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The author argues that tenderness and benevolence are fundamental traits of women, treating affection as the most conspicuous feminine quality while acknowledging other putative traits such as taste for ornament, gaiety, impulsiveness, and variability. The essay outlines the pleasures derived from attachment—love, friendship, gratitude, and general charity—and supports its claims with anecdotal evidence drawn from travel narratives and scriptural exemplars, showing repeated instances of female hospitality, pity, and self-sacrifice across cultures. The work combines moral reflection with illustrative stories to emphasize affection's constancy and social value.
Such are facts, from which the nature and strength and delicacy of affection may be seen.
Dear, dear Woman!—Let me,—indebted as I am to your tenderness and love for every blessing of my life,—let me say, in the words of the sweet Northern poet:
William Stevens, Printer, Bell Yard, Temple Bar.