admire their knowledge, while inwardly I was much amused at their
simplicity. They know how to cut us open and stitch us up again--as
children open their dolls to see the sawdust with which they are stuffed
and sew them up afterwards with a needle and thread. But they get no
further. Yes--a little further perhaps. Possibly in course of time they
begin to discover that women are so infinitely their superiors in
falsehood that their wisest course is to appear once and for all to
believe them then and there....

Women's doctors may be as clever and sly as they please, but they will
never learn any of the things that women confide to each other. It is
inevitable. Between the sexes lies not only a deep, eternal hostility,
but the unfathomable abyss of a complete lack of reciprocal
comprehension.

For instance, all the words in a language will never express what a
smile will express--and between women a smile is like a masonic sign; we
can use them between ourselves without any fear of their being
misunderstood by the other sex.

Smiles are a form of speech with which we alone are conversant. Our
smiles betray our instincts and our burdens; they reflect our virtues
and our inanity.

But the cleverest women hide their real selves behind a factitious
smile.

Men do not know how to smile. They look more or less benevolent, more or
less pleased, more or less love-smitten; but they are not pliable or
subtle enough to smile. A woman who is not sufficiently prudent to mask