“I’m a aweary, aweary— Oh, would that I were dead;” or which impels us, with the “Blighted Being” of Locksley Hall, to long to “burst all bonds of habit and to wander far away.” Do these lines chance to attract the attention of one of the lords of creation—of one who, “Thoughtless of mamma’s alarms, Sports high-heeled boots and whiskers,” —what is it, we would ask, most magnanimous Sir, in the most delicate manner imaginable, that keeps you standing by the hour together, looking out of the window of your club in Pall Mall, in the utter weariness of your heart, swearing now at the weather, now at the waiter, and, anon, muttering something about your dreaming that you dwelt in marble halls, but that very monotony of civilization which we so much deprecate? Were it not for that, you might be working in this working world—touching the very kernel and core of life, instead of thus feeding on its shell. And if it be that the soft eye of woman looks down on what we now write, what is it, we would ask, O peerless paragon, O celestial goddess, but the same feeling that makes you put aside the last new novel, and, in shameless defiance of the rules taught in that valuable publication and snob’s _vade mecum_—“Hints on the Etiquette and the Usages of Society,” actually yawn—aye, yawn, when that gold watch, hanging by your most fairy-like and loveliest of forms, does not tell one hour that does not bear with it from earth to heaven some tragedy acted—some villainy achieved—some heroic thing done: aye, yawn, when before you is spread out the great _rôle_ of life, with its laughter and tears—with its blasts from hell—with its odours coming down from heaven itself. A brave, bold, noble-hearted Miss Nightingale breaks through this monotony, and sails to nurse the wounded or the dying of our army in the East, and “Common Sense” writes in newspapers against such a noble act; and a religious paper saw in it Popery at the very least. What a howl has there been in some quarters because a few clergymen have taken to preaching in theatres! Even, woman’s heart, with its gushing sympathies, has become dead and shrivelled up, where that relentless scourge—that demon of our time, the monotony of civilization—has been suffered to intrude. It is owing to that, that when we look for deeds angels might love to do, our daughters, and sisters, and those whom we most passionately love, scream out Italian songs which neither they nor we understand, and bring to us, as the result of their noblest energies, a fancy bag or a chain of German wool. Such is the result of what Sir W. Curtis termed the three R’s and the usual accomplishments. Humanity has been stereotyped. We follow one another like a flock of sheep. We have levelled with a vengeance; we have reduced the doctrine of human equality to an absurdity—we live alike, think alike, die alike. A party in a parlour in Belgrave Square,