ALDA. But why are they mischievous? MEDON. Why!-why are they mischievous? Nay, ask them, or ask the father of all mischief, who has not a more efficient instrument to further his designs in this world, than a woman run mad with politics. The number of political intriguing women of this time, whose boudoirs and drawing-rooms are the foyers of party-spirit, is another trait of resemblance between the state of society now, and that which existed at Paris before the revolution. ALDA. And do you think, like some interesting young lady in Miss Edgeworth's tales, that "women have nothing to do with politics?" Do you mean to say that women are not capable of comprehending the principles of legislation, or of feeling an interest in the government and welfare of their country, or of perceiving and sympathizing in the pro gress of great events?-That they cannot feel patriotism? Believe me, when we do feel it, our patriotism, like our courage and our love, has a purer source than with you; for a man's patriotism has always some tinge of egotism, while a woman's patriotism is generally a sentiment, and of the noblest kind. MEDON. I agree in all this; and all this does not mitigate my horror of political women in general, who are, I repeat it, both mischievous and absurd. If you could but hear the reasoning in these feminine coteries! — but you never talk politics. ALDA. Indeed I do, when I can get any one to listen to me; but I prefer listening. As for the evil you complain of, impute it to that imperfect education which at once cultivates and enslaves the intellect, and loads the memory, while it fetters the judgment. Women, however well read in VOL. I. E history, never generalize in politics: never argue on any broad or general principle; never reason from a consideration of past events, their causes and consequences. But they are always political through their affections, their prejudices, their personal liaisons, their hopes, their fears. MEDON. If it were no worse, I could stand it; for that is at least feminine. ALDA. But most mischievous. For hence it is that we make such blind partisans, such violent party women, and such wretched politicians. I never heard a woman talk politics, as it is termed, that I could not discern at once the motive, the affection, the secret bias, which swayed her opinions and inspired her arguments. If it appeared to the Grecian sage so "difficult for a man not to love himself, nor the things that belong to him, but justice only?"-how much more for a woman! MEDON. Then you think that a better education, based on truer moral principles, would render women more reasonable politicians, or at least give them some right to meddle with politics? ALDA. It would cease in that case to be meddling, as you term it, for it would be legitimized. It is easy to sneer at political and mathematical ladies, and quote Lord Byron-but O leave those angry commonplaces to others!-they do not come well from you. Do not force me to remind you, that women have achieved enough to silence them for ever;1 and how often must that truism be repeated, that it is not a woman's attainments which make her amiable or unamiable, estimable or the contrary, but her qualities? A time is 1 In our own time, Madame de Staël, Mrs. Somerville, Harriet Martineau, Mrs. Marcet; we need not go back to the Rolands and Agnesi, nor even to our own Lucy Hutchinson. coming, perhaps, when the education of women will be considered, with a view to their future destination as the mothers and nurses of legislators and statesmen, and the cultivation of their powers of reflection and moral feelings supersede the exciting drudgery by which they are now crammed with knowledge and accomplishments. MEDON, Well-till that blessed period arrives, I wish you would leave us the province of politics to ourselves. I see here you have treated of a very different class of beings, "women in whom the affections and the moral sentiments predominate." Are there many such, think you, in the world? ALDA. Yes, many such; the developement of affection and sentiment is more quiet and unobtrusive than that of passion and intellect, and less observed; it is more common, too, therefore less remarked: but in women it generally gives the prevailing tone to the |