deed to admire what is superior, but causes them to be less
tolerant of what is offensive. The innervation and nutrition of woman
are finer and more complicated than those of man; and, by as much as
her nerves are more numerous and more delicate, she has a keener and
richer consciousness, including many states he is incapable of
reproducing. He is more of a head; she, more of a plant. Her body is
far more intelligent than his; and feelings are the thoughts of the
body, as thoughts are the feelings of the mind. No one can forget the
lines, made so famous by their exquisite felicity, written of
Elizabeth Drury by Donne:

The pure and eloquent blood
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought,
Ye might have almost said her body thought.

Mothers feel as if still connected with their offspring by the fibres
that joined them in their prenatal life; as the nerves continue to
report in consciousness an amputated hand or foot. There is in all
their emotions a vascular quality or consanguineous tincture never to
be wholly eliminated.

The greater material identification of mothers than of fathers with
their children, in the long period of gestation and nursing, leads to
a closer and more persistent mental identification with them. The
physical differences of the sexes react on the mind to make moral
differences; and these are further heightened by differences in their
education, habits of life, and sphere of interests. No doubt, these
differences occupy a larger share of attention in women than in men.

Those who have suffered sharply, see keenly; and it is difficult to
conceal much from women. They have the strangest facility in reading
physiological language, tones, gestures, bearing, and all those
countless signs which make the face and eyes such tell-tales of the
soul. They will look into your eyes, and see you think; listen to
your voice, and hear you feel. The coy and subtle world of emotion
now infinitely timid and reticent, now all gates flung down for the
floods to pour is their domain. They are at home in it all, from the
rosy fogs of feeling to the twilight borders of intelligence. On the
one side, these endowments are a help to friendship. The ardor with
which a pure and generous woman enters into choice states of soul in
another is a redemptive sight. This capacity of swift perception and
sympathy makes the friendship of a woman a precious boon to a man who
aims at greatness or perfection; and scarcely ever