everything, from a tin pan to a telescope, he can make a good picture, and know it, without being called conceited." Well," said Charity, "I'll never change the good name of Gouge till I find a man without any conceit in him." "You'll have to hunt a while, Charity," said Kate, before you find such a wise fool and brilliant dunce. You might as well expect to find the opposite magnetic poles of human nature at the same end of the life battery-and if you could find such a rare bird, he'd have to take your name -for the best part of him would be Gouged out of him. "I wouldn't give a fig for a man unless he thought he could do something. A man can never accomplish anything until he feels there is something in him to begin with. Don't you suppose, Charity, that if a rock had a soul, it would know that it was a rock? if a star could think, wouldn't it know that it was a star? if a flower could feel, wouldn't it be conscious that it was a flower?-and every granite truth, starry thought, and flowery fancy, sees its faithful shadow in the reflecting fountain of its native soul: But here endeth my first lesson, for there comes Fred, and I always hide away my metaphysical patchbag when he's around, for he is a most unmerciful tease. He says no lady ever can carry on an argument in a logical manner that they plunge right into a subject, and can't hold their breath long enough to get the pearls at the bottom: that the best of us are superficial, and never canvass both sides of a question, and half the time when we talk we don't know what we are driving at, and the best of our opinious are only echoes of our lover's, husband's, or brother's thoughts; that we are very good in our way-that means, I suppose, that like birds in the air or fishes in the water, there's only one element adapted to our simple nature, and that is the domestic element. "I wonder what we have eyes for, and what we have souls for, if we are to be cooped up in one set of cages, and never peek through or wander out, to see what is going on outside. For my part I like to climb the spiritual fence, and see a few of the stars and smell a few of the flowers of truth, where man's free spirit is pasturing at large on the wide field of thought, and daily growing grander and mightier. I get tired of thinking over the same old thoughts and eating the corn meal of common sense, and forever dwelling on the highly recommended yet stale subject of good housekeeping. To coop us in, and bar us out of the beautiful thought world, is compelling us to live on bran bread, while man feasts on angels' food and fathoms angels' themes." Miss Charity yawned heavily, and then taking out her watch, exclaimed, "Why, it is nearly four o'clock. I ought to be at the meeting of the managers this very moment, and they can't do anything without me." As she went up to her room, Kate couldn't help saying to herself, "When Charity talks about conceit, she'd better begin at home." CHAPTER XXVII. LOVE, JEALOUSY, AND RIVALRY. "I want a steward, butler, cooks; Guido's fleet Coursers in their flight, And Claudes, at least a pair."-JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. "Les hommes seront toujours ce qu'il plaisa aux femmes." ROUSSEAU. As Florence went out of the room-" Yes," said Mrs. Elliott, rocking back and forth in her drawing-room, "any woman not engaged, and not in love with some other man, can be obtained by any intelligent, good-looking man, if he have the right tact, address and perseverance, and is doing well in business. Most women know a dozen such they would accept, if they would offer themselves judiciously and romantically, by moonlight, or out by some grove. Florence and Carleyn may make a match yet, if she is prudent and cautious, and don't flirt with too many others. Carleyn is no flirt. Why don't you get up a flirtation with somebody?" said she to Nepenthe, as she came in with her netting. "I don't know how," said Nepenthe, quietly," and if I did, I wouldn't like to win or encourage the advances of a man I would not marry. I think these endearing expressions, coaxing tones, and languishing attitudes wrong, and very unpleasant in the recollection. I would rather have the love of one true-hearted man than see a dozen mous. tached and worshipful Apollos sighing at my feet. I would rather have only the one offer from the man I might marry than feel the pain of rejecting a hundred I could not accept. If a man really loves a woman, it must give her pain to say to him, No-and be a matter of regret to her afterwards "Very well got up sentences," said Florence, coming in just then," and quite heroic. Talk about giving gentlemen pain, and breaking their hearts. Pshaw! Men's hearts don't break! Most any of them think they can have any woman for the asking-they are so full of conceit, they really believe that ladies will say, 'Yes sir, and thank you, too!' I like to take some of the conceit out of them. Yes, I enjoy it. I'd like the pleasure of refusing most all of them. Look at those young widowers, who have so adored their wives while living. They'll many of them marry in a little less than a year, some of them in even six months; and if they marry then, they must allow some time previous for the preliminary love making, engagement, &c. Who knows how soon they do think of it? Do you remember what Mr. Hollow said, when somebody asked him why he married six months after his wife died? He said he should not wear mourning for her so long as for a brother or sister. because