeness of an agreeable woman.

I lament this mistake, in both sexes, because it takes greatly from
the pleasure of mix'd society, the only society for which I have any
relish.

Don't, however, fancy that, because I dislike _the Misses_, I
have a taste for their grandmothers; there is a golden mean, Jack, of
which you seem to have no idea.

You are very ill inform'd as to the manners of the Indian ladies;
'tis in the bud alone these wild roses are accessible; liberal to
profusion of their charms before marriage, they are chastity itself
after: the moment they commence wives, they give up the very idea of
pleasing, and turn all their thoughts to the cares, and those not the
most delicate cares, of domestic life: laborious, hardy, active, they
plough the ground, they sow, they reap; whilst the haughty husband
amuses himself with hunting, shooting, fishing, and such exercises only
as are the image of war; all other employments being, according to his
idea, unworthy the dignity of man.

I have told you the labors of savage life, but I should observe that
they are only temporary, and when urg'd by the sharp tooth of
necessity: their lives are, upon the whole, idle beyond any thing we
can conceive. If the Epicurean definition of happiness is just, that it
consists in indolence of body, and tranquillity of mind, the Indians of
both sexes are the happiest people on earth; free from all care, they
enjoy the present moment, forget the past, and are without solicitude
for the future: in summer, stretch'd on the verdant turf, they sing,
they laugh, they play, they relate stories of their ancient heroes to
warm the youth to war; in winter, wrap'd in the furs which bounteous
nature provides them, they dance, they feast, and despise the rigors of
the season, at which the more effemin