red, if it finds her at sixty with a relish for gaiety
still unslaked, she may yet be able to enjoy society herself and to
render it enjoyable to others. How many women there are of whom one
says, How pleasant they will be when they have done pushing! or have
pushed enough to allow themselves and others a little rest! One longs
for the time to arrive when they shall have kicked down the ladders by
which they have mounted, and effaced the trace of the rebuffs which they
have encountered. One longs to see them cleansed from the stains with
which their toilsome struggle has bespattered them, enjoying the ease
and tranquillity of the after-push. If "getting on in society" must
continue to be an object of female ambition, would it not be wise to
abate the nuisance by rendering the process somewhat more easy? Might
not some central authority be established to grant diplomas to pushing
women, which would admit them _per saltum_ to those select circles which
they go through so much dirt to reach?

FEMININE AFFECTATIONS.

The old form of feminine affectation used to be that of a die-away fine
lady afflicted with a mysterious malady known by the name of the vapors,
or one, no less obscure, called the spleen. Sometimes it was an
etherealized being who had no capacity for homely things, but who passed
her life in an atmosphere of poetry and music, for the most part
expressing her vague ideas in halting rhymes that gave more satisfaction
to herself than to her friends. She was probably an Italian scholar, and
could quote Petrarch and Tasso, and did quote them pretty often; she
might even be a Della Cruscan by honorable election, with her own
peculiar wreath of laurel and her own silver lyre; any way she was "a
sister of the Muses," and had something to do with Apollo and Minerva,
whom she was sure to call Pallas, as being more poetical. Probably she
had dealings with Diana too, for this kind of woman does not in any age
affect the "sea-born," save in a hazy sentimental way that bears no
fruits; a neatly-turned sonnet or a clever bit of counterpoint being to
her worth all the manly love or fireside home delights that the world
can give.

What is the touch of babies' dimpled fingers or the rosy kisses of
babies' lips compared to the pleasures of being a sister of the Muses,
and one of the beloved of Apollo? The Della Cruscan of former days, or
her modern avatar, will tell you that music and poetry are godlike and
bear the s