adow, and clung to him, so that no wind or wave could
part them, and dragged him on against all the tide of circumstance,
would soon have gone down the stream and been heard of no more.--No,
I am too much a lover of genius, I sometimes think, and too often get
impatient with dull people, so that, in their weak talk, where nothing
is taken for granted, I look forward to some future possible state of
development, when a gesture passing between a beatified human soul and
an archangel shall signify as much as the complete history of a planet,
from the time when it curdled to the time when its sun was burned out.
And yet, when a strong brain is weighed with a true heart, it seems to
me like balancing a bubble against a wedge of gold.

--It takes a very true man to be a fitting companion for a woman of
genius, but not a very great one. I am not sure that she will not
embroider her ideal better on a plain ground than on one with a
brilliant pattern already worked in its texture. But as the very essence
of genius is truthfulness, contact with realities, (which are always
ideas behind shows of form or language,) nothing is so contemptible
as falsehood and pretence in its eyes. Now it is not easy to find a
perfectly true woman, and it is very hard to find a perfectly true man.
And a woman of genius, who has the sagacity to choose such a one as her
companion, shows more of the divine gift in so doing than in her finest
talk or her most brilliant work of letters or of art.

I have been a good while coming at a secret, for which I wished to
prepare you before telling it. I think there is a kindly feeling growing
up between Iris and our young Marylander. Not that I suppose there is
any distinct understanding between them, but that the affinity which has
drawn him from the remote corner where he sat to the side of the young
girl is quietly bringing their two natures together. Just now she is all
given up to another; but when he no longer calls upon her daily thoughts
and cares, I warn you not to be surprised, if this bud of friendship
open like the evening primrose, with a sound as of a sudden stolen kiss,
and lo! the flower of full-blown love lies unfolded before you.

And now the days had come for our little friend, whose whims and
weaknesses had interested us, perhaps, as much as his better traits, to
make ready for that long journey which is easier to the cripple than
to the strong man, and on which none enters so willingly as he