, the understanding must bring back the feelings to nature, or the
sensibility must have such native strength, as rather to be whetted than
destroyed by the strong exercises of passion.

That the most valuable things are liable to the greatest perversion, is
however as trite as true:--for the same sensibility, or quickness of
senses, which makes a man relish the tranquil scenes of nature, when
sensation, rather than reason, imparts delight, frequently makes a
libertine of him, by leading him to prefer the sensual tumult of love a
little refined by sentiment, to the calm pleasures of affectionate
friendship, in whose sober satisfactions, reason, mixing her
tranquillizing convictions, whispers, that content, not happiness, is the
reward of virtue in this world.

HINTS.

[_Chiefly designed to have been incorporated in the Second Part of the_
Vindication of the Rights of Woman.]

HINTS.

1.

INDOLENCE is the source of nervous complaints, and a whole host of cares.
This devil might say that his name was legion.

2.

It should be one of the employments of women of fortune, to visit
hospitals, and superintend the conduct of inferiors.

3.

It is generally supposed, that the imagination of women is particularly
active, and leads them astray. Why then do we seek by education only to
exercise their imagination and feeling, till the understanding, grown
rigid by disuse, is unable to exercise itself--and the superfluous
nourishment the imagination and feeling have received, renders the former
romantic, and the latter weak?

4.

Few men have risen to any great eminence in learning, who have not
received something like a regular education. Why are women expected to
surmount difficulties that men are not equal to?

5.

Nothing can be more absurd than the ridicule of the critic, that the
heroine of his mock-tragedy was in love with the very man whom she ought
least to have loved; he could not have given a better reason. How can
passion gain strength any other way? In Otaheite, love cannot be known,
where the obstacles to irritate an indiscriminate appetite, and sublimate
the simple sensations of desire till they mount to passion, are never
known. There a man or woman cannot love the very person they ought not to
have loved--nor does jealousy ever fan the flame.

6.

It has frequently been observed, that, when women have an object in view,
they pursue it with more steadiness than men, particula