s are; but sure as I tried to get off any sentiment about
them, I'd break down and make myself ridiculous. But what earthly chance
would the greatest philosopher that ever lived have with the woman
he loved, if he depended for her favor on his ability to analyze her
bouquet or tell her when she might look out for the next occultation of
Orion? I can't talk bread and butter. I can't do anything that makes a
man even tolerable to a woman!"

"I hope you don't mean that nothing but bread and butter talk is
tolerable to a woman!"

"No; but it's necessary to some extent--at any rate the ability is--in
order to succeed in society; and it is in society men first meet
and strike women. And Uncle Teddy! I'm such a fish out of water in
society!--such a dreadful floundering fish! When I see her dancing
gracefully as a swan swims, and feel that fellows, like little Jack
Mankyn, 'who don't know twelve times,' can dance to her perfect
admiration; when I see that she likes ease of manners--and all sorts of
men without an idea in their heads have that--while I turn all colors
when I speak to her, and am clumsy; and abrupt, and abstracted, and bad
at repartee--Uncle Teddy! sometimes (though it seems so ungrateful to
father and mother, who have spent such pains for me)--sometimes, do you
know, it seems to me as if I'd exchange all I've ever learned for the
power to make a good appearance before her!"

"Daniel, my boy, it's too much a matter of reflection with you! A woman
is not to be taken by laying plans. If you love the lady (whose name I
don't ask you because I know you'll tell me as soon as you think best),
you must seek her companionship until you're well enough acquainted with
her to have her regard you as something different from the men whom she
meets merely in society, and judge your qualities by another standard
than that she applies to them. If she's a sensible girl (and God forbid
you should marry her otherwise!) she knows that people can't always be
dancing, or holding fans, or running after orange ice. If she's a girl
capable of appreciating your best points (and woe to you if you marry
a girl who can't!), she'll find them out upon closer intimacy, and once
found they'll a hundred times outweigh all brilliant advantages kept in
the showcase of fellows who have nothing on the shelves. When this comes
about, you will pop the question unconsciously, and, to adopt Milton,
she will drop into your lap, 'gathered--not harshly pl