could, as you fancy, silence your Charlotte's opposition. I say, that we women, were our education the same—You know what I would be at—Your weightier arguments, if you please—or a specimen only on passant.
Supposing, my Charlotte, that all human souls are, in themselves, equal; yet the very design of the different machines in which they are inclosed, is to superinduce a temporary difference on their original equality; a difference adapted to the different purposes for which they are designed by Providence in the present transitory state. When those purposes are at an end, this difference will be at an end too. When Sex ceases, inequality of Souls will cease; and women will certainly be on a foot with men, as to intellectuals, in Heaven. There, indeed, will you no longer have Lords over you: neither will you have Admirers: Which, in your present estimate of things, will perhaps balance the account. In the mean time, if you can see any occasions that may call for stronger

understandings in male life, than in your own; you, at the same time, fee an argument to acquiesce in a persuasion of a present inequality between the two Sexe. You know, I have allowed exceptions. Will you, Charlotte, compliment yourself with being one?
Now, brother, I feel, methinks, that you are a little hard upon Charlotte: But, Ladies, you see how the matter stands.—You are all silent.—But, Sir, you graciously allow, that there is a degree of knowledge which is very compatible with the DUTIES of us women, and highly becoming us: will you have the goodness to point out to us what this compatible learning is, that we may not mistake—and so become excentric, as I may say, burst out orb, and do more mischief than ever we could do good?
Could I point out the boundaries, Charlotte, it might not to some spirits be so proper: The limit might be treated as the one prohibited tree in the garden. But let me say, That genius, whether in man or woman, will push itself into light. If it has a laudable tendency, let it, as a ray of the Divinity, be encouraged, as well in the one Sex as in the other: I would not, by any means, have it limited: A little knowledge leads to vanity and conceit. I would only, methinks, have a Parent, a Governor, a Preceptor, bend his strength to restrain its foibles; but not throw so much cold water upon the