Page:Genlis - The Palace of Truth (1819).djvu/69

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1 questioned Zumio what had passed in the palace during my absence. Ever since your inscription has been erased, answered Zumio, we have had plenty of visitors; and the crowd is now great; the company is numerous, but the bands of society are broken; disputes, endless quarrels, and gross rudeness, are continually heard. Politeness is absolutely banished: they rail at each other without art or indulgence; they cannot calumniate, but the most biting rancour makes them amends; they hate openly, exclaim, scold, and continue an eternal uproar, of which you can form no idea.

And how do the women behave?

More ridiculous, in general, than the men; the slightest subjects engender mortal hatred, and they discover falsehood so premeditated, and artifices often so puerile, as scarcely to be credited. One tells us she hopes we shall believe the sight of a spider makes her ill; another, that she is going to make us imagine she shall fall into hysterics at the sight of a eat and even when they have no particular

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