he to win our ladies with their delicate loveliness! Faugh,
sir! are you a Cyclops yourself?'

Alas! my Tinkler, do you remember that Salmasius began his vituperations
of Milton with gratuitous speculations upon his supposed ugliness, and
that great was his grief when he was assured that he contended with an
ideal of beauty. Have you forgotten that the Antinoeus won the
distinguished favor of his merry, courteous queen Christina, and that
the satirist and man of 'taste' died of obscurity in a year? Beware, my
little Narcissus, lest the next autumn flowers bloom above your grave in
Greenwood, and your fair Luline be accepting bouquets and _bonbons_ from
me.

You, Roland, are pale from the very contemplation of such a catastrophe,
such an unprecedented _haegira_ of dames! It is as if from every gay
watering place, some softly tinkling bell should summon the fair
mermaids. Beplaided and betrowsered, with their little gypsy hats, would
they float out beyond the breakers, waving aside with farewell, airy
kisses, the patent life boats and the magical preservers, and pressing
on, like Gebers, with their rosy faces and great, hopeful eyes ever
laughingly, merrily turned to the golden east--their _Morgen Land_!

Ah! but--have we no Vulcans among us? 'Fair Bertha, Beatrice, Alys,'
come out of the Christmas ecstatics of the dear old year that has just
streamed out like a meteor among the stars;--_you_ know, fair ones, that
the stars are only years, and the planets grave old centuries; lock away
the jewels and the lace sets--charming, I know--the glove boxes and the
statuettes, the cream-leaved books, and the fragile, graceful
_babioles_; pull up the cushions, and group your bright selves around
the register--it's very cold to-day, you roses--and let us settle the
question--have we a Vulcan among us?

Magnificent essayists, O dearly beloved, have handled 'Our Husbands,'
'Our Wives,' 'Our Sons' and 'Our Daughters' in a masterly style. Very
praiseworthy, no doubt, but so unromantic! Why, there's not a green leaf
in the whole collection! The style is decidedly Egyptian, solid and
expressive, but dreadfully compact. No arabesques, those offshoots of
lazy, dreamy hours and pleasantly disconnected thoughts, disgrace the
solemnly even tenor of these fathers of 'Ephemeral Literature,' as some
'rude Iconoclast' has irreverently styled the butterfly journeyings of
our magazine age. But we, O merry souls and brave, are still young and
fr