ons concerning his deeds of arms, and fancied that he had served
their purpose. And besides, valour is not an intellectual quality, they
said. They were ladies so aspiring, these daughters of the merchant
Samuel Bolton Pole, that, if Napoleon had been their brother, their
imaginations would have overtopped him after his six months' inaction in
the Tuileries. They would by that time have made a stepping-stone of the
emperor. 'Mounting' was the title given to this proceeding. They went on
perpetually mounting. It is still a good way from the head of the tallest
of men to the stars; so they had their work before them; but, as they
observed, they were young. To be brief, they were very ambitious damsels,
aiming at they knew not exactly what, save that it was something so wide
that it had not a name, and so high in the air that no one could see it.
They knew assuredly that their circle did not please them. So, therefore,
they were constantly extending and refining it: extending it perhaps for
the purpose of refining it. Their susceptibilities demanded that they
should escape from a city circle. Having no mother, they ruled their
father's house and him, and were at least commanders of whatsoever forces
they could summon for the task.

It may be seen that they were sentimentalists. That is to say, they
supposed that they enjoyed exclusive possession of the Nice Feelings, and
exclusively comprehended the Fine Shades. Whereof more will be said; but
in the meantime it will explain their propensity to mount; it will
account for their irritation at the material obstructions surrounding
them; and possibly the philosopher will now have his eye on the source of
that extraordinary sense of superiority to mankind which was the crown of
their complacent brows. Eclipsed as they may be in the gross appreciation
of the world by other people, who excel in this and that accomplishment,
persons that nourish Nice Feelings and are intimate with the Fine Shades
carry their own test of intrinsic value.

Nor let the philosopher venture hastily to despise them as pipers to
dilettante life. Such persons come to us in the order of civilization. In
their way they help to civilize us. Sentimentalists are a perfectly
natural growth of a fat soil. Wealthy communities must engender them. If
with attentive minds we mark the origin of classes, we shall discern that
the Nice Feelings and the Fine Shades play a principal part in our human
development and socia