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Nor was her tongue the prattling servant of her beauty, but a guide of cheerful converse; for just as she charmed without device or scheme of fascination, so she possessed the art of speaking well without seeming to have ever studied it. In the chase after just and felicitous ideas, she could lead or follow over the most varied fields with the intuition of the huntress born.
Then Read, and Twopenny Read, good-humoured and personable Twopenny, good-humoured, but thin, and felicitous in jests upon his own figure. If T. was thin, Wharry was attenuated and fleeting. The steps were little efforts, like that of a child beginning to walk; the jump comparatively vigorous, as a foot to an inch. Where he learned this figure, or what occasioned it, I could never discover.
With respect to Mr. Toby Limp's lady, the general opinion, drawn from various signs and appearances, was, that she was intended as a sort of present, or peace-offering, to the Captain; and what amused us exceedingly, was the peculiar mode which Toby adopted of recommending her more fully to his good opinion, by frequently passing his hand over her abdomen, while, regarding Captain Owen with a most animated countenance, he seemed to express something like the following: 'Look here! surely this is worthy of your attention. But, however powerful the native charms of this lady might have been, and in spite of the above felicitous mode of 'showing her off, the speculation proved totally ineffectual.
But the knowledge of man, of the springs of his conduct, of his relation to his fellow-men singly or in groups, and the felicitous regulation of human intercourse in the interest of harmony and fairness, have made no such advance.
The only point of direct contact with Rasselas is the knowledge of human nature, though in the one book this takes the form of melancholy aphorism and apophthegm, in the other that of felicitous trait and dialogue-utterance.
"Tell me," he began, "what possible attraction this country can have for you?" "It would be quite as impossible to explain that satisfactorily to you as to make my reasons clear for being here at all. But since you again ask me for those reasons, I can only answer as I did before. I have exhausted that felicitous state called civilization. I want to be free."
"Oh, he was very good to remember the engagement under the circumstances," said Gwendolen. "I am sorry he was called away." It was easy to be politely sorrowful on so felicitous an occasion. "Then I can profit by Mr. Clintock's misfortune?" said Grandcourt. "May I hope that you will let me take his place?" "I shall be very happy to dance the next quadrille with you."
Great purity of speech is presumptive evidence of several lives spent in other than vulgarly useful occupations; although its evidence is by no means entirely conclusive to this point. As felicitous an instance of futile classicism as can well be found, outside of the Far East, is the conventional spelling of the English language.
W. H. Hadow has said some pertinent things about Chopin in "Studies in Modern Music." Yet we cannot accept unconditionally his statement that "in structure Chopin is a child playing with a few simple types, and almost helpless as soon as he advances beyond them; in phraseology he is a master whose felicitous perfection of style is one of the abiding treasures of the art."
At the critical period of his life he married for love, and his choice was a most felicitous one. The lady had no fortune; but though handsome and high-born, she had no taste for extravagance, and no desire for other society than that of the man she loved.
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