ry short reply from that gentleman.

But about six weeks after her visit he surprised her a little by
writing of his own accord, and asking her for a formal introduction to
Sir Charles Bassett, and begging her to back a request that Sir Charles
would devote a leisure hour or two to correspondence with him. "Not,"
said he, "on his private affairs, but on a matter of general interest.
I want a few of his experiences and observations in that place. I have
the less scruple in asking it, that whatever takes him out of himself
will be salutary."

Lady Bassett sent him the required introduction in such terms that Sir
Charles at once consented to oblige his wife by obliging Mr. Rolfe.

"My DEAR SIR--In compliance with your wish, and Lady Bassett's, I send
you a few desultory remarks on what I see here.

"1st. The lines,

'Great wits to madness nearly are allied,
And thin partitions do their bonds divide,'

are, in my opinion, exaggerated and untrue. Taking the people here as a
guide, the insane in general appear to be people with very little
brains, and enormous egotism.

"My next observation is, that the women have far less imagination than
the men; they cannot even realize their own favorite delusions. For
instance, here are two young ladies, the Virgin Mary and the Queen of
England. How do they play their parts? They sit aloof from all the
rest, with their noses in the air. But gauge their imaginations; go
down on one knee, or both, and address them as a saint and a queen;
they cannot say a word in accordance; yet they are cunning enough to
see they cannot reply in character, so they will not utter a syllable
to their adorers. They are like the shop-boys who go to a masquerade as
Burleigh or Walsingham, and when you ask them who is Queen Bess's
favorite just now, blush, and look offended, and pass sulkily on.

"The same class of male lunatics can speak in character; and this
observation has made me doubt whether philosophers are not mistaken in
saying that women generally have more imagination than men. I suspect
they have infinitely less; and I believe their great love of novels,
which has been set down to imagination, arises mainly from their want
of it. You writers of novels supply that defect for them by a pictorial
style, by an infinity of minute details, and petty aids to realizing,
all which an imaginative reader can do for himself on reading a bare
narrative of sterling facts and incidents.