se to give way to the
emotions they actually feel, while women sometimes affect to be
transported beyond what the occasion will justify.

AS a farther confirmation of what has been advanced on the different
bent of the understanding in the sexes, it may be observed, that we have
heard of many female wits, but never of one female logician--of many
admirable writers of memoirs, but never of one chronologer.--In the
boundless and aerial regions of romance, and in that fashionable species
of composition which succeeded it, and which carries a nearer
approximation to the manners of the world, the women cannot be excelled:
this imaginary soil they have a peculiar talent for cultivating, because
here,

Invention labours more, and judgment less.

THE merit of this kind of writing consists in the _vraisemblance_ to
real life as to the events themselves, with a certain elevation in the
narrative, which places them, if not above what is natural, yet above
what is common. It farther consists in the art of interesting the tender
feelings by a pathetic representation of those minute, endearing,
domestic circumstances, which take captive the soul before it has time
to shield itself with the armour of reflection. To amuse, rather than to
instruct, or to instruct indirectly by short inferences, drawn from a
long concatenation of circumstances, is at once the business of this
sort of composition, and one of the characteristics of female
genius[1].

IN short, it appears that the mind in each sex has some natural kind of
bias, which constitutes a distinction of character, and that the
happiness of both depends, in a great measure, on the preservation and
observance of this distinction. For where would be the superior pleasure
and satisfaction resulting from mixed conversation, if this difference
were abolished? If the qualities of both were invariably and exactly the
same, no benefit or entertainment would arise from the tedious and
insipid uniformity of such an intercourse; whereas considerable
advantages are reaped from a select society of both sexes. The rough
angles and asperities of male manners are imperceptibly filed, and
gradually worn smooth, by the polishing of female conversation, and the
refining of female taste; while the ideas of women acquire strength and
solidity, by their associating with sensible, intelligent, and
judicious men.

ON the whole, (even if fame be the object of pursuit) is it not better
to succeed