makes feminine talk fatiguing to you. Very small
things indeed have an interest when exhibited in relation to larger, as
men of science are continually demonstrating. I have been taking note
lately of the talk that goes on around me, and I find that when it is
shallow and wearisome it is always because the facts mentioned bear no
reference to any central or governing idea, and do not illustrate
anything. Conversation is interesting in proportion to the originality
of the central ideas which serve as pivots, and the fitness of the
little facts and observations which are contributed by the talkers. For
instance, if people happened to be talking about rats, and some one
informed you that he had seen a rat last week, that would be quite
uninteresting: but you would listen with greater attention if he said;
"The other night, as I was going up stairs very late, I followed a very
fine rat who was going up stairs too, and he was not in the least
hurried, but stopped after every two or three steps to have a look at me
and my candle. He was very prettily marked about the face and tail, so I
concluded that he was not a common rat, but probably a lemming. Two
nights afterwards I met him again, and this time he seemed almost to
know me, for he quietly made room for me as I passed. Very likely he
might be easily tamed." This is interesting, because, though the fact
narrated is still trifling, it illustrates animal character.

If you will kindly pardon an "improvement" of this subject, as a
preacher would call it, I might add that an intellectual lady like
yourself might, perhaps, do better to raise the tone of the feminine
talk around her than to withdraw from it in weariness. There are always,
in every circle, a few superior persons who, either from natural
diffidence, or because they are not very rich, or because they are too
young, suffer themselves to be entirely overwhelmed by the established
mediocrity around them. What they need is a leader, a deliverer. Is it
not in your power to render services of this kind? Could you not select
from the younger ladies whom you habitually meet, a few who, like
yourself, feel bored by the dulness or triviality of what you describe
as the current feminine conversation? There is often a painful shyness
which prevents people of real ability from using it for the advantage of
others, and this shyness is nowhere so common as in England, especially
provincial England. It feels the want of a hardy ex