Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/228

 Woman prefers to know the interests of the planet by hearsay, to sit over her fine task and listen to some man who has sopped up each crisis: he distils the day into a few drops of her luxury. It evaporates like the scent upon her handkerchief. She will hardly derive the benefit of discussing it. Her native sense ought to be furnished with a just appreciation of public affairs, enlightened observation of them, well-balanced abhorrence of all the iniquities, sustained and practical reflection upon the great proceedings of the world. If the claims of the household can never afford her time for this, she must decline the peril of increasing masculine ignorance by the weight of a single ballot.

But, in private and domestic life, what Aladdin's lamp she rubs in secret to enrich her day! When a woman has a good deal of common-sense, she never uses it to ponder with. It is a daylight that pervades all at once without arriving by degrees. It is wonderful to see her swiftness in unknotting man's perplexed forehead with her talent that is used to snarls. It was not the result of a process of inferring and considering: she is the most considerate when she taxes herself the least to be so. And, if you ask her how she reasons upon any subject, she might reply as Julia did when pressed to give her reason for thinking Proteus the best man:—

"I have no other but a woman's reason: I think him so because I think him so."

A woman will tell you that probably she drops out stages, and does not have to pass through all the terms which detain a man; so that the process is like evapo