Weekly Arizona journal-miner., 1905-05-31

nents by a prominent magazine, re- reals the character of a man abso- { utely serious. He took the most solemn view of his own importance, and disdained the slightest concession to frivolity in every relation of life. There seems to have been no humor in his makeup. This is well shown by an entry in one of his exhaustive diaries under date of 1851.
 "Some of my friends" he writes, C make singular blunders. They go out of their way to talk with certain young women of whom they think or have heard that they are pretty, and take pains to introduce me to them. 1 That may be a reason why they should look at them, but it :J not reson why they should talk with them. l con fess that I am lacking a sense, per haps in this respect, and l derive no pleasure from talking with young woman half an hour simply because she has regular features. The society of young women is the most unprOfit- able have ever tried. They are so light and fighty that you can never be sure whether they are there or not there. prefer to talk with the more staid and settled-settled for life, Tn every sense"
 There is something very funny Tn the ingenious confession of the Stole of Walden Pond. The imagination pie lures himeslf in the act of tearing him self away from group of pretty maids who are prosecuting him with their immature ideas and settling himself down in a retired spot to discuss tran scendental philosophy or some equal ly abstruse subject with an ugly but intellectual dowager. His clear, phil osophic vision pierces through out ward traits to the mind and finds 1t in the first case light and fiighty and in the second wise and collected. It matters not that the young lady IS beautiful. while the elderly dame IS not. Golden hair and brown eyes, red lips and dimpled chin, convey no par ticular impression to the sage's intel ligence, and they cannot touch his heart. for that is in strict subjection to his head Neither can thin lips and pointed nose and wrinkled skin repel him. He converses to improve himself, and his mental improvement has nothing to do with exterior charm.
 If Thoreau's conception of the phil osophic character should become cur rent, it would work irreparable injury to the schools. But there is little dan ger. It is pretty generally understood that philosophers can appreciate beauty as fully as other men. Socrates was twice married, and though his first venture was an unhappy one, he was careful to gather the fruit of experi- enee. Xsntippe was as mature and unbeautiful as Thoreau could desire, but his second bride was young and fair, and there IS no reason to sup pose that her mind was not "light and fiighty." Plato would have been the last of men to accuse anyone of a "singular blunder" in introducing him to a young lady with regular features. His heart was very susceptible to fe- minine charms. And so it has been with all philosophers. There is no reason to suppose that Locke spurned the small talk of a pretty girl merely because his profound mind inclined to serious studies. Descartes would have been less a Frenchman and nc more a philosopher if he refused the conversational advances of a rosy checked vis-a-vis.
 The fascination exercised by beau
 tiful face is not explainable by the rules of logic. Philosophy takes nc eognizance of spells, and feminine beauty casts a spell that the cold die
 tates of reason cannot break. Despite
 Thoreau's protests, man will go or
 seeking the company of young ladies
 for the perfectly absurd but satisfae
 tory reason that they are fair to look
 upon. The society of charming gir
 may be very unproftable, but under the circumstances few men care to bt
 accused of utilitarianism. It may b' that you can never be sure "wheth
 CT they are there or not there," but the feminine trait which the philosO pher rather vaguely expresses II
 these terms is generally supposed t'
 have a witchery of its own. One thing
 is beyond all doubt. If the philosoPhi'
 Thoreau derived no pleasure iron talking with young woman simpl,
 because she was beautiful, it is certan
 that the distaste was reciprocal.