und that some might think dangerous, is
sketched in the following fancy. "The father (married young) who, in
perfect innocence, venerates his son's young wife, as the realization of
his ideal of woman. (He not happy in his own choice.) The son slights
her, and knows nothing of her worth. The father watches her, protects
her, labours for her, endures for her,--is for ever divided between his
strong natural affection for his son as his son, and his resentment
against him as this young creature's husband." Here is another, less
dangerous, which he took from an actual occurrence made known to him
when he was at Bonchurch. "The idea of my being brought up by my mother
(me the narrator), my father being dead; and growing up in this belief
until I find that my father is the gentleman I have sometimes seen, and
oftener heard of, who has the handsome young wife, and the dog I once
took notice of when I was a little child, and who lives in the great
house and drives about."

Very admirable is this. "The girl separating herself from the lover who
has shewn himself unworthy--loving him still--living single for his
sake--but never more renewing their old relations. Coming to him when
they are both grown old, and nursing him in his last illness." Nor is
the following less so. "Two girls _mis-marrying_ two men. The man who
has evil in him, dragging the superior woman down. The man who has good
in him, raising the inferior woman up." Dickens would have been at his
best in working out both fancies.

In some of the most amusing of his sketches of character, women also
take the lead. "The lady un peu passee, who is determined to be
interesting. No matter how much I love that person--nay, the more so for
that very reason--I MUST flatter, and bother, and be weak and
apprehensive and nervous, and what not. If I were well and strong,
agreeable and self-denying, my friend might forget me." Another not
remotely belonging to the same family is as neatly hit off. "The
sentimental woman feels that the comic, undesigning, unconscious man, is
'Her Fate.'--I her fate? God bless my soul, it puts me into a cold
perspiration to think of it. _I_ her fate? How can _I_ be her fate? I
don't mean to be. I don't want to have anything to do with
her--Sentimental woman perceives nevertheless that Destiny must be
accomplished."

Other portions of a female group are as humorously sketched and hardly
less entertaining. "The enthusiastically complimentary person