y
it--uneducated brains through which it has passed, utterly unlike its
original; not only ludicrously maimed and distorted, but often with the
most fantastic additions of events, details, names, dates, places, which
each player will aver that he received from the player before him. I am
afraid that too much of the average gossip of every city, town, and
village is little more than a game of "Russian Scandal;" with this
difference, that while one is but a game, the other is but too
mischievous earnest.

But now, if among your party there shall be an average lawyer, medical
man, or man of science, you will find that he, and perhaps he alone, will
be able to retail accurately the story which has been told him. And why?
Simply because his mind has been trained to deal with facts; to ascertain
exactly what he does see or hear, and to imprint its leading features
strongly and clearly on his memory.

Now, you certainly cannot make young ladies barristers or attorneys; nor
employ their brains in getting up cases, civil or criminal; and as for
chemistry, they and their parents may have a reasonable antipathy to
smells, blackened fingers, and occasional explosions and poisonings. But
you may make them something of botanists, zoologists, geologists.

I could say much on this point: allow me at least to say this: I verily
believe that any young lady who would employ some of her leisure time in
collecting wild flowers, carefully examining them, verifying them, and
arranging them; or who would in her summer trip to the sea-coast do the
same by the common objects of the shore, instead of wasting her holiday,
as one sees hundreds doing, in lounging on benches on the esplanade,
reading worthless novels, and criticizing dresses--that such a young
lady, I say, would not only open her own mind to a world of wonder,
beauty, and wisdom, which, if it did not make her a more reverent and
pious soul, she cannot be the woman which I take for granted she is; but
would save herself from the habit--I had almost said the necessity--of
gossip; because she would have things to think of and not merely persons;
facts instead of fancies; while she would acquire something of accuracy,
of patience, of methodical observation and judgment, which would stand
her in good stead in the events of daily life, and increase her power of
bridling her tongue and her imagination. "God is in heaven, and thou
upon earth; therefore let thy words be few;" is the les