And thus she found that the _mind_ has excitement and occupation, as well as the heart; and, unlike the latter, the culture we bestow upon the first ever yields us its return.

We talk of education for the poor, but we forget how much it is needed by the rich.

Valerie was a living instance of the advantages to women of knowledge and intellectual resources.

By them she had purified her fancy, by them she had conquered discontent, by them she had grown reconciled to life and to her lot! When the heavy heart weighed down the one scale, it was the mind that restored the balance.
The spells of Madame de Ventadour drew Maltravers into this charmed circle of all that was highest, purest, and most gifted in the society of Paris.

There he did not meet, as were met in the times of the old _regime_, sparkling abbes intent upon intrigues; or amorous old dowagers, eloquent on Rousseau; or powdered courtiers, uttering epigrams against kings and religions,--straws that foretold the whirlwind.