Not seldom Pierre's social placidity was ruffled by polite entreaties from the young ladies that he would be pleased to grace their Albums with some nice little song. We say that here his social placidity was ruffled; for the true charm of agreeable parlor society is, that there you lose your own sharp individuality and become delightfully merged in that soft social Pantheism, as it were, that rosy melting of all into one, ever prevailing in those drawing-rooms, which pacifically and deliciously belie their own name; inasmuch as there no one draws the sword of his own individuality, but all such ugly weapons are left--as of old--with your hat and cane in the hall. It was very awkward to decline the albums; but somehow it was still worse, and peculiarly distasteful for Pierre to comply. With equal justice apparently, you might either have called this his weakness or his idiosyncrasy. He summoned all his suavity, and refused. And the refusal of Pierre--according to Miss Angelica Amabilia of Ambleside--was sweeter than the compliance of others. But then--prior to the proffer of her album--in a copse at Ambleside, Pierre in a gallant whim had in the lady's own presence voluntarily carved Miss Angelica's initials upon the bark of a beautiful maple. But all young ladies are not Miss Angelicas. Blandly denied in the parlor, they courted repulse in the study. In lovely envelopes they dispatched their albums to Pierre, not omitting to drop a little attar-of-rose in the palm of the domestic who carried them. While now Pierre--pushed to the wall in his gallantry--shilly-shallied as to what he must do, the awaiting albums multiplied upon him; and by-and-by monopolized an entire shelf in his chamber; so that while their combined ornate bindings fairly dazzled his eyes, their excessive redolence all but made him to faint, though indeed, in moderation, he was very partial to perfumes. So that of really chilly afternoons, he was still obliged to drop the upper sashes a few inches.