stures
while speaking. It is because in France vanity is so deeply rooted
that it leads to indifference. Presumption stands in lieu of courage.
They believe in disasters, but only for others: they never seem to
expect them for themselves.'

So much for national character. If all this be a truthful picture, and
really we see no reason for doubt, it does but add another to the many
proofs of the springing elasticity of that element of light-hearted
short-sightedness which is so proverbially characteristic of the
French. But we will say no more, for our paper has already exceeded
the limits we had assigned to it; and the things that _are_ must ever
prevail in our pages over those that have been.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Perhaps the reader of the above will partake our own feeling of
surprise at one circumstance which it records. How happened it, that
the accomplished lady of a Parisian salon could not shield her chief
guest, and all her guests, from the impertinence of one among them? To
us this seems incomprehensible, and excites our suspicion that Mme de
Stael could not have been among those mistresses of the science of
tact, of whom elsewhere Mme Gay speaks. The whole charm of the evening
was here allowed to be spoiled.

THE OLD CASTLES AND MANSIONS OF SCOTLAND.

The father of mental philosophy, Aristotle, begins his work on ethics
by telling us, that nothing exists without some theory or reason
attached to it. The following out of this view leads to
classification--that great engine of knowledge. We see things at first
in isolated individuality or confused masses. Investigation teaches us
to separate them into groups, which have some common and important
principle of unity, though each individual of the group may be
different from the others in detail. Thus we arrive at the great
classifications of natural science, with which every one is more or
less familiar. But the works of men have their classification too, for
in human effort like causes produce like effects. Most people know
what schools of poetry, painting, and music are. In architecture, we
know, too, that there are great divisions--such as classic and Gothic.
But many have yet to learn how far classification may go; and it is a
new feature to have the peculiar national architecture of Scotland
separated from that of England, and its peculiarities traced to
interesting national events and habits. The common observer is apt to
think that all buildings