to
the storm, eludes its violence.

The accurate observers of human nature will readily allow, that patience
is most eminently the characteristic of woman. To what a sublime and
astonishing height this virtue has been carried by beings of the most
delicate texture, we have striking examples in the many female martyrs
who were exposed, in the first ages of christianity, to the most
barbarous and lingering torture.

Nor was it only from christian zeal that woman derived the power of
defying the utmost rigors of persecution with invincible fortitude.
Saint Ambrose, in his elaborate and pious treatise on this subject,
records the resolution of a fair disciple of Pythagoras, who, being
severely urged by a tyrant to reveal the secrets of her sex, to convince
him that no torments should reduce her to so unworthy a breach of her
vow, bit her own _tongue_ asunder, and darted it in the face of her
oppressor.

In consequence of those happy changes which have taken place in the
world, from the progress of purified religion, the inexpressible spirit
of the tender sex is no longer exposed to such inhuman trials. But if
the earth is happily delivered from the demons of torture and
superstition; if beauty and innocence are no more in danger of being
dragged to perish at the stake--perhaps there are situations, in female
life, that require as much patience and magnanimity, as were formerly
exerted in the fiery torments of the virgin martyr. It is more difficult
to support an accumulation of _minute_ infelicities, than any single
calamity of the most terrific magnitude.

FEMALE DELICACY.

Where the human race has little other culture than what it receives from
nature, the two sexes live together, unconscious of almost any restraint
on their words or on their actions. The Greeks, in the heroic ages, as
appears from the whole history of their conduct, were totally
unacquainted with delicacy. The Romans in the infancy of their empire,
were the same. Tacitus informs us that the ancient Germans had not
separate beds for the two sexes, but that they lay promiscuously on
reeds or on heath, spread along the walls of their houses. This custom
still prevails in Lapland, among the peasants of Norway, Poland, and
Russia; and it is not altogether obliterated in some parts of the
highlands of Scotland and Wales.

In Otaheite, to appear naked or in clothes, are circumstances equally
indifferent to both sexes; nor does any word in their langu