been so eager a thirst for education. To-day it is not intellect but
cleverness that promenades the streets. From every crevice in the
rocky surface of society brilliant flowers burst forth as the spring
brings them on the walls of a ruin; even in the caverns there droop
from the vaulted roof faintly colored tufts of green vegetation. The
sun of education permeates all. Since this vast development of
thought, this even and fruitful diffusion of light, we have scarcely
any men of superiority, because every single man represents the whole
education of his age. We are surrounded by living encyclopaedias who
walk about, think, act and wish to be immortalized. Hence the
frightful catastrophes of climbing ambitions and insensate passions.
We feel the want of other worlds; there are more hives needed to
receive the swarms, and especially are we in need of more pretty
women.

But the maladies by which a man is afflicted do not nullify the sum
total of human passion. To our shame be it spoken, a woman is never so
much attached to us as when we are sick.

With this thought, all the epigrams written against the little sex
--for it is antiquated nowadays to say the fair sex--ought to be
disarmed of their point and changed into madrigals of eulogy! All men
ought to consider that the sole virtue of a woman is to love and that
all women are prodigiously virtuous, and at that point to close the
book and end their meditation.

Ah! do you not remember that black and gloomy hour when lonely and
suffering, making accusations against men and especially against your
friends, weak, discouraged, and filled with thoughts of death, your
head supported by a fevered pillow and stretched upon a sheet whose