If one could be friendly with women, what a pleasure - the relationship so secret and private compared with relations with men. Why not write about it truthfully?
If woman had no existence save in the fiction written by men, one would imagine her a person of utmost importance; very various; heroic and mean; splendid and sordid; infinitely beautiful and hideous in the extreme; as great as a man; some think even greater.
It is observable that the ladies frequent tragedies more than comedies; the reason may be, that in tragedy their sex is deified and adored, in comedy exposed and ridiculed.
O Woman, you are not merely the handiwork of God, but also of men; these are ever endowing you with beauty from their own hearts ... You are one-half woman and one-half dream.
Women have their heads in their hearts. Man seems to have been destined for a superior being; as things are, I think women generally better creatures than men. They have weaker appetites and weaker intellects but much stronger affections. A man with a bad heart has been sometimes saved by a strong head; but a corrupt woman is lost forever.