[Ads-l] Quotation? "Women have a fibre more in the heart, and a cell less in the brain, than men"

[Joel Berson]

"Women.---The celebrated Fontenelle said, thatwomen have a fibre more in the heart, and a cell less in the brain, than men."

One of the earliest attributions to Fontenelle I found Google-Booking is from The New England Farmer, and Horticultural Journal (Boston), Volume 12, No. 29 (January 29, 1834), page 229,col. 1.  It goes on from this one (leading) sentence to complimentwomankind:  “As the dew lies longest and produces most fertility in theshade, so woman in the shade of domestic retirement sheds around her pathricher and more permanent blessings than man, who is more exposed to the glareand observation of public life. Thus the humble and retired often yield morevaluable benefits to society, than the noisy and bustling satellites of earth,whose very light of unconcealed enjoyment deteriorates and parches up the moralsoil it flows over.”    The New England Farmer attributes this to the N. Y.Star.

I have not tried to determine whether Fontenelle actually said any of this.


Joel

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