"Most men have a period in their career when they might do something
great, a period when nothing seems impossible. The ignorance of
women spoils for the human race this magnificent opportunity: and
love, at the utmost, in these days, only inspires a young man to
learn to ride well, or to make a judicious selection of a
tailor."[1]
Society, however, discovers by degrees that there are conveniences in every
woman's knowing the four rules of arithmetic for herself. Two and two come
to the same amount on a butcher's bill, whether the order be given by a man
or a woman; and it is the same in all affairs or investments, financial or
moral. We shall one day learn that with laws, customs, and public affairs
it is the same. Once get it rooted in a woman's mind, that for her, two and
two make three only, and sooner or later the accounts of the whole human
race fail to balance.
[Footnote 1: _De L'Amour_, par de Stendhal (Henri Beyle). Paris, 1868
[written in 1822], pp. 182, 198.]