by certain signs of silk, gold, and other materials, which say to all men,—­Look on me and love, as in duty bound.  Then the man pleadeth his special incapacity, whatsoever that may be,—­as, for instance, impecuniosity, or that he hath one or many wives in his household, or that he is of mean figure, or small capacity; of which reasons it may be noted, that the first is, according to late decisions, of chiefest authority.—­So far the old law-book.  But there is a note from an older authority, saying that every woman doth also love each and every man, except there be some good reason to the contrary; and a very observing friend of mine, a young unmarried clergyman, tells me, that, so far as his experience goes, he has reason to think the ancient author had fact to justify his statement.

I’ll tell you how it is with the pictures of women we fall in love with at first sight.

—­We a’n’t talking about pictures,—­said the landlady’s daughter, —­we’re talking about women.

I understood that we were speaking of love at sight,—­I remarked, mildly.—­Now, as all a man knows about a woman whom he looks at is just what a picture as big as a copper, or a “nickel,” rather, at the bottom of his eye can teach him, I think I am right in saying we are talking about the pictures of women.—­Well, now, the reason why a man is not desperately in love with ten thousand women at once is just that which prevents all our portraits being distinctly seen upon that wall.  They all are painted there by reflection from our faces, but because all of them are painted on each spot, and each on the same surface, and many other objects at the same time, no one is seen as a picture.  But darken a chamber and let a single pencil of rays in through a key-hole, then you have a picture on the wall.  We never fall in love with a woman in distinction from women, until we can get an image of her through a pin-hole; and then we can see nothing else, and nobody but ourselves can see the image in our mental camera-obscura.

—­My friend, the Poet, tells me he has to leave town whenever the anniversaries come round.

What’s the difficulty?—­Why, they all want him to get up and make speeches, or songs, or toasts; which is just the very thing he doesn’t want to do.  He is an old story, he says, and hates to show on these occasions.  But they tease him, and coax him, and can’t do without him, and feel all over his poor weak head until they get their fingers on the fontanelle, (the Professor will tell you what this means,—­he says the one at the top of the head always remains open in poets,) until, by gentle pressure on that soft pulsating spot, they stupefy him to the point of acquiescence.