I am not disposed to quote the Frenchwomen of a century or so ago as models. But there are many points we might take from them in the art of making a social life on intellectual lines agreeable, as well as a vital force. When women who are neither young nor beautiful dominate an age of brilliant men through intellect and tact, it does no harm to study their methods a little in an age when women of equal talent, superior education, and finer moral aims succeed to only a limited extent in doing more than stimulate one another--a good thing to do, but not final. Those women, too, had old distinctions to reconcile, and a powerful court for a rival. They had one advantage, as they made a cult of esprit, which is a gift of their race, while we make a cult of knowledge, which may be more substantial, but is less luminous, and not so available socially. Besides, knowledge is a thing to be acquired and not caviar to mediocrity, which is apt to use it crudely, and with pretension. “Let your studies flow into your manners, and your readings show themselves in your virtues,” said Mme. de Lambert. I am sorry to say that the typical Frenchwoman of a hundred years ago did not always take so exalted a view of her duties; but even as a matter of taste she had too delicate a sense of proportion to merge the woman in the intellect. She scattered about her the flavor of knowledge rather than the knowledge itself; which is not so easy, as one does not have the real flavor of knowledge without the essence of it, and something more. Rare natural gifts have a distinction of their own, but in ordinary life what one _is_ counts for more than what one _knows_, and the secret of attraction lies rather in the sum of the qualities which we call character than in the acquirements. A woman may be familiar with Sanskrit, and calculate the distance of the fixed stars, without being interesting, or even admirable, as a woman. The main point is to preserve one’s symmetry, and one’s center of gravity; then, the more knowledge the better. It may be that the flaw in our ideals lies just here, and that in the too exclusive pursuit of certain things fine in themselves, we neglect other things equally if not more vital.