gment might
differ from him. If she be a true wife or sister, she will seek, in
retirement, to correct an opinion which could not be avowed in public
without weakening a husband's or a brother's influence. A woman that
builds up another is herself a power and a praise.

The word _pliant_ does not demand an absence of quality. The Damascus
blade is pliant; it can be bent but it is not easily broken, while
its edge is the keenest and its strength is a marvel. So woman is not
necessarily weak because she is pliant. She may be the very reverse,
and yet be pliant. Oftentimes her power of control is the more potent
because it is unseen and unostentatious. An opinion held, to be
uttered in the moment of cool and calm reflection, may be more telling
than if spoken while the storm of debate was raging. The still, small
voice came after the lightning and the thunder and the earthquake, and
God spake in it with power and effect. It is the quiet utterance in
the home which is of marvellous power in the world. It is womanly to
adorn rather than to plan.

She fits herself for companionship rather than for leadership. By her
tact and by her very nature she is enabled to harmonize antagonistic
elements, and promote concord, if she cannot secure union. Like the
lily living in the water, she feeds on her native element, love. The
lily, though it floats on the wave, opens wider its leaves to the rain
and dew. So woman, though living on love, finds pleasure and rapture
in fresh manifestations of love day by day. It is her nature to love.
It is her life to be beloved.

2. Think of this other title, _feminine_. This word, in its meaning,
furnishes the second characteristic. It pertains to woman, and denotes
a soft, tender, and delicate nature. Effeminate means destitute of
manly qualities.

A woman truly feminine is thus described: "No coarseness was mingled
with her plainness of speech; no boisterousness with her zeal. Her
feelings, her sensibilities, her tastes were all characterized by a
gentleness and delicacy seldom surpassed. While her heroic daring
and unconquerable energy excited admiration, her love of birds and
flowers, and indeed of all that is beautiful in nature, made her seem
almost childlike." This characteristic, so loved and admired, is
woman's glory, and yet it is effeminate. Woman's mind is quicker, more
flexible, more elastic than man's, though the brain, in weight, is
much lighter. Man's brain weighs, on an average,