We are perpetually on the lookout for enemies and attack; we dread pitfalls and circumventions, and we feel that every face which we encounter is a smiling deceit--every honeyed word a blandishment meant to betray us.

These are lessons which society, as at present constituted, teaches of itself.
"With women the case is essentially different.

They have few of these influences to pervert and mislead.

They have nothing to do in the market-place--they are not candidates for place or power--they have not the ambition which is always struggling for state and for self; but, with a wisdom in this, that might avail us wonderfully in all other respects, they are kept apart, as things for love and worship--domestic divinities, whose true altar-place is the fireside; whose true sway is over fond hearts, generous sensibilities, and immaculate honor.

Where should they learn to contend with guile--to acquire cunning and circumspection--to guard the heart--to keep sweet affections locked up coldly, like mountain waters?
Shall we wonder that they sometimes deceive themselves rather than their neighbors--that they sometimes misapprehend their own feelings, and mistake for love some less absorbing intruder, who but lights upon the heart for a single instant, as a bird upon his spray, to rest or to plume his pinions, and be off with the very next zephyr.