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Book, page 261 / 460 as my countrywomen; they will never become, I hope, like some of our lady politicians, '_qui heurlent comme des demons_.'" Lady Cecilia said that, from what she had seen at Paris, she was persuaded that if the ladies did bawl too loud it was because the gentlemen did not listen to them; that above half the party-violence which appeared in Parisian belles was merely dramatic, to produce a sensation, and draw the gentlemen, from the black _pelotons_ in which they gathered, back to their proper positions round the _fauteuils_ of the fair ladies. The foreigner, speaking to what he saw passing in Lady Davenant's mind, went on;--"Ladies can do much, however, in this as in all other dilemmas where their power is, and ought to be, omnipotent." "Female _influence_ is and ought to be _potent,_" said the general, with an emphasis on influence, contradistinguishing it from power, and reducing the exaggeration of omnipotent by the short process of lopping off two syllables. "So long as ladies keep in their own proper character," said Lady Davenant, "all is well; but, if once they cease to act as women, that instant they lose their privilege--their charm: they forfeit their exorcising power; they can no longer command the demon of party nor themselves, and he transforms them directly, as you say," said she to the French gentleman, "into actual furies." "And, when so transformed, sometimes unconscious of their state," said the general, drily, his eye glancing towards the other end of the room, and lighting upon Lady Bearcroft, who was at the instant very red and very loud; and Lady Cecilia was standing, as if watchful for a moment's pause, in which to interpose her word of peace. She waited for some time in vain, for when she hastened from the other end of the room to this--the scene of action, things had come to such a pass between the ladies Masham and Bearcroft, that mischief, serious mischief, must have ensued, had not Lady Cecilia, at utmost need, summoned to her aid the happy genius of Nonsense--the genius of Nonsense, in whose elfin power even Love delights; on whom Reason herself condescends often to smile, even when Logic frowns, and chops him on his block: but cut in twain, the ethereal spirit soon unites again, and lives, and laughs. But mark him well--this little happy genius of Nonsense; see that he be the true thing--the genuine spirit. You
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