namely, that so many accomplished women thing very different from the conduct of some prefer much older men. A true woman pre- young people, who affect to disregard the fers feeling to wit, and still more to its pre- feeling of their elders by laughing loud on all tence. Nor does earnestness exclude mirth occasions and on the very slightest provocaor glee. On the contrary, the true character tion. Of course, the true freedom of earnestof earnestness is to laugh if there is any-ness is something very alien to the diplomatic thing to cause laughter, and not to laugh if reserve of certain circles, where people meet there is nothing to laugh at. In some Eng- because they must, not because they wish it, lish manners, there is a suppressed irony- and where every person watches every other an "I could laugh, an' I would, but it is not person, bent not on pleasing or on being worth my while, or I think it vulgar, or I pleased, but on snapping up something to think it beneath my dignity, or beneath my turn to account in favor of one party or office, or contrary to my religious opinions" against another. All this may be necessary -which is the opposite of earnestness, and and inevitable, but it is the exact opposite which is simply very bad breeding, because it of good manners, the essence of which is to is hollow and unamiable. A foreign woman, beget mutual pleasure. The subject is inexquisitely polished and refined, who will deed inexhaustible. We will only add that converse with the utmost earnestness and as, in pictures, the clodhopper is satisfied grace upon any subject that interests her, with a sign-post, the pawnbroker with anywill not hesitate to burst into a ringing peal thing that pays, while the artist sighs after a of laughter, should anything particularly higher ideal, so the same principle exactly tickle her fancy. This, however, is some-applies to manners.

GILBERT A-BECKET'S POLKA SONG, WHEN THAT to use old Lord Stirling's words. Others go

their rounds like conscientious Lycurgus-policemen, fancying that they do the state of literature "some service" by putting out of the way what they imagine to be monstrosities, malformations, and puny children,-often, however, making horrible mistakes. Alexander the Great would have had no chance with them, on account of that well-known twist in the neck, which they would have twisted a little further; and poor Byron, the champion and poet of Greece, would have gone to it" like one of Lance's puppies, drowned far more satisfactorily for halting in one of his natural feet by the Lycurgus-policeman, than he was by Jeffrey for halting in his poetical

"Those guiltless babes of Bethel slain by guess,"" Of whom to be dispraised is no small praise.”

CURLS.

From The Spectator.

But all women were compelled to the same hair, as they are still coerced into the same bonnet. The auburn wealth, which needs only to be unconfined to be perfect, but which is never seen in England except on the beach at a watering-place, was reduced to propriety equally with the light-brown chevelure, which looks so well thrown back from the head. Even "sweet girl graduates with their golden hair," which ought to fall in a row of ringlets round the face, half hiding blue eyes, and making pursed lips look arch from the sidelong glance they ensure, were bound in the plaits which become only black-haired or

setting to the portraits, and round cheeks, which need only lines to break their effect, were formalized by one and the same rule, and even damsels with high cheek-bones were unable to resist an edict which practically set those bones in a frame for all the world to admire before they saw the face. There are three hundred thousand girls in England whose fathers pay income-tax, and they have at least three hundred thousand sorts of face; there are at least two hundred ways of ar

