Benevolence and kindness are peculiar characteristics of the female heart. The mildness of her nature comports with the delicacy of her appearance; and well may Charity always be represented in feminine apparel. During my tour, the hospitality of the husband was always more than seconded by that of the wife and daughter.
Such are my respect for, and admiration of the female character; so high an opinion do I entertain both of her understanding and heart; and so narrow {16} are the views of many, even in this enlightened age, in relation to these particulars, that I may be permitted, in this little work, to become her advocate. A thousand arguments in her behalf challenge my attention; but I must not transgress the proper limits of incidental remark.
The influence of woman, in civilized life, has not yet reached its acme. The effects of her ancient condition are not entirely removed. Hereditary ignorance and oppression still partially obstruct her intellectual progress. She has, in times past, not only had to contend with an almost entire seclusion from the world, where alone theoretical and practical knowledge are blended for the improvement of the human mind, but the other sex, unconscious of moral force and influenced only by a sense of physical strength, have, in various parts of the globe, treated her as an inferior. Oh, wretched pride!—oh, disgraceful ignorance!—oh, vulgar barbarity!—the Dove of Paphos is oppressed by the Egyptian Vulture.
Even in Greece and Rome the state of woman, to speak generally, was degrading. She was suffered to share but little in the general intercourse of life; and Metellus Numidicus, in an oration to the people of Rome, speaks of her with contempt. Yet some exultingly inquire,—where are your female philosophers and poets of antiquity?
Greece and Rome were the principal theatres of ancient
