l:

"Oh! femmes c'est a tort qu'on vous nommes timides,
A la voix de vos coeurs vous etes intrepides."

Experience has proved that women can be as enduring as men, under the
heaviest trials and calamities; but too little pains are taken to teach
them to endure petty terrors and frivolous vexations with fortitude.
Such little miseries, if petted and indulged, quickly run into sickly
sensibility, and become the bane of their life, keeping themselves and
those about them in a state of chronic discomfort.

The best corrective of this condition of mind is wholesome moral and
mental discipline. Mental strength is as necessary for the development
of woman's character as of man's. It gives her capacity to deal with
the affairs of life, and presence of mind, which enable her to act with
vigour and effect in moments of emergency. Character, in a woman, as in
a man, will always be found the best safeguard of virtue, the best nurse
of religion, the best corrective of Time. Personal beauty soon passes;
but beauty of mind and character increases in attractiveness the older
it grows.

Ben Jonson gives a striking portraiture of a noble woman in these
lines:--

"I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet,
Free from that solemn vice of greatness, pride;
I meant each softed virtue there should meet,
Fit in that softer bosom to abide.
Only a learned and a manly soul,
I purposed her, that should with even powers,
The rock, the spindle, and the shears control
Of destiny, and spin her own free hours."

The courage of woman is not the less true because it is for the most
part passive. It is not encouraged by the cheers of the world, for it is
mostly exhibited in the recesses of private life. Yet there are cases
of heroic patience and endurance on the part of women which occasionally
come to the light of day. One of the most celebrated instances in
history is that of Gertrude Von der Wart. Her husband, falsely accused
of being an accomplice in the murder of the Emperor Albert, was
condemned to the most frightful of all punishments--to be broken alive
on the wheel. With most profound conviction of her husband's innocence
the faithful woman stood by his side to the last, watching over
him during two days and nights, braving the empress's anger and the
inclemency of the weather, in the hope of contributing to soothe his
dying agonies. [1413]

But women have not only distinguished th