es.
Surely, when only the parents and a few select friends are met together
in a family way, the daughters should contribute their portion to
enliven the domestic circle. They were always ready to sing and to play,
but did not take the pains to produce themselves in conversation; but
seemed to carry on a distinct intercourse by herding, and whispering,
and laughing together.

In some women who seemed to be possessed of good ingredients, they were
so ill mixed up together as not to produce an elegant, interesting
companion. It appeared to me that three of the grand inducements in the
choice of a wife, are, that a man may have a directress for his family,
a preceptress for his children, and a companion for himself. Can it be
honestly affirmed that the present habits of domestic life are generally
favorable to the union of these three essentials? Yet which of them can
a man of sense and principle consent to relinquish in his conjugal
prospects?

CHAPTER VII.

I returned to town at the end of a few days. To a speculative stranger,
a _London day_ presents every variety of circumstance in every
conceivable shape, of which human life is susceptible. When you trace
the solicitude of the morning countenance, the anxious exploring of the
morning paper, the eager interrogation of the morning guest; when you
hear the dismal enumeration of losses by land, and perils by sea--taxes
trebling, dangers multiplying, commerce annihilating, war protracted,
invasion threatening, destruction impending--your mind catches and
communicates the terror, and you feel yourself "falling, with a falling
state."

But when, in the course of the very same day, you meet these gloomy
prognosticators at the sumptuous, not "dinner but Hecatomb," at the
gorgeous fete, the splendid spectacle; when you hear the frivolous
discourse, witness the luxurious dissipation, contemplate the boundless
indulgence, and observe the ruinous gaming, you would be ready to
exclaim, "Am I not supping in the antipodes of that land in which I
breakfasted? Surely this is a country of different men, different
characters, and different circumstances. This at least is a place in
which there is neither fear nor danger, nor want, nor misery, nor war."

If you observed the overflowing subscriptions raised, the innumerable
societies formed, the committees appointed, the agents employed, the
royal patrons engaged, the noble presidents provided, the palace-like
structures ere