train of thought would be possible only to a water-spider, which has a similar faculty for skidding at unheard-of angles. Where a man proceeds over the landscape of logic like a trained hound, scenting his way unerringly from a definite hypothesis to a definite conclusion, a woman’s argument reappears at intervals, like a porpoise, at points to which there has been no such thing as the possibility of tracing her progress. Her reason does not go from step to step, but falls down-stairs headlong, touching only the high places: and always, as I have had occasion to remark before, the validity of her deductions is materially impaired by the intrusion of the purely personal. You may say to a man, for example, that all men are liars, and it is probable that he will view you in the light of a philosopher: but venture to observe to one of the opposite sex that the name of frailty is woman, and the chances are in favour of her regarding you as a boor. A man, in
