“Thank God they don’t, Daniel!” sighed out I devoutly.
“Never mind—in that case I could entrance her for hours, talking about the grounds of difference between Linnæus and Jussieu. Women like the star business, they say—and I could tell her where all the constellations are; but sure as I tried to get off any sentiment about them, I’d break down and make myself ridiculous. But what earthly chance would the greatest philosopher that ever lived have with the woman he loved, if he depended for her favor on his ability to analyze her bouquet or tell her when she might look out for the next occultation of Orion? I can’t talk bread and butter. I can’t do anything that makes a man even tolerable to a woman!”
“I hope you don’t mean that nothing but bread and butter talk is tolerable to a woman!”
“No; but it’s necessary to some extent—at any rate the ability is—in order to succeed in society; and it is in society men first meet and strike women. And Uncle Teddy! I’m such a fish out of water in society!—such a dreadful floundering fish! When I see her dancing gracefully as a swan swims, and feel that fellows, like little Jack Mankyn, ‘who don’t know twelve
times,’ can dance to her perfect admiration; when I see that she likes ease of manners—and all sorts of men without an idea in their heads have that—while I turn all colors when I speak to her, and am clumsy; and abrupt, and ab-
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