and gentleness which

"Untutored youth,
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties,"

enthrones within the temple of his heart, but was, notwithstanding, a
remarkable woman. With much of the enthusiasm that characterized "_La
Pucelle_," she appears to have combined a considerable allowance of
shrewdness, or common sense; a mixture of qualities, by the way, of more
common occurrence than is generally supposed, among the northern and
southern people of our continent. There is little difference between the
"peartness" of the one, and the "smartness" of the other; or the "high
tone" of the South, and the _nonchalance_ of the North. The common
_national_ characteristic of the people of both sections, however, is
the power of adapting themselves to every variety of circumstance. No
matter what the importance, or the insignificance of the occasion, or
event, upon which they perceive that their opportunity for the
attainment of a desired object depends, they are ready at the right
moment to seize and turn it to account; and while, to-day, the banks of
the Ganges or the Tigris are made to yield up to them the fruits of
their industry and produce, to-morrow, when a modification of the law of
demand and supply prevails, we find the same men following the tide of
fortune through humbler but equally useful channels. We are
pre-eminently a practical people, and that this characteristic to some
extent destroys the poetic aspect of American life, cannot be gainsaid.
The homes of our infancy, the graves of our kindred, the hills upon
whose summits we first felt the glory of the morning, the altar at which
we first knelt in prayer, the rustic nook where we listened for the one
step to which our boyish hearts beat sweetest time; have no power to
trammel our migratory proclivities, or to check our local inconstancy.
The sentiments with which such objects are indissolubly connected, are
but tendrils clinging round the parent nest, and the wings of the
new-fledged bird, bursting them asunder, it soars out into the world to
contend and battle with its storms.

One of the least attractive illustrations of this spirit of unrest, is
where it extends to our women, and Miss Belle Boyd's is in our
estimation a case in point.

"Unknown to her the rigid rule,
The dull restraint, the chiding frown,
The weary torture of the school;
The taming of wild nature down.
Her only lore, the legends told