mon of all; because that peculiar faculty of the female mind, bestowed for the purpose of rendering her more efficient as a minister of comfort and consolation, is looked upon rather as a matter of taste, than as a principle; just as if fine feelings were only given to women to look pretty with. Women who are vain of their sensibility, and wish to have it indulged, generally choose weak and flattering friends, to whom they constantly complain of what they suffer from excess of feeling.
It is, indeed, a lamentable fact, and most probably the consequence of some mismanagement in early youth, that the sensitiveness of some women is such as to render them altogether useless, and sometimes worse than useless, in any case of suffering or alarm. If such individuals sincerely regret this disqualification, they are truly deserving of our pity; but if they make a parade of it, no language can be strong enough for their condemnation.
Allusion has already been made to that affectation of modesty which consists in simpering and blushing about what a truly delicate mind would neither have perceived nor understood, nor would have been in the slightest degree amused by if it had.
Affectation of humility is often betrayed by a proneness in persons to accuse themselves of some darling fault; while they repel with indignation the suspicion that they possess any other.
That kind of affectation which relates especially to manner, consists chiefly in assuming a particular expression of countenance, or mode of behaviour, which is not supported by a corresponding state of feeling. Thus an affectation of attention, when the thoughts are wandering, instead of that quiet and fixed look which indicates real interest, produces a certain degree of uneasiness of countenance arising out of the restraint imposed upon nature, which
