ut," said Helen, archly, "I remember too what my cousin replied:
'If Sir William Temple had practised his theory, he would not have been
ambassador at the Hague, or--"

"Pshaw! the boy's always ready enough with his answers," interrupted Mr.
Fielden, rather petulantly. "There's the fair, my dear,--more in your
way, I see, than Sir William Temple's philosophy."

And Helen was right; the fair was no Eastern bazaar, but how delighted
that young, impressionable mind was, notwithstanding,--delighted with
the swings and the roundabouts, the shows, the booths, even down to
the gilt gingerbread kings and queens! All minds genuinely poetical
are peculiarly susceptible to movement,--that is, to the excitement
of numbers. If the movement is sincerely joyous, as in the mirth of a
village holiday, such a nature shares insensibly in the joy; but if the
movement is a false and spurious gayety, as in a state ball, where the
impassive face and languid step are out of harmony with the evident
object of the scene, then the nature we speak of feels chilled and
dejected. Hence it really is that the more delicate and ideal order
of minds soon grow inexpressibly weary of the hack routine of what are
called fashionable pleasures. Hence the same person most alive to a
dance on the green, would be without enjoyment at Almack's. It was
not because one scene is a village green, and the other a room in King
Street, nor is it because the actors in the one are of the humble, in
the others of the noble class; but simply because the enjoyment in the
first is visible and hearty, because in the other it is a listless and
melancholy pretence. Helen fancied it was the swings and the booths
that gave her that innocent exhilaration,--it was not so; it was the
unconscious sympathy with the crowd around her. When the poetical nature
quits its own dreams for the actual world, it enters and transfuses
itself into the hearts and humours of others. The two wings of that
spirit which we call Genius are revery and sympathy. But poor little
Helen had no idea that she had genius. Whether chasing the butterfly or
talking fond fancies to her birds, or whether with earnest, musing
eyes watching the stars come forth, and the dark pine-trees gleam into
silver; whether with airy daydreams and credulous wonder poring over the
magic tales of Mirglip or Aladdin, or whether spellbound to awe by the
solemn woes of Lear, or following the blind great bard into "the heaven
of heav