"BEAUTY is but skin deep " say old maids; but then who is going to tear off the skin? Beauty is harmony, after all, and perfect harmony is the highest effect even providential care can produce. Everything, however slight, that can aid beauty towards full development, is an addition to the small modicum of happiness existing in the world, and the lightest phase of fashion has of necessity its own artistic force. We record, therefore, with hope and not disdain, the fact that a change of fashion is possible in the matter of wearing the hair. Men, of course are to re-matronly heads. Pale faces, which want a main as they have been for the last century, cropped like convicts, as if hair, like fingernails and bad acquaintance, were chiefly of use for cutting. But women, it is said, are no longer to be condemned to a single fashion for the head-to bind down rich hair and thin, auburn and gray, black and flaxen, in the same Quaker plaits. According to a letter in the Scotsman, written evidently in the truest spirit of scientific research, the princess did enter London on the 7th March with two long locks curling about her neck, and the fash-ranging the hair known to each of those girls; ion has already found numerous devotees. We fancy the princess rather sanctioned than introduced the fashion, for the two locks had been worn before, and had received, indeed, probably from some club man, who has forgotten the time when he recognized flirtation as the primary end of woman, the sneering nickname of "follow-me-lads." Be that as it may, the innovation is one to rejoice over, for fashion had grown almost as weary as human eyes of the existing mode of dressing the hair. All heads had been reduced by a tyranny which, unlike most such tyrannies, was not short-lived, to one dead meaningless If the example of the princess should amend level. Tall or short, fat or "elegant," with this error only, London will be rewarded for rich brown hair which would have delighted its enthusiasm, and the nation for the £24,Titian, or with the sandy locks pleasant only 000 which the ceremonial everybody rejoiced in the eyes of an Arab, every woman was in and nobody saw, is, we perceive, to cost. bound to plait her hair down in two flat" Follow-me-lads "are not in themselves very bands stretching from the crown to below pretty, though like any other fashion they the ear. Of course, on some few Greck faces, become the princess, and they are exceedingly needing regular lines to be in keeping with costly. A rich silk dress, we are told, is worth their clean cut profiles, those plaits were very little after an evening with these curls resting becoming, and, of course, also, there were a few upon its uppermost edge, and lace gets the faces which, from innate qualities of expres- aristocratic tinge a little too soon. The curls, sion-from the sunny flash, for example, which too, alone, and therefore thin, are a little untransforms some few brunettes-could not be meaning, and spoil that richness of massy folds spoiled by any conceivable malarrangement. which constitutes, after all, that glory of wo

and yet they were all condemned, under penalty of being pronounced odd, or peculiar, or outrée, the epithet varying according to their weight in society, to wear their hair alike. The uniformity of the bonnet is bad enough, but that is arranged by milliners, and is, after all, artificial; but to produce uniformity in hair, nature has to be twisted out of all speciality, and, therefore, all natural grace. Hair which Heaven made to curl is rebellious when man makes it straight, and many a girl spends hours in the week in curing herself effectually of one of her greatest gifts.

man's hair of which angels were afraid. But its grandmothers were at pains to invent, the any innovation which is not avowedly French is a blessing, for it breaks up the curse of modern society—the taste for uniformity, whether in beauty or ugliness.

old three yards and three-quarters shawl. The courtiers of Paris might recoil, but the English lady would, at least, have the choice of giving herself some height and rectifying the equalizing, and therefore destructive effect of crinoline on all figures. That privilege seems at present reserved exclusively for the old. Or suppose, if instead of compelling the

Why should not the reform be carried farther? If the princess have but the spirit, she may break up the detestable routine once and for all, and if she cannot produce the dissimilarity which nature seems to prefer, tall and the short, the plump and the scraggy, that unfashionable power making no two faces and no two leaves quite alike,-she may at least give the English female world the benefit of a double standard. All possibly may not follow her, for the highest class all over Europe keeps up uniformity as a kind of test for caste, and uniformity needing a standard takes its patterns from French lorettes. But she would carry with her half the country, and a mere choice, the right to decide on the less ugly idea, would be a boon to our countrywomen. Suppose the princess tried a bonnet reconcilable in some faint or distant degree with the primary laws of art, with that one, for instance, which forbids the painter to paint an apple with a stalk twice as big as itself. Numbers might stick to the spoon," but then people with long faces might leave it alone, while people with short faces continued the much-admired design. At present both those whom it would become, if it could become anybody, and those who look in it like the faces one sees reflected in the back of a table-spoon, are equally condemned to its use. Or suppose, by a daring invasion of milliners' rules, her royal highLess re-introduced the only bit of real drapery this age has retained out of all the costumes

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alike to dine with bare shoulders, a great example revived with modifications the beautiful Josephine dress. As Josephine wore it, it was, perhaps, a little too beautiful for English ideas or climate, but that defect any milliner would correct, and it is in itself artistically perfect, the top of a riding habit thrown slightly open in front. Crinoline we dare not attack, for it will not be abolished; but suppose there were two styles, à l'Impératrice, covering half a sofa, and a à la Princesse, only wide enough to give a graceful dignity to the figure without utterly concealing the form. People straight from shoulder to heel would still have their prized defence, while those whom nature has made lithe might retain that lissom beauty which was the grace of girlhood till somebody in the interest of Sheffield developed crinoline into the cage." It is a double standard that is required, something to break up this horrible uniformity, this dressing of women, not to set off their God-given beauty, but to sell milliners' goods; and this the princess, if at the prayer of her sex she will but fight for a week, can give to those who for the past month have felt the prouder for her arrival.

