explains why, since Aspasia inspired
Socrates and advised Pericles, in no other country (not even in
America) has woman's sovereignty been so supreme as it has always been,
and still is, in France.

It is true that the leaders of thought in France, as in any other
country, have long ago proclaimed that woman was the only problem it
would never be given to man to solve. It is true that they have all
tried and all failed, and that they acknowledge it, but they are trying
still.

This characteristic of woman is probably, after all, what makes her
ever so interesting to us. Nothing is more different from a woman than
another woman. Nothing is more different from a woman than that very
woman herself. The very moment we think we know her, she slips through
our fingers and stands in front of us an absolute stranger. And so it
should be. A man was one day complaining to a friend that he had been
married twenty years without being able to understand his wife. 'You
should not complain of that,' remarked the friend. 'I have been married
to my wife three months only, and I understand her perfectly.'

When I come to think of it, I must confess that we men are sometimes
perfectly lovely in our estimation of women. For example, you know, my
dear fellow-men, that when we have a little cold in our heads--nothing
more--the whole household is in a perfect state of commotion, and we
wonder how it is that the earth still dares continue her course round
the sun. Yet, when we see a woman patient, as she very generally is, of
the most poignant physical and moral suffering, we exclaim, in
admiration of her: 'She bears it like a man!' And what we seem to be
unable to understand is, why women should smile when they hear us make
that exclamation. Myself, I could roar, while holding my sides.

No man can say that he knows what a woman is unless he has met her in
adversity. It is then that she can attain prodigious heights. Indeed, I
believe that the head of a woman is much stronger in adversity than in
prosperity. She can always surpass herself in misfortune, and often
fails to stand success--I mean personal success, for she can associate
herself to the success of a husband with all her heart and soul, but
personal success is very often too much for her. How many women have I
met during my twenty years of contact with the literary, artistic,
dramatic, and social circles of life who completely lost their heads
over a sudden personal success! I