walk"[84] but those who have naturally quick and
refined perceptions, assisted by careful cultivation. Narrow indeed is
the boundary which divides unfeminine flippancy from the graceful
nonsense which good authority and our own feelings pronounce to be
"exquisite."[85] The unsuccessful attempt at its imitation always
reminds me of Pilpay's fable of the Donkey and the Lapdog:--The poor
donkey, who had been going on very usefully in its own drudging way,
began to envy the lap-dog the caresses it received, and fancied that it
would receive the same if it jumped upon its master as the lap-dog did:
how awkwardly and unnaturally its attempts at playfulness were executed,
how unwelcome they proved, I need not tell you. Nothing is more
difficult than playfulness or even vivacity of manner--nothing is so
sure a test of good breeding and high cultivation of mind; either may
carry you safely through, but their union alone can render playfulness
and vivacity entirely fascinating.

After all that I have written, I must again repeat what I began
with,--that you are to try each different mode of study for yourself,
and that the advice of others will be of use to you only when you have
assimilated it with your own mind, testing it by your own practice, and
giving it the fair trial of _patient_ perseverance.

I ought perhaps, before I close this letter, to make some apology for
recommending, as a part of your course of study, either Rollin or Hume,
one because he is "_trop bon homme_,"[86] the other because he is not
"_bon_" in any sense of the word. My apology, or rather my reason, will,
however, be only a repetition of that which I have said before, viz.
that I should wish you to read history strictly, and merely, as a story,
and to form your _own_ philosophic and religious opinions previously,
and from other sources.

So many valuable and important histories, so many necessary books on
every subject, have been written by the professed infidel, as well as by
the practical forgetter of God, that you must prepare yourself for a
constant state of intellectual watchfulness, as to all the various
opinions suggested by the different authors you study. It is not their
opinions you want, but their facts. Most standard histories, even Hume
and Voltaire, tell truth as to all leading facts: after half-a-century
or so of filtration, truth becomes purified from contemporary passions
and prejudices, and can be easily got at without any important