not always raisonnable, at least she always has quelque raison.
I own that life is very wearisome—that we are most miserable creatures—that we go on through disappointments, cares, and sorrows, enough for a dozen of poems; still, it has pleasant passages—for example, when one is young, pretty, and a little in love. What a pity that we cannot remain at fifteen and five and twenty! Or, second thoughts are best—I dare-say then we should sink under the ennui of enjoyment, or be obliged to commit suicide in self-defence.
It is a fact, as melancholy for the historian as it is true, that though balls are very important events in a young lady's career, there is exceedingly little to be said about them:—they are pleasures all on the same pattern,—the history of one is the history of all. You dress with a square glass before you, and a long glass behind you; your hair trusts to its own brown or black attractions, either curled or braided,—or you put on a wreath, a bunch of flowers, or a pearl bandeau; your dress is gauze, crape, lace, or muslin, either white, pink, blue, or yellow; you shower, like April, an odorous rain on your handkerchief; you
