they are by
nature cold. The sayings about women's fickleness are mostly of
French origin; from the famous distich of Francis the First, upward
and downward. In England it is a common remark, how much more
constant women are than men. Inconstancy has been longer reckoned
discreditable to a woman, in England than in France; and Englishwomen
are besides, in their inmost nature, much more subdued to opinion. It
may be remarked by the way, that Englishmen are in peculiarly
unfavourable circumstances for attempting to judge what is or is not
natural, not merely to women, but to men, or to human beings
altogether, at least if they have only English experience to go upon:
because there is no place where human nature shows so little of its
original lineaments. Both in a good and a bad sense, the English are
farther from a state of nature than any other modern people. They
are, more than any other people, a product of civilization and
discipline. England is the country in which social discipline has
most succeeded, not so much in conquering, as in suppressing,
whatever is liable to conflict with it. The English, more than any
other people, not only act but feel according to rule. In other
countries, the taught opinion, or the requirement of society, may be
the stronger power, but the promptings of the individual nature are
always visible under it, and often resisting it: rule may be stronger
than nature, but nature is still there. In England, rule has to a
great degree substituted itself for nature. The greater part of life
is carried on, not by following inclination under the control of
rule, but by having no inclination but that of following a rule. Now
this has its good side doubtless, though it has also a wretchedly bad
one; but it must render an Englishman peculiarly ill-qualified to
pass a judgment on the original tendencies of human nature from his
own experience. The errors to which observers elsewhere are liable on
the subject, are of a different character. An Englishman is ignorant
respecting human nature, a Frenchman is prejudiced. An Englishman's
errors are negative, a Frenchman's positive. An Englishman fancies
that things do not exist, because he never sees them; a Frenchman
thinks they must always and necessarily exist, because he does see
them. An Englishman does not know nature, because he has had no
opportunity of observing it; a Frenchman generally knows a great deal
of it, but often mistakes it, because he ha