ent possessors, I often found the most penurious
contributors."

"_Rien de trop_," said Mr. Stanley, "was the favorite maxim of an
author[3] whom I am not apt to quote for rules of moral conduct. Yet its
adoption would be a salutary check against excess in all our pursuits.
If polite learning is undervalued by the mere man of science, it is
perhaps over-rated by the mere man of letters. If it dignifies
retirement, and exalts society, it is not the great business of life; it
is not the prime fountain of moral excellence."

[Footnote 3: Frederic the Great, king of Prussia.]

"Well, so much for _man_," said Sir John, "but, Charles, you have not
told us what you had to say of _woman_, in your observations on
society."

"As to woman," replied I, "I declare that I found more propensity to
promote subjects of taste and elegant speculation among some of the
superior class of females, than in many of my own sex. The more prudent,
however, are restrained through fear of the illiberal sarcasms of men
who, not contented to suppress their own faculties, ridicule all
intellectual exertion in woman, though evidently arising from a modest
desire of improvement, and not the vanity of hopeless rivalry."

"Charles is always the Paladin of the reading ladies," said Sir John. "I
do not deny it," replied I, "if they bear their faculties meekly. But I
confess that what is sneeringly called a learned lady, is to me far
preferable to a scientific one, such as I encountered one evening, who
talked of the fulcrum, and the lever, and the statera, which she took
care to tell us was the Roman steel-yard, with all the sang-froid of
philosophical conceit."

"Scientific men," said Sir John, "are in general admirable for their
simplicity, but in a technical woman, I have seldom found a grain of
taste or elegance."

"I own," replied I, "I should greatly prefer a fair companion who could
modestly discriminate between the beauties of Virgil and Milton, to one
who was always dabbling in chemistry, and who came to dinner with dirty
hands from the laboratory. And yet I admire chemistry too; I am now only
speaking of that knowledge which is desirable in a female companion; for
knowledge I must have. But arts, which are of immense value in
manufactures, won't make my wife's conversation entertaining to me.
Discoveries which may greatly improve dyeing and bleaching, will add
little to the delights of one's summer evening's walk, or winter
fire-side."