deceased was the husband of an American lady lecturess of
the most intense description; and a strong-minded bloomer on the
broadest principles.

Apropos, how _can_ women, many of whom, I am told, are _really_
interesting and intelligent,--how _can_ they spoil their pretty mouths
and ruin their beautiful complexions by demanding with Xanthippian
_fervor_, in the presence, often, of a vulgar, irreverent mob, what the
gentle creatures are pleased to call their "rights"? How _can_ they
wish to soil the delicate texture of their airy fancies by pondering
over the wearying stupidities of Presidential elections, or the
bewildering mystifications of rabid metaphysicians? And, above all, how
_can_ they so far forget the sweet, shy coquetries of shrinking
womanhood as to don those horrid bloomers? As for me, although a
_wife_, I never wear the--well, you know what they call them when they
wish to quiz henpecked husbands--even in the strictest privacy of life.
I confess to an almost religious veneration for trailing drapery, and I
pin my vestural faith with unflinching obstinacy to sweeping
petticoats.

I knew a strong-minded bloomer at home, of some talent, and who was
possessed, in a certain sense, of an excellent education. One day,
after having flatteringly informed me that I really _had_ a "soul above
buttons" and the nursery, she gravely proposed that I should improve my
_mind_ by poring six hours a day over the metaphysical subtleties of
Kant, Cousin, etc., and I remember that she called me a "piece of
fashionable insipidity," and taunted me with not daring to go out of
the beaten track, because I _truly_ thought (for in those days I was an
humble little thing enough, and sincerely desirous of walking in the
right path as straitly as my feeble judgment would permit) that there
were other authors more congenial to the flowerlike delicacy of the
feminine intellect than her pet writers.

When will our sex appreciate the exquisite philosophy and truth of
Lowell's remark upon the habits of Lady Redbreast and her esposo Robin,
as illustrating the beautifully varied spheres of man and woman?--

He sings to the wide world, she to her nest;
In the nice ear of Nature, which song is the best?

Speaking of birds reminds me of a misfortune that I have lately
experienced, which, in a life where there is so little to amuse and
interest one, has been to me a subject of real grief. About three weeks
ago, F. saw on the hill a C