"I have no other but a woman's reason:
I think him so because I think him so."
A woman will tell you that probably she drops out stages, and does not have to pass through all the terms which detain a man; so that the process is like evaporation,—a broad and insensible deduction. This is a constant surprise to man, who supposes that his logical ability must be superior in all exigencies, because it is so essential in science and the classification of the world, and wherever he trains facts to observe their proper sequence. But woman's brain vaporizes syllogism, and a subtle æther vibrates. Her limitation is a great superiority on its appropriate field.
Hermia tells Theseus that Lysander is a worthy gentleman. The Prince replies:—
"In himself he is;
But, in this kind, wanting your father's voice,
The other must be held the worthier.
Her. I would my father look'd but with my eyes!
The. Rather your eyes must with his judgment look."
But that is past expecting or desiring, for there is often a better judgment in her tact.
It is also a reason for the inability of man to thoroughly fathom all her moods and motives, for it is the advantage which sex procures for her. We sometimes understand her secret convictions as little as we do the minds of children, who are as removed from us by time as she is by sex. It is a distance equally difficult to surmount; for though we too have been children, and suffered or rejoiced in secret, we have entirely forgotten how it was all done, or with what sequences of moods and partial reasonings our experience was gained. If, therefore, there be always something of audacity in the attempt to analyze the natures of women, in life itself or in Shakspeare's living characters, the confession must soften the offence, and, if there be failure, pardon it.
Those gestures of the female intelligence which we may call intuitive afford her an advantage in her intercourse with the other sex. Notice how Shakspeare's women read the men and understand them better than the other men do. Those who are most interested to know the disposition of their associates are not the first as a matter of course to discover it; but it is frequently, and in grave junctures, revealed by the swift instinct of some woman. Men are not conscious when they are observed by women, because the survey is made so silently. We are as little conscious of the unobtrusive forenoon which envelops every act and feature and sets them in plainness. The glance of an observing woman does not pierce a man at any spot: it surrounds the whole of him at once impalpably. Or sometimes it is one swift flit of her face across your own, like the shadow of a bird's wing. It is gone before you can declare that she looked at you. But the glance was an estimate: it cost her scarce a second to peruse every cubic inch of you, and audit a hundred years of ancestry. The glance is withdrawn, and goes into obscurity, like an instantaneous sun-picture, there to deepen into distinctness. Almost every woman has set up a gallery of these impressions, which she shows rarely, and to her trusted intimates alone. But there you are preserved,—a simpleton, a rowdy, a gallant, a rogue, or a gentleman; one who respects, who honors, or who thinks lightly of her; one who is capable of valuing or of depreciating; one whose hand is clean enough to touch or nettlesome to roughen her delicacy; one whose secret and unspoken effluence is salubrious, or somewhat doubtful, to be kept at bay, to be considered while you are the most profuse of honorable sentences. In the long run, you will generally succeed in justifying all her silent estimates. She took you unawares, in a moment when your lip did not move with your tongue, or the eye motioned to her something dubious, or the whole face was a daybreak of clarity and honor. Ponder well, and lend it second-thoughts, when a woman bids you, upon the motion of her instinct, be cautious—or be confiding, be profuse or chary, be still over-ears in love or cured of that distemper. To a young man the freedom of a good woman's estimate of other men supplements the university; for he is a pupil who is fathomed previous to being taught.
Are our steps dogged then, and all our proceedings watched by non-commissioned detectives, who enjoy the immense advantage of being born in every house, and furnished with a passport into every other? Is a badge concealed in every reticule, to be displayed when the occasion comes to arrest us, which may be at the moments of our critical feelings, when confidence, and not exposure, is vital to us? A fine woman has not the consciousness that belongs to spies: she is guiltless of the act and the intent to watch us. Men deliberately set themselves to the work of scrutiny, and pay out all the line they have to fathom an associate, and bring up his mud or gold-sand sticking to the sinker. It does not always reach the grounds of his being. But clear-headed women envelop other natures as the air which simply exists to drench all objects through their pores, by the stress of miles of heaven's blue piled on it. As every unconscious breath we draw compels the air to enter and circulate through us, so all our involuntary moods and actions invite the woman's perception. Who is not willing to exist immersed in this frank element that is without a motive?
But if some obscure caprice in a woman is always ready to steal out and nibble at her judgment, or if some obliquity faults her intrinsic nature, she can mistake you as rapidly as otherwise she might correctly hit. Nothing can be more unjust and cruel, more bitterly fostered, more viciously proclaimed, or virtuously insinuated, than the impromptu misinterpretations of a shallow or prejudiced woman. She may not be deep enough to be dangerous; but her prejudice saturates the mind, and there is no margin of a woman left. She plies her pea-blower in all companies: the little projectiles carry breath enough to tingle. They hit the people who ought to be your friends with a blow aimed by something that is unlike yourself, and which you are not capable of becoming. It is yourself soured in her spleen, poisoned by her spite. Some unsatisfied emotion degenerates into a damaged judgment.