CHOOSE judiciously thy friends; for to discard them is undesirable,
Yet it is better to drop thy friends, O my daughter, than to drop
thy H’s.
Dost thou know a wise woman? yea, wiser than the children of light?
Hath she a position? and a title? and are her parties in the _Morning
Post_?
If thou dost, cleave unto her, and give up unto her thy body and
mind;
Think with her ideas, and distribute thy smiles at her bidding:
So shalt thou become like unto her; and thy manners shall be
“formed,”
And thy name shall be a Sesame, at which the doors of the great shall
fly open:
Thou shalt know every Peer, his arms, and the date of his creation,
His pedigree and their intermarriages, and cousins to the sixth
remove:
Thou shalt kiss the hand of Royalty, and lo! in next morning’s
papers,
Side by side with rumors of wars, and stories of shipwrecks and
sieges,
Shall appear thy name, and the minutiæ of thy head-dress and
petticoat,
For an enraptured public to muse upon over their matutinal muffin.
_Charles S. Calverley._