“That most women have no character at all,” says Selim. “That they are most powerfully influenced by three things, interest, pleasure and vanity; that perhaps there is not one of them who is not governed by one of these passions; and that those who join all the three together, are monsters.”

“As for pleasure, that I can allow them,” said Mangogul, who had just then joined the company: “though little dependance can be had on this sort of women, yet they are to be excused. When the constitution is wound up to a certain pitch, it is an unruly horse, which carries his rider over hedges and ditches; and most women are mounted astride on that beast.”

“ ’Tis probably for that reason,” says Selim, “that the dutchess Menega calls the Chevalier Kaidar her master of the horse.”