Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/216

 reflect upon their actions. Her brain is not so multifariously stored with facts and relations, because there are some scenes from which she must always be remote. If, apart from sex, a considerable portion of a person's training has been by hearsay, that person's judgments will be sentiments rather than reflections; but sex decides that hearsay shall enter largely into woman's training. The rude, fierce, cunning competition of naked men in the palæstra, without blush or apology, gave girth to the breasts which were bucklers before the glory and the arts of Greece. Many a situation that is as coarse as a pugilist puts us in prudent trim. Women derive from our education a benefit which their muscle is too delicately draughted to procure. Events that do not mince their speech give us a thorough knowledge of our mother-tongue. We overhear the other people, weigh their words, enrich ourselves with facts, or protect ourselves against omens. She is more likely to be well-behaved than man, but less likely to be tolerant of ill-behavior. When she feels particularly virtuous, she is apt to condemn swiftly and fatally where man would suspend his judgment till all the qualifying facts were put into the case. Human development has in this respect conferred upon man a great advantage that dates from the barbaric rule of the stronger, and has been re-enforced by the varied experience of every generation. Just as woman is entering upon a more independent career, she betrays a deficiency in the quality of humor. Man was turned loose in the pasture to feed at random upon all the plants that drew nutritious and poison