Germaine De StaËl (Essay Date 1810)

SOURCE: de Staël, Germaine. "Of the Women." In Germany, pp. 43-45. New York: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1859.

In the following excerpt from her nonfiction work Germany, originally published in 1810, de Staël offers an analysis of the character of the German woman, who she says is distinguished by her perfect loyalty.

Nature and society give to women a habit of endurance; and I think it can hardly be denied that, in our days, they are generally worthier of moral esteem than the men. At an epoch when selfishness is the prevailing evil, the men, to whom all positive interests are related, must necessarily have less generosity, less sensibility, than the women. These last are attached to life only by the ties of the heart; and even when they lose themselves, it is by sentiment that they are led away...