Mr. Pericles grimaced bitterly at any claim to excellence being set up for the mysterious voice in the woods.  Tapping one forefinger on the uplifted point of the other, he observed that to sing abroad in the night air of an English Spring month was conclusive of imbecility; and that no imbecile sang at all.  Because, to sing, involved the highest accomplishment of which the human spirit could boast.  Did the ladies see? he asked.  They thought they saw that he carried on a deception admirably.  In return, they inquired whether he would come with them and hunt the voice, saying that they would catch it for him.  “I shall catch a cold for myself,” said Mr. Pericles, from the elevation of a shrug, feeling that he was doomed to go forth.  He acted reluctance so well that the ladies affected a pretty imperiousness; and when at last he consented to join the party, they thanked him with a nicely simulated warmth, believing that they had pleased him thoroughly.

Their brother Wilfrid was at Brookfield.  Six months earlier he had returned from India, an invalided cornet of light cavalry, with a reputation for military dash and the prospect of a medal.  Then he was their heroic brother he was now their guard.  They love him tenderly, and admired him when it was necessary; but they had exhausted their own sensations concerning his deeds of arms, and fancied that he had served their purpose.  And besides, valour is not an intellectual quality, they said.  They were ladies so aspiring, these daughters of the merchant Samuel Bolton Pole, that, if Napoleon had been their brother, their imaginations would have overtopped him after his six months’ inaction in the Tuileries.  They would by that time have made a stepping-stone of the emperor.  ‘Mounting’ was the title given to this proceeding.  They went on perpetually mounting.  It is still a good way from the head of the tallest of men to the stars; so they had their work before them; but, as they observed, they were young.  To be brief, they were very ambitious damsels, aiming at they knew not exactly what, save that it was something so wide that it had not a name, and so high in the air that no one could see it.  They knew assuredly that their circle did not please them.  So, therefore, they were constantly extending and refining it:  extending it perhaps for the purpose of refining it.  Their susceptibilities demanded that they should escape from a city circle.  Having no mother, they ruled their father’s house and him, and were at least commanders of whatsoever forces they could summon for the task.

It may be seen that they were sentimentalists.  That is to say, they supposed that they enjoyed exclusive possession of the Nice Feelings, and exclusively comprehended the Fine Shades.  Whereof more will be said; but in the meantime it will explain their propensity to mount; it will account for their irritation at the material obstructions surrounding them; and possibly the philosopher will now have his eye on the source of that extraordinary sense of superiority to mankind which was the crown of their complacent brows.  Eclipsed as they may be in the gross appreciation of the world by other people, who excel in this and that accomplishment, persons that nourish Nice Feelings and are intimate with the Fine Shades carry their own test of intrinsic value.