In the life of every woman there is a moment when she understands her destiny, and in which her organization, hitherto dumb, speaks authoritatively. It is not always a man who wakes this sixth and sleeping sense; it may be an unexpected spectacle, a landscape, something she has just read, a religious ceremony, a concert of natural flowers, the caressing notes of a strain of music; in a word, some unexpected movement of the soul or body. However malicious a man may be, he can never say anything worse of women than they think of themselves. One may be both a great man and a wicked one, as one may be a fool and a perfect lover. The ancients were right in their worship of beauty. Has not some traveler or other told us that wild horses choose the most beautiful among them for leader? Beauty is the spirit of all things. It is the seal which Nature has placed on her most perfect creations. It is the truest of symbols, and the one the most rarely encountered. Who has ever thought of a deformed angel? We allow others to elevate themselves above us, but we never forgive those who refuse to descend to our level. The customs of every class of society are more or less alike, and differ only in degrees. High life has a slang of its own, but its slang is termed “style.” A fact worthy of notice is the extent to which we make engagements with ourselves, and the manner in which we create our own lot in life. Chance has assuredly not so much to do with it as we think. The weakest of thinking creatures is wounded in that which is most dear when performing, at the command of another, that which would have been done unordered; and the most odious of all tyrannies is that which continually divests of intention the merit of its actions and thoughts. The word which is the easiest to pronounce and the sentiment which is the sweetest to express dies within us when we feel that it is commanded. We abdicate without having reigned. The art of marriage, as of literature, consists solely in graceful transitions. Events are never absolute. Their results depend entirely on the individual. Misfortune is a stepping-stone to genius, a treasure to the adroit, but to the weak an abyss. To forget is the great secret of strong and creative lives,—to forget utterly, after the manner of Nature, who knows no past, and who each hour recommences the mysteries of her indefatigable parturitions. It is the weak who live with grief, and who, instead of changing it into apothegms of existence, toy and saturate themselves therewith, and retrograde each day to consummated misfortunes. There are incommensurable differences between the man who mingles with others and him who dwells with nature. Once captured, Toussaint Louverture died without uttering a word, while Napoleon, on his rock, chattered like a magpie; he wished to explain himself.