"Besides," said Mr. Carlton, addressing himself to Miss Sparkes, "you ladies are apt to consider versatility as a mark of genius. She, therefore, who can do a great thing well, ought to do a small one better; for, as Lord Bacon well observes, he who can not contract his mind as well as dilate it, wants one great talent in life." Miss Sparkes, condescending at length to break a silence which she had maintained with evident uneasiness, said, "All these plodding employments cramp the genius, degrade the intellect, depress the spirits, debase the taste, and clip the wings of imagination. And this poor, cramped, degraded, stinted, depressed, debased creature is the very being whom men, men of reputed sense too, commonly prefer to the mind of large dimensions, soaring fancy, and aspiring tastes." "Imagination," replied Mr. Stanley, "well directed, is the charm of life; it gilds every object, and embellishes every scene; but allow me to say, that where a woman abandons herself to the dominion of this vagrant faculty it may lead to something worse than a disorderly table; and the husband may find that the badness of his dinner is not the only ill consequence of her super-lunary vagaries." "True enough," said Mr. Flam, who had never been known to be so silent, or so attentive; "true enough, I have not heard so much sense for a long time. I am sure 'tis sense, because 'tis exactly my own way of thinking. There is my Bell now. I have spent seven hundred pounds, and more money, for her to learn music and whimwhams, which all put together are not worth sixpence. I would give them all up to see her make such a tansy pudding as that which the widow in the Spectator helped Sir Roger to at dinner; why I don't believe Bell knows whether pie-crust is made with butter or cheese; or whether a venison pastry should be baked or boiled. I can tell her, that when her husband, if she ever gets one, comes in sharp set from hunting, he won't like to be put off with a tune instead of a dinner. To marry a singing girl, and complain she does not keep you a good table, is like eating nightingales, and finding fault that they are not good tasted. They sing, but they are of no further use--to _eat_ them, instead of listening to them, is applying to one sense, the gratification which belongs to another."