o believe her, though I know she lies."

Women have such a wonderful power of secreting adjectives that they
cannot speak the truth when they try. There is no moral obliquity in the
case. It is psychical incapacity.

_Hipparchia._ Ambition in a man is the resolution to become powerful,
useful, great, rich. A woman means by ambition the desire to shine in
the society she belongs to, or perhaps to work her way into a set she
considers better. And honor and virtue are, I think, used in a different
sense.

_Diogenes._ Yes; the meaning is very much "localized."

_Hipparchia._ I admit that women have caught from the men a little of
the dissatisfied, dyspeptic philosophy of this generation. But the men
do not know what they want, and the ideas of the women are still more
vague. They only know that they would like a change of some kind. Their
imaginations are not contented with the commonplaces of every-day life.
They long for more excitement, and to get it are willing, as Punch has
it,

"To do or suffer ere they die
They know not what, they care not why."

But the "mission" must be exotic, meteoric, dazzling. Home missions
present as little attraction as bonnets that do not come from Paris. The
little opportunities for doing good that spring up about their feet are
neglected. I know so many of those gifted, enthusiastic transcendental
natures, at least in their own opinion, who cannot condescend to the
meaner duties of life,--such as being faithful to their husbands, taking
care of their children, and making themselves agreeable to their
relatives.

Then really "earnest" women, who mean to be useful to their
fellow-creatures, often do as much harm as good for the want of
practical sense. Their dear little foundlings all die of measles,
diphtheria, or scarlet-fever. They give their pet paupers a regular
allowance, which supplies them bountifully with tobacco and grog. They
quack pauperism, and increase the malady instead of curing it, because
impulses of weakness miscalled feelings are consulted, instead of the
hard, dry details of eleemosynary science; for science it is,--a branch
of political economy. Benevolence like this is only another form of the
love for excitement. Women will never take the trouble to consider the
principle of things.

_Diogenes._ I have read somewhere a definition of woman,--"An
unreasoning animal that pokes the fire on top."

_Aristippus._ Diogenes was converted to this hopeless co