Page:The Daughters of England.djvu/213

202 Thus it is common-place to speak of religious persons as using cant, to speak of distinguished characters as being well or ill-dressed, and to speak of the works of Shakspeare as being peculiar in their style. It is also common-place to use those expressions of kindness, or sympathy, which custom has led us to expect as a matter of course. And we never feel this more, than in cases of affliction or death; because there is a kind of set phraseology made use of on such occasions, which those who really feel would often be glad to vary, if they only knew how. It is common-place to speak of some fact as recently discovered, to those who have long known it. But above all that is genuine in common-place, the kind of flattery generally adopted by men, when they mean to address themselves pleasantly to women, deserves the credit of pre-eminence. Indeed, so deficient, for the most part, is this flattery, in point, originality, and adaptation, that I have known sensible women, who felt more really flattered by the most humiliating truths, even plainly spoken; because such treatment implied a confidence in their strength of mind and good sense, in being able to bear it.

Common-place letters are such as, but for the direction, would have done as well for any other individual as the one to whom they are addressed. In description especially, it is desirable to avoid common-place. A correspondent making a tour of the Lakes, tells you that on such a day she set off to the summit of Helvellyn. That the first part of the ascent was steep and difficult, the latter more easy; that the view from the summit was magnificent, extending over so many lakes, and so many other mountains; and there ends the story; and well for you, if it does end there. But such writers unfortunately often go on through a whole catalogue of beauties and sublimities, no single one of which they set before you in such a manner as to render it one