y
should be?

I suppose most people would agree that women are more emotional than
men, and that this peculiarity comes in a great measure from their
delicate physical organization, and in a great measure from the
encouragement they get from men in indulging their feelings. Nobody
admires a woman when her emotions reach the point of hysteria, and, in
fact, those who have encouraged her up to that point are often least
patient with her when the crisis comes. The general belief about
hysteria is that it is caused by the culpable weakness of a selfish
nature, and that is often true. But there are important exceptional
cases becoming more and more numerous, where the parents have cultivated
what they and their friends consider fine feelings so assiduously that
the poor child is born helplessly weak and nervous, and a prey to every
vibration in the spiritual atmosphere about her.

Now what are _fine_ feelings? Jealousy, envy, hatred, and others of that
class are not fine, and yet they are extremely common among those women
who are sensitive and highly organized. They do belong more frequently
than we sometimes think to the outfit of an emotional woman. A woman who
would not hurt a fly has violent antipathies to excellent people. She
would not hurt them either. She would delight in giving them food and
clothing if they were in want. She wishes she need not hurt their
feelings, but she usually does give pain, because her own feelings are
paramount. The important point however is that she is unjust in her
judgments. She exaggerates the faults of her foes, as well as the
virtues of her friends, and widens every breach.

But we all know that jealousy and envy and hatred are wrong, even if we
endeavor to dignify them with finer names, and all of us who have any
moral purpose do make our stand against them.

When, therefore, we speak in praise of a woman's emotional nature, we
are thinking of a nature in which generosity swallows up justice, and
duty is forgotten, because "love is an unerring law." We cannot be too
generous, or too loving, or too sensitive to beauty and honor.

But men are as generous and loving as women, so, after all, we do have
something a little different from this in our minds when we speak of the
emotional nature of women. Do we not mean that a woman is unreasonable?

Love can never be too great, but it is often unwise. All affectionate
women who have reached middle age must have received many confidenc