CHAP. II.

OF THE STUDIES SUITABLE TO WOMEN.

To prohibit women from any kind of study, is to treat them as Mahomet did, who, in order to render them more voluptuous, judged it convenient to deny their having any soul. The major part of them conduct themselves as if they themselves had adopted a doctrine so injurious to their sex, and appear to place no value on that lively and penetrating genius which is far more useful than beauty.

When we recollect the happy dispositions of women, and the success of some of them, we cannot see, without chagrin, the little value they set upon their understandings; nevertheless, it would cost them but little to mature it.

They are prime vaulters, as Montagne says; and the finesse of their flights makes them catch readily, and without labour, the relative connexion of objects among themselves. It is a pity that a blameable indifference stifles in them the noblest gifts.

However powerful their charms may be to attract us, they will not be sufficient to hold us. The habit of seeing a fine face will weaken in a short time the impression of it.

When we are at a loss what to say to a handsome person, ennui soon gets the better of the taste we had for her; and it is this ennui, caused by the barrenness of the ideas of some women, which is the cause of that inconstancy of which they so frequently accuse us.

Let women judge of the difference which is met with among themselves by that which they themselves make between a silly fellow who wearies them, and a well-informed man who amuses them. A little study might place them above this latter, and

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make them possess this advantage—it is a kind of conquest we wish they would make over us. We shall see them, without jealousy, partake of a good that is always much better than what it costs to obtain.

The more they extend their knowledge, the greater will be the intercourse between them and us, and likewise the more interesting and animating.

There are a number of things lost for want of being able to communicate them, and which would increase our pleasure when we found women disposed to relish them.

But what are the objects to which women can reasonably apply themselves? To this I answer, and I beg the ladies to pardon me for it, that, among all the sciences which exercise the wonderful activity of the hu man mind, there are but some few which are within their reach.

They ought to avoid abstruse sciences and thorny researches, the particulars of which oppress their minds, and blunt that ingenuity for which they are so celebrated.

this sex

If there are to be found among a Dacier or a Chatelet, they are scarce examples, more to be admired than imitated. It is necessary for women to possess a less dazzling knowledge, which will be more in unison with their disposition.

The knowledge which they imbibe should be useful for practice in life: and I see nothing so disagreeable among them as those female theologians, who, devoted to a party whose aversions they adopt, assemble at their houses ridiculous convocations, and form extravagant sects. A Bourignon, a virgin of Venice, a Madam Guyon, are more disagreeable characters than female. epicures, like Ninon de l'Enclos.

We will not suffer the women to partake of any thing but what we know to be the most flattering and sure.

All that can awaken their curiosity, and give assistance to their imaginations, is more calculated for them than us. It is a pretty

extended field where they, conjunctively

with us, may exercise their minds: they can even surpass us, without humbling us. Physic and history may alone furnish women with an agreeable kind of study. The first, not in what it has of systematical, but in a succession of observations and skilful experiments, offers a subject well worthy of the attention of a reasonable being. But it is in vain that Nature tenders her wonders to the greater part of women, who pay no attention to any thing but to trifles. She is mute for them who know not how to examine her.

It, however, needs but a moderate attention to be struck with the admirable harmony which reigns in every part of the universe, and a desire to know the springs of it. It is the great book which is open to us all, and which two fine eyes may read, without fatiguing them, in the country, and in every place. Women cannot be too much encouraged to raise their thoughts there, which they but too often lower upon objects that are unworthy of them.