e the best. Nor, though something
commonplace in her make-up, such as the average of cultivated
womanhood is always found to be, is she without bright and penetrative
thoughts, whenever the occasion calls for them. Her reply to the
Steward, when, by way of scorching the Clown, he "marvels that her
ladyship takes delight in such a barren rascal," gives the true
texture of her mind and moral frame: "O, you are sick of self-love,
Malvolio, and taste with a distempered appetite. To be generous,
guiltless, and of free disposition, is to take those things for
bird-bolts that you deem cannon-bullets. There is no slander in an
allowed Fool, though he do nothing but rail; nor no railing in a known
discreet man, though he do nothing but reprove." Practical wisdom
enough to make the course of any household run smooth! The instincts
of a happy, placid temper have taught Olivia that there is as little
of Christian virtue as of natural benignity in stinging away the
spirit of kindness with a tongue of acid and acrimonious pietism. Her
firm and healthy pulse beats in sympathy with the sportiveness in
which the proper decorum of her station may not permit her to bear an
active part. And she is too considerate, withal, not to look with
indulgence on the pleasantries that are partly meant to divert her
thoughts, and air off a too vivid remembrance of her recent sorrows.
Besides, she has gathered, even under the discipline of her own
afflictions, that as, on the one hand, "what Nature makes us mourn she
bids us heal," so, on the other, the free hilarities of wit and
humour, even though there be something of nonsense mixed up with them,
are a part of that "bland philosophy of life" which helps to knit us
up in the unions of charity and peace; that they promote cheerfulness
of temper, smooth down the lines of care, sweeten away the asperities
of the mind, make the eye sparkling and lustrous; and, in short, do
much of the very best stitching in the embroidered web of friendship
and fair society. So that she finds abundant motive in reason, with no
impediment in religion, to refrain from spoiling the merry passages of
her friends and servants by looking black or sour upon them.

Olivia is manifestly somewhat inclined to have her own way. But then
it must also be acknowledged that her way is pretty apt to be right.
This wilfulness, or something that borders upon it, is shown alike in
her impracticability to the Duke's solicitations, and in her