Chapter 6 - Page 2

becoming more
frank and unreserved with him, as she grew sensible that he had
abandoned his hopes of success with herself, and Grace gradually more
cautious and timid, as she became conscious of his power to please,
and the interest he took in herself.

It might have been three days after the ball at Mrs. Houston's that
most of the family was engaged to look in on a Mrs. Legend, a lady of
what was called a literary turn, Sir George having been asked to make
one of their party. Aristabulus was already returned to his duty in
the country, where we shall shortly have occasion to join him, but an
invitation had been sent to Mr. Truck, under the general, erroneous
impression of his real character.

Taste, whether in the arts, literature, or any thing else, is a
natural impulse, like love. It is true both may be cultivated and
heightened by circumstances, but the impulses must be voluntary, and
the flow of feeling, or of soul, as it has become a law to style it,
is not to be forced, or commanded to come and go at will. This is the
reason that all premeditated enjoyments connected with the intellect,
are apt to baffle expectations, and why academies, literary clubs,
coteries and dinners are commonly dull. It is true that a body of
clever people may be brought together, and, if left to their own
impulses, the characters of their mind will show themselves; wit will
flash, and thought will answer thought spontaneously; but every
effort to make the stupid agreeable, by giving a direction of a
pretending intellectual nature to their efforts, is only rendering
dullness more conspicuous by exhibiting it in contrast with what it
ought to be to be clever, as a bad picture is rendered the more
conspicuous by an elaborate and gorgeous frame.

The latter was the fate of most of Mrs. Legend's literary evenings,
at which it was thought an illustration to understand even one
foreign language. But, it was known that Eve was skilled in most of
the European tongues, and, the good lady, not feeling that such
accomplishments are chiefly useful as a means, looked about her in
order to collect a set, among whom our heroine might find some one
with whom to converse in each of her dialects. Little was said about
it, it is true, but great efforts were made to cause this evening to
be memorable in the annals of _conversazioni_.

In carrying out this scheme, nearly all the wits, writers, artists
and _literati_, as the most incorrigible members of the book clubs
were styled, in New-York, were pressingly invited to be present.
Aristabulus had contrived to earn such a reputation for the captain,
on the night of the ball, that he was universally called a man of
letters, and an article had actually appeared in one of the