A mixture of some strong essays (On The Sufferings Of The World, Immortality: A Dialogue) with some that are very lacking (On Noise, Of Women).
‘Of Women’ would certainly be looked down on if it were published now, and frankly I did not like it myself. Not necessarily because of the way it talks, because of course a 19th century man feels a certain way about women, and it’s ridiculous to even argue about this. What I actually dislike is that compared to the rest in this collection, this essay is unfocused, titters back and forth from spot to spot, and makes certain points that are simply not well thought out or explained very well. In particular, the discussion about polygamy with it’s weak supporting arguments makes me think it was kept more for shock value. In that thread there’s a tendency to imagining how a particular change would be a grand solution to many problems; this is common in extreme contemporary ideology, i.e political theory X will solve multiple popular social problems, or we must kick out demographic X to solve multiple popular economic problems. It would be pedantic to go over what anyone can see for themselves, I’ll simply leave it at this: read the other essays which are excellent.
The only other I consider really weak is ‘On Noise’. He says in the biographies of almost all great writers there are complaints of noise, and that noise is a torture to intellectual people. He must not have been aware of the philosopher Seneca, who in one of his famous letters talks about how he is resistant to noise in his study. Actually, I believe I read that Schopenhauer enjoys Seneca? It would not be surprising. Does he believe Seneca is an insensitive moron? Compared to Seneca, Schopenhauer seems to just whine about something he cannot change; though in spirit I agree with Schopenhauer as I too cannot study properly with distracting noises or things moving in my sight.
I do highly recommend the essays I commended above. They are simply incredible. I often find that things most praiseworthy, I cannot form much to say on them, moreover because their qualities speak for themselves. I don’t want to bastardize it, so go and read those essays yourself.