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"THERE might be keener knowledge of human nature than was dreamt of in their philosophy,' which passed with them for commonplace." LOCKHART, Life of Scot.

Hazy readers are apt to take that which their understanding acknowledges as true for that which their memory recognizes as old. It is just here that thorough and well-read criticism distinguishes, and shallow criticism confounds.

"La jeunesse, noble, grande, exaltee qu'elle est !" -ALPHONSE Karr.

Oh, yes! Youth is full of grandeurs, generosities, independencies of spirit, etc. etc. etc.; but it

is curious how many of these somebody, perhaps no longer young, often has to pay for.

The next best thing to committing no follies is to commit none that we cannot fairly pay for out of our own pocket.

"ST. PETER's at Rome seldom answers expectation at first seeing it, but enlarges itself on all sides insensibly."-ADDISON, Travels in Italy.

This is also particularly the case with another temple, that of knowledge, to those who have been inside it for a little while; a truth trite enough, but I believe the simile is a new one.

From The Saturday Review.
EXPLANATIONS.

elaborate explanation of themselves can do. Pure, untinctured mistake has not much to do with human affairs out of novels. In fact, all minds brought into near contact are aware, except where the ties of a life-long family affection and unity of interests blind them, of certain incongruous elements and points of antagonism which untoward circumstances occasionally bring into prominence. There is some quality in each unit

lovers, which is not acceptable or agreeable to the other, which, when uppermost, causes a rub, and results even in a sense of mutual blame - but which need not cause any lasting disturbance if recognized for what it is, an inborn difference or defect, a spot come into sight. For collisions are passing things-even serious collisions; if we weather the first shock, we may go on as before, merely learning a scarcely conscious lesson of caution. But in impulsive minds a desire arises to do something. Self has to be cleared, or another has to be called to account; we must needs get at the bottom of things, and see where the fault lies, and once for all make things straight. Now, whenever this craving arises, the friendship or familiarity has arrived at one of its inevitable hitches; and it is certainly wisest to go round it, if possible, not to make too violent efforts to remove what is deeper rooted and harder to shift than haste and inexperience will believe. Clashes of feeling or opinion must come, sooner or later, where there are hidden differences. The warmest friendship must be content with something short of absolute unanimity-must now and then endure tacit disapproval, must rely on a general estimate of conduct, must submit to be what it calls mistaken, while in reality there is as good an understanding as innate differences and opposing views and interests will allow.

THERE are few words that carry a heavier weight of dulness, or are beset with more annoying associations, than "Explanation," and the verb "To Explain," in all its tenses. We do not remember that the poets give them a place in the armory of Discord; but in their dull, hypocritical way, none deserve it better, for every so-called explanation induces some element of discordance and separation, of the most attached pair of friends, or even and puts the speaker in a sort of opposition of sentiment or inclination to the hearer. The words have, no doubt, an innocent use as applied to things; but when men come to explain a meaning that had previously seemed too clear, or to give an explanation of a questionable course of conduct, or to seek an explanation of a line of action which has displeased them-above all, when, under the privilege of intimacy, there is a mutual unfolding of motives and intentions with the professed design of explaining away some chance coldness or difference-it is rare that mischief does not come of it. And as for truth, which is the professed aim, who was ever thoroughly satisfied with himself, whose conscience ever came out quite white and clean, after some tooth-and-nail explanation on some intricate, knotty point in which his feelings or passions have been engaged? The sense of failure after these encounters is, indeed, so general that we believe the practice would be about given up by rational people but for a perversion of language which universally prevails. Wherever neighbors and acquaintances do not quite hit it, wherever there is some slight breach or halt in intimacy, the state of things is called a misunderstanding. The affair is politely attributed to the respective parties not knowing enough of each other's inner motives and opinionsit being assumed that the more people know exactly what goes on inside each other, the greater friends they will be. Now, of course, if ignorance lies at the bottom of the difficulty, an explanation has some chance of removing it; and thus the word "misunderstanding" suggests naturally the idea of explaining it away. But if misunderstanding, as we believe, always means .collision, the recourse to explanation is manifestly absurd; and that the word does convey this meaning, those at least will not doubt who have, on the other hypothesis, tried what an

