applied to it with success.

Women have, in general, but one object, which is their beauty; upon
which, scarce any flattery is too gross for them to swallow. Nature has
hardly formed a woman ugly enough to be insensible to flattery upon her
person; if her face is so shocking, that she must in some degree, be
conscious of it, her figure and her air, she trusts, make ample amends
for it. If her figure is deformed, her face, she thinks, counterbalances
it. If they are both bad, she comforts herself that she has graces; a
certain manner; a 'je ne sais quoi,' still more engaging than beauty.
This truth is evident, from the studied and elaborate dress of the
ugliest women in the world. An undoubted, uncontested, conscious beauty,
is of all women, the least sensible of flattery upon that head; she knows
that it is her due, and is therefore obliged to nobody for giving it her.
She must be flattered upon her understanding; which, though she may
possibly not doubt of herself, yet she suspects that men may distrust.

Do not mistake me, and think that I mean to recommend to you abject and
criminal flattery: no; flatter nobody's vices or crimes: on the contrary,
abhor and discourage them. But there is no living in the world without a
complaisant indulgence for people's weaknesses, and innocent, though
ridiculous vanities. If a man has a mind to be thought wiser, and a woman
handsomer than they really are, their error is a comfortable one to
themselves, and an innocent one with regard to other people; and I would
rather make them my friends, by indulging them in it, than my enemies, by
endeavoring (and that to no purpose) to undeceive them.

There are little attentions likewise, which are infinitely engaging, and
which sensibly affect that degree of pride and self-love, which is
inseparable from human nature; as they are unquestionable proofs of the