In cases that are not involved with passion, inclination, or some personal and social coil, the moral judgment of woman is natively far better than fear of detection. And, if a man prides himself upon some superiority in this respect, he has something to conceal. What social circle in the world is not made eminent by cases of a sense of duty that sustains itself against inclination and personal respects! Suffering heroism holds up ill-fated alliances and conceals them nobly from the common eye; there is protracted sacrifice which puts the finger of silence to quivering lips. There are not a few women whom youthful sentiment, like a paid emissary, has decoyed into cruel disenchantments, and there betrayed them to the stake: the fagots are piled, the years contribute fresh fuel, but the flames extort no cry. For the highest considerations of conscience, the tenderest maternity, lights a counter-fire that shrivels the complaint. The world never discovers that this _auto-da-fé_ is going on of a woman who is too delicate and noble to dash the sparks of it among her neighbors for the brewing of tea-table gossip, and the kindling of little bonfires of sympathy.
But, in social and public transactions, the average woman can be the bitterest partisan and the most reckless defyer of justice: it is when her sentiment is involved, her pride is hurt, a specific interest of house or person threatened, her egotism irritated. With men, partisanship is the result of complex motives; with woman, it is an unmixed, aboriginal passion. Bosom friends never know two sides to a quarrel: the woman who is implicated is sure, when she makes her statement to female intimates, of an absolute and abject belief in her truthfulness. They will not take the trouble to learn, or even care to inquire after, the position of the other party. If it be a man, he will be perfectly conscious of this manɶuvre of nature without taking much pains to set up a counter-movement, or to create a party of his own. Manifold occupations supply a salutary rebuke of pettiness, and help to drive the matter from his mind. If it be a woman, much time and feminine resource will be lavished in self-exoneration. She will go to and fro in a vigorous canvass of society, to create a clan and clothe it in the plaid of her sprightly confidences. Its bucklers coldly gleam in every assembly.