power--but by negatives, the
only way in which subtle subjects can be approached.

A woman of charm is never flustered and never _distraite_. She talks
little, and rarely of herself, remembering that bores are persons who
insist on talking about themselves. She does not break the thread of a
conversation by irrelevant questions or confabulate in an undertone with
the servants. No one of her guests receives more of her attention than
another and none are neglected. She offers to each one who speaks the
homage of her entire attention. She never makes an effort to be
brilliant or entertain with her wit. She is far too clever for that.
Neither does she volunteer information nor converse about her troubles or
her ailments, nor wander off into details about people you do not know.

She is all things--to each man she likes, in the best sense of that
phrase, appreciating his qualities, stimulating him to better things.

--_for his gayer hours_
_She has a voice of gladness and a smile and eloquence of beauty_;
_and she glides_
_Into his darker musings with a mild and healing sympathy that steals
away_
_Their sharpness ere he is aware_.

No. 2--The Moth and the Star

The truth of the saying that "it is always the unexpected that happens,"
receives in this country a confirmation from an unlooked-for quarter, as
does the fact of human nature being always, discouragingly, the same in
spite of varied surroundings. This sounds like a paradox, but is an
exceedingly simple statement easily proved.

That the great mass of Americans, drawn as they are from such varied
sources, should take any interest in the comings and goings or social
doings of a small set of wealthy and fashionable people, is certainly an
unexpected development. That to read of the amusements and home life of
a clique of people with whom they have little in common, whose whole
education and point of view are different from their own, and whom they
have rarely seen and never expect to meet, should afford the average
citizen any amusement seems little short of impossible.

One accepts as a natural sequence that abroad (where an hereditary
nobility have ruled for centuries, and accustomed the people to look up
to them as the visible embodiment of all that is splendid and
unattainable in life) such interest should exist. That the home-coming
of an English or French nobleman to his estates should excite the
enthusiasm of hundreds