partner at a ball, or a gallant on the promenade.
A professor does not meet his pupil to see her dressed in satin and
muslin, with hair perfumed and curled, neck scarcely shaded by aerial
lace, round white arms circled with bracelets, feet dressed for the
gliding dance. It is not his business to whirl her through the waltz,
to feed her with compliments, to heighten her beauty by the flush of
gratified vanity. Neither does he encounter her on the smooth-rolled,
tree shaded Boulevard, in the green and sunny park, whither she repairs
clad in her becoming walking dress, her scarf thrown with grace over her
shoulders, her little bonnet scarcely screening her curls, the red rose
under its brim adding a new tint to the softer rose on her cheek; her
face and eyes, too, illumined with smiles, perhaps as transient as the
sunshine of the gala-day, but also quite as brilliant; it is not his
office to walk by her side, to listen to her lively chat, to carry her
parasol, scarcely larger than a broad green leaf, to lead in a ribbon
her Blenheim spaniel or Italian greyhound. No: he finds her in the
schoolroom, plainly dressed, with books before her. Owing to her
education or her nature books are to her a nuisance, and she opens them
with aversion, yet her teacher must instil into her mind the contents
of these books; that mind resists the admission of grave information, it
recoils, it grows restive, sullen tempers are shown, disfiguring frowns
spoil the symmetry of the face, sometimes coarse gestures banish grace
from the deportment, while muttered expressions, redolent of native and
ineradicable vulgarity, desecrate the sweetness of the voice. Where the
temperament is serene though the intellect be sluggish, an unconquerable
dullness opposes every effort to instruct. Where there is cunning but
not energy, dissimulation, falsehood, a thousand schemes and tricks
are put in play to evade the necessity of application; in short, to the
tutor, female youth, female charms are like tapestry hangings, of which
the wrong side is continually turned towards him; and even when he sees
the smooth, neat external surface he so well knows what knots, long
stitches, and jagged ends are behind that he has scarce a temptation to
admire too fondly the seemly forms and bright colours exposed to general
view.

Our likings are regulated by our circumstances. The artist prefers a
hilly country because it is picturesque; the engineer a flat one because
it is c