-touching the naked nerve-pulps as a pianist strikes the keys of his
instrument. I am satisfied that there are as great masters of this
nerve-playing as Vieuxtemps or Thalberg in their lines of
performance. Married life is the school in which the most
accomplished artists in this department are found. A delicate woman
is the best instrument; she has such a magnificent compass of
sensibilities! From the deep inward moan which follows pressure on
the great nerves of right, to the sharp cry as the filaments of taste
are struck with a crashing sweep, is a range which no other
instrument possesses. A few exercises on it daily at home fit a man
wonderfully for his habitual labors, and refresh him immensely as he
returns from them. No stranger can get a great many notes of torture
out of a human soul; it takes one that knows it well,--parent,
child, brother, sister, intimate. Be very careful to whom you give a
side-door key; too many have them already.

--You remember the old story of the tender-hearted man, who placed
a frozen viper in his bosom, and was stung by it when it became
thawed? If we take a cold-blooded creature into our bosom, better
that it should sting us and we should die than that its chill
should slowly steal into our hearts; warm it we never can! I have
seen faces of women that were fair to look upon, yet one could see
that the icicles were forming round these women's hearts. I knew
what freezing image lay on the white breasts beneath the laces!

A very simple INTELLECTUAL mechanism answers the necessities of
friendship, and even of the most intimate relations of life. If a
watch tells us the hour and the minute, we can be content to carry
it about with us for a life-time, though it has no second-hand and
is not a repeater, nor a musical watch,--though it is not enamelled
nor jewelled,--in short, though it has little beyond the wheels
required for a trustworthy instrument, added to a good face and a
pair of useful hands. The more wheels there are in a watch or a
brain, the more trouble they are to take care of. The movements of
exaltation which belong to genius are egotistic by their very
nature. A calm, clear mind, not subject to the spasms and crises
which are so often met with in creative or intensely perceptive
natures, is the best basis for love or friendship.--Observe, I am
talking about MINDS. I won't say, the more intellect, the less
capacity for loving; for that would do wrong to th