them for support and guidance. In proportion as men are themselves superior they are accessible to this appeal. On the contrary, they never feel interested in one who seems disposed rather to offer, than to ask assistance. There is, indeed, something unfeminine in independence. It is contrary to nature, and therefore it offends. We do not like to see a woman affecting tremors, but still less do we like to see her acting the amazon. A really sensible woman feels her dependence. She does what she can, but she is conscious of inferiority, and therefore grateful for support. She knows she is the weaker vessel, and that it is as such that she should receive honour; and in this view, her weakness is an attraction, not a blemish.

The appropriate expression of dependence is gentleness. However endowed with superior talents a woman may be, without gentleness she cannot be agreeable. Gentleness ought to be the characteristic of the sex; and there is nothing that can compensate for the want of this feminine attraction.

Gentleness is, indeed, the talisman of woman. To interest the feelings is to her much easier than to convince the judgment; and the heart is far more accessible to her influence than the head. She never gains so much as by concession, and is never so likely to succeed as when she seems to yield.

Gentleness prepossesses at first sight: it in

sinuates itself into the vantage ground, and gains the best position by surprise. While a display of skill and strength calls forth a counter array, gentleness at once disarms opposition, and wins. the day before it is contested.

And if gentleness contributes so much to the fascination of woman, elegance is no less attractive. A woman should be elegant, not only in manner but in mind. Manner is, indeed, generally symptomatic; but, as it may be artificial, it is no sure criterion of mental grace. It is the latter which is essential to true beauty. Without it, the fairest form disappoints and wearies. It is the radiance that sets off every other charm, and sheds on each its appropriate hue. It is tint and proportion. Yet it is more easily understood than defined, and better felt than expressed.

Taste is the true source of such elegance. As it teaches symmetry, so does it impart grace. Taste is the rule of elegance. There may be artificial forms; and these may or may not be agreeable to the proportions of taste: but taste gives the only true models, and every departure from them is an error.

Taste is susceptible of improvement, and elegance is the result of a cultivated taste. As in art, the rude handler of the chisel may, in time, become a proficient in sculpture, or the most simple designer a master of the easel; so may the taste which refines the mind, and proportions the character, be equally disciplined and improved.

It is a great mistake to suppose that fashion is a criterion of elegance. The modes of fashion are entirely conventional, and are often as ungraceful as they are capricious. The lady, for instance, who anoints her head with tallow, and encircles her waist with the entrails of a cow, is irresistible in Ethiopia; and though we cannot sympathize with her admirers, we have no right to question their taste. Our own has been, at times, little better. We may smile at the strictures of the Spectator on the patches of his day; but the coiffure of this century has vied with the cushion of the last, and the dimensions of our own petticoats have sometimes seemed to threaten the reinstatement of the hoop.

But it is not in costume only that fashion is grotesque. In manner she is equally capricious. Elegance rests on immutable rules, but the versatility of fashion is proverbial. The euphemism of the Elizabethan court was but little more absurd than the mannerism which has as often been as artificially prescribed. Each may be in its turn a test of ton, or a passport to exclusive circles, or a mode as universal as the contour of a robe, and, from its sameness, as wearisome: but it has no intrinsic recommendation, and though it may obtain for a season, it must soon be cast off as an obsolete dress.

But breeding is quite a different thing. It is without affectation, and without constraint. It is unobtrusive and unpretending. It is always self

possessed and at ease; for it knows its own place and its own relations. Its courtesy is not officious, nor are its attentions ever troublesome. Yet this quiet and lady-like deportment, though it seems to imply no effort, is by no means an easy or common attainment. On the contrary, we often see women who have lived much in society very deficient in this criterion of grace. And we can quite understand the remark of a really high-bred woman on a candidate for fashionable celebrity: "Yes; she is very pretty, and very pleasing, but she wants repose."

Elegance is nature, but not rude nature;—it is unaffected, but not unpolished. It occupies natural grace, and corrects natural defects. Yet it is no servile imitator, for it studies suitability as well as simplicity. It does not, for instance, deem that which is very pretty and playful in a girl of fourteen equally becoming at thirty. Neither does it play the romp, or act the groom, leap a five barred gate, or affect the Di Vernon.

It

Least of all does it indulge in that raillery, which is piquante only because it is personal, and which amuses in proportion as it annoys. has a respect for the feelings, and a tenderness even for the faults of others; and as it never wounds, so does it never invite aggression.

It implies, too, feeling: and here again does it differ from the polish of the world. Selfishness is the bane of fashionable life. Every one is cold, for every one is selfish. What court could be

more polished than that of Marie Antoinette? Yet selfishness was the predominating principle, and in the hour of trial self-preservation the only aim. The élite of Paris paid, however, the greater compliment to sentiment, by assuming its language while they were strangers to its real influence.

Nothing is more persuasive than feeling it has a natural charm to which art can never attain.

Elegance is poetry in action. Imagination may paint the heroine deficient in beauty, but never in elegance. It is this which diffuses, as it were, a halo round woman; which invests her with a romantic charm; and which more, perhaps, than any other attraction, renders her an object of interest. Yet is this grace not affected but natural, grace which tinges every thought, breathes in every expression, and regulates every movement, -which adorns the heart as much as the drawing-room, and which is habitual because it is innate.

To be careless of elegance proves little anxiety. to please, or little acquaintance with the susceptibilities of the heart. Man is very, accessible to the graceful and the beautiful; and, however engrossed by higher pursuits, he seeks in the society of woman relaxation and refreshment. He wishes to find her the enlivener and sweetener of his leisure, as well as the sharer of his cares. And a sensible woman would be desirous that her address should furnish a recommendation,