world, and no one regards them." We cannot listen to Coleridge, "with
his head among the clouds." We, alas! cannot even catch the energetic
flash of Margaret Fuller's words. But every one of us can improve her
conversation by persevering effort in the ways indicated, and can listen
still to the best of talk.

Somewhere Emerson writes, "Wise, cultivated, genial conversation is
the last flower of civilization, and the best result which life has
to offer us,--a cup for the gods, which has no repentance."




II.

HOW TO GET ACQUAINTED WITH NATURE.


My dear girls, I want to talk to you to-day about one of your very
best friends,--one so altogether lovely, from first to last, that we
can never exhaust her attractions.

Nature is, indeed, among the most loving and constant friends a girl
can have, and not by any means the imaginary acquaintance so many
suppose she is. She lives and breathes, and has a form and spirit. Are
you looking about to see where she is? No need of that. Come right here,
and sit down beside me under this great pine-tree. How strong and
comfortable its back feels against yours! Do you see all those soft
green points looking down on you while the tasselled branches gently
sway? Just look at the deep blue patches of sky away up and up among