Few persons are aware how seldom they act in the affairs of life on a formal array of reasons. All people who are fond of expla nations have more than half their reasons to seek on the spur of the moment and in the heat of talk. In fact, men act on the principles that have formed their characters, but very seldom think of reasons till after an affair is over. Hence all sorts of temptations to be disingenuous. The mind must be very candid and transparent which comes out of one of these explanatory duels unconscious

all social intercourse is carried on under the notion of a certain masonic comprehension more subtle than language, and nothing is so embarrassing to our candor and sense of truth as to find this freemasonry at fault. Families, cliques, societies understand one another with this electric rapidity; wherever temper or opposing interests break the mystic link, friends and intimates are in the position of opposing classes, who have to lay down everything in the way of formal explanation. Words are powerless to restore the old flash of recognition, and it is very seldom wise to have recourse to them, where there

of suppressions and special pleadings, and of glosses which a man may be sure his opponent has seen more clearly than himself, and which may unduly lower his opinion of his sincerity. When the French woman explained that she wished for a divorce because she could practise no virtue with the Dutchman; nobody would give her credit for the particle of truth which was possibly there. To persons who cannot follow the causes of your conduct intuitively, your reasons evoked at a moment's notice are not likely to make matters better, or better understood; for a reason which barely represents half your motives to yourself is sure to enter the other are such hindrances on each side as impeded mind in such travestied guise as to convey sympathies and perception blinded by eager nothing as you intend it. A man's princi- self-vindication. ples may be good and the application of them People, indeed, who have faith in explananothing to be ashamed of, but he has found tions and periodical repairs of their friendthem hardly presentable without a little var- ships, had need of an exceptional amount of nish. In fact, motives of conduct are such charity, or of some Lethe of their own complex things that they often refuse to be wherein to bathe their memory after them; put into words. In private and individual for we are comparatively indifferent to being cases, moreover, they may have no possible misunderstood, or even misjudged, where it disgrace in them, and yet there may be a comes of our friends' blunder, or his dulness pardonable reluctance to proclaim them. to our merits, but nobody can stand having Self-respect and want of appropriate lan- his array of statements, his proofs, arguguage drive people in these predicaments to ments, just fications, set at naught. It is inthe hypocrisy of a higher ground than they tolerable, after condescending to a laborious have a right to. Sydney Smith, arguing vindication, to remain where one was-after with "a good, honest Tory," on Catholic an unanswerable display of grievances, to see Emancipation, asks of what importance it is one's friend unconvinced and impenitent; to him whether a Protestant or Catholic is and yet some touch of this evil clings to every made a judge? "None," is the disinter-explanation, with whatever temper conducted. ested answer; "but I am afraid for the But what temper can come wholly unscathed Church of Ireland." 66 'Why do you care so out of the ordeal? In many hands, explanamuch for the Church of Ireland?" "I do tions, of course slip at once into mere recrimnot care so much for the Church of Ireland, ination, proceeding to the scandal of a quarif I was sure the Church of England would rel and mutual loss of respect, even where not be destroyed." "And is it for the reconciliation ensues. But short of this, and Church of England alone that you fear?" is where principle, self-control, and politeness, the insinuating rejoinder. "Not quite that," are never lost sight of, this form of encounter comes out at last, "but I am afraid we should brings out many awkward revelations. Few all be lost-that everything would be over- natures ring true through their whole depths. turned, and that I should lose my rank and There is a savage, untamed spot in most my estate." In politics, a party may be hearts. Education and the discipline of somade to explain itself in this fashion-may ciety do not subdue the whole man. We do be driven to a confession of selfish as well as not slander humanity in saying that few men public ends, without leaving a soreness be- are gentlemen under every conceivable trial. hind; but there are a hundred private mo- Something rough and rude lurks, unknown, tives and considerations in social life which unseen, in many an elegant, refined bosom, will not bear such treatment, and which can- civilized by all that culture can do, and proof not be forced into words and made distinctly against all attacks recognized as such, but visible without a sense of humiliation, and which reveals itself under the insidious tempyet which are quite as lawful as the Tory's tation of one of these friendly passages at regard for his own estate. Conversation and arms. Of all possible forms of this evil, the