she was no blood relation. But," she added, changing her tone, "when we see you playing the agreeable to a gentleman, sitting chatting so absorbed in the corner, we'll know you are in earnest.' Gen I would often rather talk with a gentleman than a lady," said Nepenthe, not noticing the insinuation implied in Florence's remark. "It is more natural for a lady to confide in some intelligent man, than in some other woman. tlemen pay more respectful attention. As they are out more in the world, if they are well informed, they give information on certain subjects with which we haven't the same opportunity to be familiar. Their minds are not as apt to be absorbed with the details of trifles, and for my part I think most of the agreeable men are married men." "But you certainly wouldn't talk sense in society. It is "You neither customary nor in good taste," said Florence. don't go into society to get or give information. There are lectures, libraries, churches enough to enlighten us. We go into society to be amused. During the whole of the fashionable sociables I attended last winter, we danced every evening all the evening. I never had but one conversation the whole winter, and that was with a gentleman from Boston, and it was purely accidental. It was waltz, promenade and polka, polka, promenade and waltz, all winter-and this is society." "All do not go into society with the same motives," said Nepenthe, coloring slightly. "Some are lookers on in Venice.' I have been so little out of late, my ideas of society would probably be outre. I hardly know what is cus. tomary. Whatever is the tone of conversation, ladies often give it its caste, and gentlemen, while with them, try to talk to suit them. Gentlemen really like to give information. Each educated man, if he reads much, if he has travelled far, enjoys thinking and talking, on some one subject more than another. He likes to talk of that of which he likes to think. I believe almost everybody, rich or poor, ignorant or educated, knows something, from facts, observation, or experience, of which many others are ignorant. The charm of conversation is not so much in talking ourselves, and displaying our own powers, as to get others to talk, to draw upon their resources of knowledge, I can usually find, after talking a little with a gentleman, what he likes best, and I turn the conversation in that direction. He may be eloquent on that subject, though perhaps taciturn on every other. If a man thinks he is really imparting information, he will be natural and genial-he will like you better, and really think you more agreeable, though you only ask a few questions, and are a patient listener, and he does most all the talking." "There is more in the way and manner than in the thought," said Florence, interrupting her; "men never like learned women to talk with. They care more for beauty, ease and style, than any great intellectual power, or wise conversation, full of tiresome, long words." "I think," said Nepenthe, "if a gentleman have a horror of a literary woman, she need certainly display no pedantry before him. She can keep locked in reserve her best intel lectual stores, and use with him only the common coin, the small change of conversation, talking of common things in a common sense way. In talking with ordinary people, on ordinary occasions, on ordinary subjects, it is as much out of place to use the largest and grandest words, as for a lady to wear her wedding dress and set of diamonds in travelling, or her opera cloak and hood at church. Those people who are always coming out everywhere with their words in studied full dress, are very tiresome and disagreeable. We begin to think that the display is so marked, that the original stock is small. I think on most any occasion, 'tis best not to use a long word where a small one will do. Conversation is like mosaic-small pieces are sometimes inlaid the best, and heighten the charm of the whole. Much of the German poetry, so expressive and beautiful, is composed principally of short, familiar words. We seldom think in long words. The best minister I ever heard was distinguished for his simplicity of language. He never used one syllable too many, or a word you could omit. He never piled up adjectives. His sermon would be a pure, clear stream of thought-his comparisons and images like flowers beside this stream. You could almost see their bright shadows and smell their fragrance. A flower is one of the simplest things of nature, yet the most beautiful; and this clergyman always had a flower in his sermon. How often have heard him allude simply and beautifully to heliotropes and violets, and the flowers never seemed put in, but springing up, and growing under his hand, a part of his elevated subject and elevated soul. "An intelligent woman can sooner and surer find out what a man really is, than another man can. Men often make mistakes about each other. One man hides his heart from another, while often he frankly shows his gentler, warmer, kinder nature to a true woman. He may seem ice to a man, and sunshine to her. Every true man has some spot in his nature where tenderness steals in and flows out. A woman's hand, look or tone, may touch the valve of some secret hydrant, and raise the warm, gushing sympathies from the deep hidden conduit of man's rocky heart." 'Ladies who make some literary pretensions, are often jealous of those more beautiful than themselves," said Flo"Woman is made to adorn man's life. There is a rence. |