fine old cordial through all the veins of life--this feeling that we
understand and trust each other, and wish each other heartily well!
Everything into which it really comes is good. It transforms
letter-writing from a task into a pleasure. It makes music a
thousand times more sweet. The people who play and sing not at us,
but TO us,--how delightful it is to listen to them! Yes, there is a
talkability that can express itself even without words. There is an
exchange of thought and feeling which is happy alike in speech and
in silence. It is quietness pervaded with friendship.


Having come thus far in the exposition of Montaigne, I shall
conclude with an opinion of my own, even though I cannot quote a
sentence of his to back it.

The one person of all the world in whom talkability is most
desirable, and talkativeness least endurable, is a wife.



A WILD STRAWBERRY


"Such is the story of the Boblink; once spiritual, musical, admired,
the joy of the meadows, and the favourite bird of spring; finally a
gross little sensualist who expiates his sensuality in the larder.
His story contains a moral, worthy the attention of all little birds
and little boys; warning them to keep to those refined and
intellectual pursuits which raised him to so high a pitch of
popularity during the early part of his career; but to eschew all