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