Hence it follows that our social gatherings consist, to so lamentable an extent, of pert youngsters or faded oldsters.  Thence come those abominable “young people’s parties,” where a score or two or three of boys and girls meet and manage after their own hearts.  Thence it happens that conversation seems to be taking its place among the Lost Arts, and the smallest of small talk reigns in its stead.  Society, instead of giving its tone to the children, takes it from them, and since it cannot be juvenile, becomes insipid, and because it is too old to prattle, jabbers.  Talkers are everywhere, but where are the men that say things?  Where are the people that can be listened to and quoted?  Where are the flinty people whose contact strikes fire?  Where are the electric people who thrill a whole circle with sudden vitality?  Where are the strong people who hedge themselves around with their individuality, and will be roused by no prince’s kiss, but taken only by storm, yet, once captured, are sweeter than the dews of Hymettus?  Where are the seers, the prophets, the Magi, who shall unfold for us the secrets of the sky and the seas, and the mystery of human hearts?

Yet fathers and mothers not only acquiesce in this state of things, they approve of it.  They foster it.  They are forward to annihilate themselves.  They are careful to let their darlings go out alone, lest they be a restraint upon them,—­as if that were not what parents were made for.  If they were what they ought to be, the restraint would be not only wholesome, but impalpable.  The relation between parents and children should be such that pleasure shall not be quite perfect, unless shared by both.  Parents ought to take such a tender, proud, intellectual interest in the pursuits and amusements of their children that the children shall feel the glory of the victory dimmed, unless their parents are there to witness it.  If the presence of a sensible mother is felt as a restraint, it shows conclusively that restraint is needed.

A woman also needs self-cultivation, both physical and mental, in order to self-respect.  Undoubtedly Diogenes glorified himself in his tub.  But people in general, and women in universal, except the geniuses,—­need the pomp of circumstance.  A slouchy garb is both effect and cause of a slouchy mind.  A woman who lets go her hold upon dress, literature, music, amusement, will almost inevitably slide down into a bog of muggy moral indolence.  She will lose her spirit; and when the spirit is gone out of a woman, there is not much left of her.  When she cheapens herself, she diminishes her value.  Especially when the evanescent charms of mere youth are gone, when the responsibilities of life have left their mark upon her, is it indispensable that she attend to all the fitnesses of externals, and strengthen and polish all her mental and social qualities.  By this I do not mean that women should allow themselves to lose their beauty as they increase in years.  Men grow