| The nobler and more perfect a thing is, the later and slower it is becoming mature. A man reaches the mature{{U}} (1) {{/U}}of his reasoning powers and mental faculties{{U}} (2) {{/U}}before the age of twenty-eight; a woman at eighteen. And then, too, in the case of woman, it is the only reason of a sort--very mean in its{{U}} (3) {{/U}}. That is why women remain children their whole life long; never seeing{{U}} (4) {{/U}}but what is quite close to them,{{U}} (5) {{/U}}fast to the present moment, taking appearance for{{U}} (6) {{/U}}, and preferring{{U}} (7) {{/U}}to matters of the first importance. For it is{{U}} (8) {{/U}}his reasoning faculty that man does not live in the present only,{{U}} (9) {{/U}}the brute, but looks about him and considers the past and the future; and this is the origin of{{U}} (10) {{/U}}, as well as that of care and anxiety which so many people{{U}} (11) {{/U}}Both the advantages and the disadvantages, which this{{U}} (12) {{/U}}, are{{U}} (13) {{/U}}in by the woman to a smaller extent because of her weaker power of reasoning. She may, in fact, be described as intellectually shortsighted,{{U}} (14) {{/U}}, while she has an immediate understanding of what lies quite close to her, her field of{{U}} (15) {{/U}}is narrow and does not reach to what is{{U}} (16) {{/U}}; so that things which are absent, or past, or to come, have much less effect upon women than upon men. This is the reason why women are inclined to be{{U}} (17) {{/U}}and sometimes carry their desire to a{{U}} (18) {{/U}}that borders upon madness. In their hearts, women think it is men's business to earn money and theirs to spend it--if possible during their husband's life,{{U}} (19) {{/U}}, at any rate, after his death. The very fact that their husband hands them{{U}} (20) {{/U}}his earnings for purposes of housekeeping strengthens them in this belief. |