“Thus doth the ever-changing course of things run a perpetual circle.” ...  She read the phrase and then reflected, the cause being a continued prognostication, beginning and ending as it had done the day before, to-morrow and forever, maybe, of her own ailment, a paradoxical malady, being nothing more nor less than a pronounced case of malnutrition of the soul, a broken heart-cord, aggravated by a total collapse of that portion of the mentalities which had been bolstered up by undue pride, fallacious arguments, modern foibles and follies peculiar to the human species, both male and female, under favorable social conditions, found in provincial towns as well as in large cities and fashionable watering places.

But as a fitting anodyne to this regrettable case of soul malnutrition, let me append a description of a robuster female, taken verbatim from a manuscript (penned by masculine hand) which became a by-word in one publisher’s office.

She was a beautiful young lady.  She was a medium, sized, elegant figure, wearing a neatly-fitted travelling dress of black alpaca.  Her raven-black hair, copious both in length and volume and figured like a deep river, rippled by the wind, was parted in the centre and combed smoothly down, ornamenting her pink temples with a flowing tracery that passed round to its modillion windings on a graceful crown.  Her mouth was set with pearls adorned with elastic rubies and tuned with minstrel lays, while her nose gracefully concealed its own umbrage, and her eyes imparted a radiant glow to the azure of the sky.  Jewels of plain gold were about her ears and her tapering strawberry hands, and a golden chain, attached to a time-keeper of the same material, sparkled on an elegantly-rounded bosom that was destined to be pushed forward by sighs.

Let it not be thought that only the gracious sex can inspire such plenitude of meticulous portraiture!  Here is a description of the hero in a novel by a man which appeared on my desk recently: 

For some time past there had been appearing at the home of Sarah Ellenton, a man not over fifty years of age, well groomed and of the appearances of being on good terms with prosperity in many phases.  His complexion was reddish.  His hazel eyes deepset and close together were small and shifting.  His nose ran down to a point in many lines, and from the point back to where it joined above his lip, the course was seen to swerve slightly to one side.  His upper lip assumed almost any form and at all times.  His mouth ran across his face in a thin line, curved by waves according to the smiles and expressions he employed.  Below those features was a chin of fine proportions, showing nothing to require study, but in his jaw hinges there was a device that worked splendidly, when he wished to show unction and charity, by sending out his chin on such occasions in the kindest advances one would wish to see.

    It was not long before Sarah became Mrs. John R. Quinley.