has there been an
illustrious man who has not been appreciated, comforted, and inspired
in secret by some woman long before he became famous, circling around
him with her unselfish ministrations, like that star which is the
invisible companion of Sirius.

The poor young Niebuhr writes home from Great Britain to Madam
Hensler, the wife of the good professor who had befriended him in
college, "Your letter has made me so wild with delight, that I have
felt full of affection to every creature that has come in my way."
The melancholy heart and dismal lot of Gerald Griffin, the Irish
novelist, found almost their solitary human alleviation and
brightness in the sustaining kindness and admiration of a lady,
designated in his brother's biography of him as Mrs. L. John Foster,
whose social career was as trying to him as his massive soul was
lonely, exceedingly enjoyed the cordial encouragement and affection
of a number of cultivated and excellent women. Many of his published
letters were addressed to one of these, Mrs. Mant. He thus writes to
her of another one: "I turn, disgusted and contemptuous, from insipid
and shallow folly, to lave in the tide of deeper sentiments. There I
swim and dive and rise and gambol, with all that wild delight which
could be felt by a fish, after panting out of its element awhile,
when flung into its own world of waters by some friendly hand. Such a
hand to me is Mrs. C.'s. It is impossible to give a just idea of the
strange fascination she diffuses around her. My mind seems to be
larger, stronger, and more brilliant in her company than anywhere
else. Every fountain of sentiment opens at her approach."

The greater sensibility, insight, and impulsiveness of women, on the
other hand, expose them more to obstacles in the way of friendship.
Coldness and meanness are less endurable by them. A genuinely feeling
soul has an insuperable repugnance alike for unfeelingness, for false
feeling, and for false expressions of feeling. An Arabian courser
cannot travel comfortably with a snail. A soul whose motions are
musical curves cannot well blend with a soul whose motions are
discordant angles. A woman is naturally as much more capricious than
a man, as she is more susceptible. A slighter shock suffices to
jostle her delicate emotions out of delight into disgust. She is
therefore a severer personal critic. Male peccadilloes are female
crimes. A wet-blanket presence that she could not tolerate may
refresh him