what’s the matter with our military authorities.  If McClellan is a ditch-digger let them put a general in command; or, if he is a general, give him what he wants and let him alone.  There is no head, no plan.  I confess, however, that just now I am chiefly interested in your campaigns, which, after all, stand the best chance of bringing about union, in spite of your negative mood manifested to-night.  Nature will prove too strong for you, and some day—­soon probably—­you will conquer, only to surrender yourself.  Be that as it may, the plan I suggest need not be interfered with.  Be patient.  I’m only following the tactics in vogue,—­taking the longest way around to the point to be attacked.  Lane said that if you carried out your present principle of action you would have a power possessed by few.  I think he is right.  I’m not flattering you.  Little power of any kind can co-exist with vanity.  The secret of your fascination is chiefly in your individuality.  There are other girls more beautiful and accomplished who have not a tithe of it.  Now and then a woman is peculiarly gifted with the power to influence men,—­strong men, too.  You had this potency in no slight degree when neither your heart nor your brain was very active.  You will find that it will increase with time, and if you are wise it will be greater when you are sixty than at present.  If you avoid the Scylla of vanity on the one hand, and the Charybdis of selfishness on the other, and if the sympathies of your heart keep pace with a cultivated mind, you will steadily grow in social influence.  I believe it for this reason:  A weak girl would have been sentimental with Lane, would have yielded temporarily, either to his entreaty or to his anger, only to disappoint him in the end, or else would have been conventional in her refusal and so sent him to the bad, probably.  You recognized just what you could be to him, and had the skill—­nature, rather, for all was unpremeditated—­to obtain an influence by which you can incite him to a better manhood and a greater success, perhaps, than if he were your accepted lover.  Forgive this long preamble:  I am thinking aloud and feeling my way, as it were.  What did you ask him to promise?  Why, to make the most and best of himself.  Why not let this sentence suggest the social scheme of your life?  Drop fellows who have neither brains nor heart,—­no good mettle in them,—­and so far as you have influence strive to inspire the others to make the most and best of themselves.  You would not find the kitchen-maid a rival on this plan of life; nor indeed, I regret to say, many of your natural associates.  Outwardly your life will appear much the same, but your motive will change everything, and flow through all your action like a mountain spring, rendering it impossible for you to poison any life.”

“O papa, the very possibility of what you suggest makes life appear beautiful.  The idea of a convent!”