to look for happiness in love, refine on sensual feelings, and
adopt metaphysical notions respecting that passion, which lead them
shamefully to neglect the duties of life, and frequently in the
midst of these sublime refinements they plunge into actual vice.

These are the women who are amused by the reveries of the stupid
novelists, who, knowing little of human nature, work up stale
tales, and describe meretricious scenes, all retailed in a
sentimental jargon, which equally tend to corrupt the taste, and
draw the heart aside from its daily duties. I do not mention the
understanding, because never having been exercised, its slumbering
energies rest inactive, like the lurking particles of fire which
are supposed universally to pervade matter.

Females, in fact, denied all political privileges, and not allowed,
as married women, excepting in criminal cases, a civil existence,
have their attention naturally drawn from the interest of the whole
community to that of the minute parts, though the private duty of
any member of society must be very imperfectly performed, when not
connected with the general good. The mighty business of female
life is to please, and, restrained from entering into more
important concerns by political and civil oppression, sentiments
become events, and reflection deepens what it should, and would
have effaced, if the understanding had been allowed to take a wider
range.

But, confined to trifling employments, they naturally imbibe
opinions which the only kind of reading calculated to interest an
innocent frivolous mind, inspires. Unable to grasp any thing
great, is it surprising that they find the reading of history a