that exquisite simile applied to Ellen Glanville, 'her curls seemed as if they had taken the sunbeams prisoners.'*[1] When I last saw her she was very eloquent in praise of a certain tortoise-shell comb. Turning up the hair is the great step to womanhood in a girl's life."
"What admirable theories of education," observed Lord Mandeville, "one might erect! only who would ever have the patience to execute them? Our only consolation is, that, do what we will, circumstances will do still more."
"Yet those circumstances may, and ought to be modified: but a truce to our present discussion—for here come the letters."
O for some German philosopher, with the perseverance of the African travellers, who seem to make a point of conscience to die on their travels, not, though, till the said travels are properly interred in quartos—with their perseverance, and the imagination of a poet to examine into the doctrine of sympathies! And to begin with letters, in what consists the mysterious attraction no one will deny they possess? Why, when we neither expect, hope, nor even wish for one, and yet when they
- ↑ * Pelham
