"An humble appreciation of your powers might save you pain; but I doubt if your humility exceeds your knowledge. Fascinated by harmony of tone and grace of manner, you perceive not a deficiency in energy--a want of moral courage. You close your eyes against every token of an over-sensitiveness to ridicule, veiled beneath the more graceful cloak of fastidious taste. You will not understand that pride and weakness fashion a character which, however seemingly amiable in many other points, is not such as to repay the devotion of a woman's love. A strong mind will make itself known; and where all is perfect harmony, no unmodulated tone, no sudden and impulsive movement, no springing into action, there is art, and that may not be trusted--or there is over-refinement, wasted powers, a trivial mind, without a noble aim--or there is weakness, which fears ridicule--a moral cowardice: or there is mediocrity, that cannot rise above the common herd--that dares not dare--that may pass unnoted in prosperity, but whose powers rise not in adversity. Such should not be throned in woman's heart! He is not worthy woman's tender, self-denying love, whom a sneer will change--a laugh will part--he will be found wanting--he will stand aloof when the faint heart turns to him for consolation. Wo to you! wo to you, especially if you trust such. You cannot always tread on flowers; choose one who can and will smooth down a rugged path. The gilded vessel, the child's plaything, rides gayly on a glassy sea--but life is not a glassy sea; the storm must come. If you would reach the peaceful port, embark not in a summer yacht; select a ship that can abide the storm--a mind that can maintain its course--that struggles--and will conquer. Look there," he continued, for she made no reply, taking up a highly finished drawing from the table, the performance showing more pains than genius, and contrasting it with a bold, free sketch which lay beside it, "there they are exactly, the one all harmony, or insipidity as I should call it; a model of weakness--highly finished--not a stroke wanting--complete as a whole--but how poor a whole! Without the possibility of amendment, too: deficient in energy--not a bold line: and were such put in it would be out of place--it would spoil the keeping. Now look on this! A bold and vigorous outline--the work of mind, seizing the attention: soul, not manner; thought, not mechanism; it may be filled up ill, but it may also be filled up well: there is the capability of greatness: there may be faults in the petty details, but the whole will compel admiration, and not weary in the survey. This other makes me yawn. Better choose the bold, the frank, the generous, with all his faults; he may be rash, unthinking, wasting the powers whose force he knows not; but the capabilities of amendment are within him. What say you to my exordium?" * * * * *