the love of domination, as the love of influence, that distinguishes her. Man would carry his point, no matter how; woman would carry it by her persuasive and insinuating attractiveness. She does not ask it, she does not seek it to be reluctantly gained and grudgingly bestowed; on such terms she would rather be without it. She seeks power, but it is the power of love; she is not apt to triumph over conquests, of whatever kind they be, where she carries not the heart. This is the power she delights in, and these the conquests she boasts of. She is a very tyrant then, and well knows how to sway her gilded sceptre.

"Mightier far

Than strength of nerve or sinew, or the sway

Of magic, potent over sun and star,

Is love,

Though his favorite seat be feeble woman's breast."

Woman also is more fond of embellishment than man, and embellishment of every kind. It is well that she is so; else would the world we occupy be a degraded world. It is not without reason that classic mythology represents the Graces as three young sisters, who were the symbols of all that is beautiful and attractive in the physical as well as the social world. What marvel that a creature thus formed, and for such ends, should be fond of embellishment? that she should be more susceptible to beauty than man, more embellished

in her thoughts and writings, more embellished in her person, and possess greater delicacy of taste in all her domestic arrangements? She was formed for this; she has a keener sense of fitness and propriety; she is the presiding genius in this department; the grace, and polish, and elegance of society are attributable to her; she strews the desert with flowers, and is herself the flower of the desert. This too is woman's nature; she seeks embellishment not so much for her sons as for her daughters. Her and their personal charms are her treasure; and if she polish and adorn them, she does no more, I doubt not, than did our first mother even before she fell. I will not say that this is woman's weakness; it may be, it is, where it is excessive, and degenerates to the love of show. Nor may I say that this does not belong to woman more than to man; the love of admiration may be her ruling passion; and it is proof of her womanly ingenuousness that she herself is not insensible to the infirmity, nor slow to confess that her true honor is found in higher adornment.

Of the two sexes, woman, it must also be confessed, is more cheerful than man. That would be a gloomy continent that were inhabited only by a colony of men; there would be nothing there to tame man's lion-heart. Man is naturally more silent and pensive than woman, though God has so greatly multiplied her sorrows. She has a more

elastic and buoyant spirit, and one that bounds over the inequalities of life with a more sylph-like step. Man breaks before the storm; woman bends before it, and regains her courage. Man's mirth is occasional, and boisterous; woman's is more uniform and safe. Her face is lighted up, and her voice is gladsome. Her spirit is familiar with the land of song, and her luxuriant smile skirts it with its richest verdure. A virtuous and cheerful woman, especially if she have the graces and hopes of Christianity, is among the bright things, if not the brightest thing in this low world. Woman's imperfections are not ordinarily dark and sombre shades of character. It is not the leaden cloud of gloom that enshrouds us in the society of woman; we can scarcely help feeling that there are thoughts and emotions passing within her bosom, which, if we sympathize with them, must banish gloom. The suavity of her disposition, the softness of her manners, and the cheerfulness of her spirit, is just what man requires. This world were cheerless and melancholy, a withered, autumnal, wintry world, were it never cheered by woman's smile. A thousand times have I thought on this beautiful characteristic of woman with thankfulness.

Men are not unfrequently so frigid and crusty, that nothing thaws them but the presence of woman. No matter how overwhelmed with care and

depressed a man is, and no matter what the cir cumstances of woman are; her effort is to lighten the burden. Never is he so depressed, but her gladsome eye and voice cheer him. Man sympathizes with her in her depression, but he does not so naturally lift her out of it. Woman not only bears up under sorrow, but enables others to bear up. We do not say too much for her, when we say that she is a well-spring of cheerfulness. There are, no doubt, exceptions to this remark, and they demand our sympathy. There are those whose contentions "are like a continual dropping in a rainy day." There is the dissatisfied woman, whom nothing can please. And there is the angry woman, whose eye flashes with outrageous passion, and who is like a wasp in a garden of flowers. Woman, like man, never feels her own impotence so much as when she is driven to moody sullenness, or has no other resort than uproar and tumult. Would to God that those who constitute these exceptions were elevated above this moody and sentimental gloom! An austere, gloomy, sullen, woe-begone woman-from all such may the good Lord deliver us!

Not a little to our shame, we must also add, that woman has more self-respect than man. Such is the wise organization of society, and such the decree of God, that more depends upon her character, and she can survive fewer faults. From a

few incautious steps and self-inflicted blows, it is very difficult for her to recover. Her circumspection is her safety. And to her honor be it said, she is distinguished for her self-respect. Woman is often artful; I have sometimes thought that she was more artful than man, because when her heart is strongly enlisted, it is difficult for her not to encourage a little "pious fraud." Those there are who affect to overbear and depress by their superiority. If you associate with them without the fear of mortification, you still keep them at a distance, and treat them rather with studied caution than unembarrassed courtesy. There is a blue-light splendor in some females, which a sensible man enjoys for a moment, but despises at his leisure. There are those, too, who affect to be what they are not, and who are weak enough to desire to be extolled for qualities which they know they do not possess. But though sometimes artful, affected, and of high pretensions, she is not often vicious. When she is vicious, she is vile-viler even than man-more dishonest and faithless, more impu dent in wickedness and more irreclaimable, because her heart is poisoned, and her affections have not even hope to feed upon. The same classic mythology that represents the Graces as symbolized by female excellence and loveliness, when it would represent the extreme of wickedness, true to nature, impersonates the

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