an understanding lynx-eyed for the surface of things, but which pierces beyond the surface of nothing, every individual thing (for she has never seized the heart of it) turns up a new face to her every new day, and seems a thing changed, a different thing.—­The Diamond Necklace.

Reader! thou for thy sins must have met with such fair Irrationals; fascinating, with their lively eyes, with their quick snappish fancies; distinguished in the higher circles, in Fashion, even in Literature; they hum and buzz there, on graceful film-wings:—­searching, nevertheless, with the wonderfullest skill for honey; untamable as flies!—­The Diamond Necklace.

     Nature is very kind to all children, and to all mothers that are
     true to her.—­Frederick the Great.

She is of stately figure;—­of beautiful still countenance.—­A completeness, a decision is in this fair female figure; by energy she means the spirit that will prompt one to sacrifice himself for his country.—­French Revolution.

     A clever, high-mannered, massive-minded old lady; admirable as a
     finished piece of social art, but hardly otherwise
     much.—­Reminiscences.

     Who can account for the taste of females?—­The Diamond Necklace.

A Beauty, but over light-headed:  a Booby who had fine legs.  How these first courted, billed, and cooed, according to nature; then pouted, fretted, grew utterly enraged and blew one another up.—­Boswell’s Life of Johnson.

     With delicate female tact, with fine female stoicism too, keeping
     all things within limits.—­Frederick the Great.

     A true-hearted, sharp-witted sister.—­Essay of Diderot.

     A graceful, brave, and amiable woman;—­her choicest gift an open
     eye and heart.—­Oliver Cromwell.

     Every graceful and generous quality of womanhood harmoniously
     blended in her nature.—­Life of Schiller.

     She is a fair vision, the beau ideal of a poet’s first
     mistress.—­Life of Schiller.

Heaven, though severe, is not unkind; Heaven is kind, as a noble mother; as that Spartan mother, saying while she gave her son his shield, “With it, my son, or upon it!”—­Complain not; the very Spartans did not complain.—­Past and Present.

VICTOR HUGO.

All her face, all her person, breathed an ineffable love and kindness.  She had always been predestined to gentleness, but Faith, Hope, and Charity, those three virtues that softly warm the soul, had gradually elevated that gentleness to sanctity.  Nature had only made her a lamb, and religion had made her an angel.—­Les Miserables.

     She was the very embodiment of joy as she went to and fro in the
     house; she brought with her a perpetual spring.—­Toilers of the
     Sea.