(no matter whether foreigners or
not), as though the elective franchise, and every thing connected with
it, was an immoral sort of vulgarity that no gentleman was expected to
know any thing about; a thing to be abandoned to the _canaille_ and an
interesting set of patriots known as the Hemispherical Club, who varied
their patriotic duties by breaking their opponents' heads and their
country's ballot-boxes, and who, moreover, were so modest that they
never could be induced to exercise the glorious right of depositing
their suffrages, until the candidates on their side had "planked up"
for the benefit of the Club; whilst among their friends and neighbors,
these same gentlemen talk politics in the most furious and excited
manner, each person insisting that he knows all about them, and that
every body else will see he's right before the year's out. But
unfortunately Ashburner had got so deeply engrossed with the lessons in
philosophy he was receiving that he entirely forgot all about his
friends. He had discovered that Miss Edwards had been among the "Upper
Ten" of New-York, and knew many of the acquaintances he had made. She
spoke of them with so much correctness that he was convinced of her
excellent judgment in character, while the artlessness with which she
spoke, and the almost amusing simplicity of some of her remarks,
indicated that she had not studied human nature, as too many of us do,
by experience. Ashburner, like most young men, thought himself a shrewd
observer, particularly female character (which, by the bye, is what
young men know least about), but the subject he was studying puzzled
him; Miss Edwards evinced such a mixture of penetration and simplicity
that he could not understand how both could exist together. This sort of
character has baffled many wiser persons than Mr. Ashburner, who have
investigated it with the same interest. The study of young ladies is
dangerous at all times to a young man, and most particularly when he
does it from philosophical motives; and if any caste of character is
more dangerous than another, it is that which blends penetration and
simplicity; the one interests while the other charms. Not knowing these
truths, Mr. Ashburner had mentally resolved to enter upon this field of
philosophical research. The simplicity, the humor, the acuteness of
observation, the intelligence, and perhaps the pretty face of his
companion, tended to interest him in an unusual manner. And she, too,
se