any small article which does not express use as well as beauty. We need
not be at a loss if we remember Oscar Wilde's declaration that every
article used in a house should be something which had given pleasure to
the maker, that is, that it should be artistic. When all useful
_bric-a-brac_ has become beautiful, we shall no longer desire to make or
possess beautiful _bric-a-brac_ which is not useful. Of course I know
that "Beauty is its own excuse for being," and I see in a fine picture,
for instance, an appeal to the higher faculties which is more useful
than usefulness. This I do not see in _bric-a-brac_, certainly not if
the objects are to be so crowded in a small room that no one can see
anything more than prettiness in them. Instead of my beautiful vases
with their shifting lights, which do, after all, give me real pleasure
sometimes when I am not too anxious lest I should break them, cut glass
tumblers would have given me the same aesthetic enjoyment renewed at
every meal. I might break a tumbler to be sure, but I should have the
full enjoyment of it while it lasted.

XIII.

EMOTIONAL WOMEN.

A highly emotional young lady was once defending the reasoning powers of
her sex at the dinner-table of a cultivated and fair-minded physician
who finally took occasion to say sweetly to her: "No doubt the reason of
women equals that of men; but I believe the trouble is that all men like
a woman a little better if she is governed by feeling rather than by
reason."

"Oh," said the young lady in a glow, "that is like saying that you would
a little rather a woman would not be truthful!"

"I hope not," said the physician.

The friend who told me the anecdote added that of the two young ladies
who were at the time members of the physician's family, there was no
question that he greatly preferred the one who was most reasonable and
least emotional!

Some one else tells me of a clever young lady who applied for a position
as dramatic critic upon a newspaper. The editor recognized her ability
and her knowledge of the drama, but he said he was afraid to employ a
woman in such a department, lest her feelings should prevent her
telling the exact truth. She would be biased herself, and praise the
things she liked, and then she would have her personal favorites among
the actors. The young lady who believed herself capable of justice was
greatly hurt.

Are women really excessively emotional? And if so, is it well that the