tained by attention and practice, yet too seldom met with in general society-a conversation which departs from the most ordinary topics cannot be maintained without the risk of lapsing into a lecture; with such power, society becomes instructive as well as amusing, and you have no remorse at an evening's end at having wasted three or four hours in profitless banter, or simpering platitudes. This facility of comprehension often startles us in some women, whose education we know to have been poor, and whose reading is limited. If they did not rapidly receive your ideas, they could not, therefore, be fit companions for intellectual men, and it is, perhaps, their consciousness of a deficiency which leads them to pay the more attention to what you say. It is this which makes married women so much more agreeable to men of thought than young ladies, as a rule, can be, for they are accustomed to the society of a husband, and the effort to be a companion to his mind has engrafted the habit of attention and ready reply."

The same author says: "No less important is the cultivation of taste. If it is tiresome and deadening to be with people who cannot understand, and will not even appear to be interested in your better thoughts, it is almost repulsive to find a man insensible to all beauty, and immovable by any horror.

"In the present day an acquaintance with art, even if you have no love for it, is a sine quâ non of good society. Music and painting are subjects which will be discussed in every direction around you. It is only in bad society that people go to the opera, concerts, and art-exhibitions merely because it is the fashion, or to say

they have been there; and if you confessed to such a weakness in really good society, you would be justly voted a puppy. For this, too, some book knowledge is indispensable. You should at least know the names of the more celebrated artists, composers, architects, sculptors, and so forth, and should be able to approximate their several schools.

"So too, you should know pretty accurately the pronunciation of celebrated names, or, if not, take care not to use them. It will never do to be ignorant of the names and approximate ages of great composers, especially in large cities, where music is so highly appreciated and so common a theme. It will be decidedly condemnatory if you talk of the new opera 'Don Giovanni,' or Rossini's 'Trovatore,' or are ignorant who composed 'Fidelio,' and in what opera occur such common pieces as 'Ciascun lo dice,' or 'Il segreto.' I do not say that these trifles are indispensable, and when a man has better knowledge to offer, especially with genius or 'cleverness' to back it, he will not only be pardoned for an ignorance of them, but can even take a high tone, and profess indifference or contempt of them. But, at the same time, such ignorance stamps an ordinary man, and hinders conversation. On the other hand the best society will not endure dilettantism, and, whatever the knowledge a man may possess of any art, he must not display it so as to make the ignorance of others painful to them. But this applies to every topic. To have only one or two subjects to converse on, and to discourse rather than talk on them, is always ill-bred, whether the theme be literature or horseflesh. The gentleman jockey

will probably denounce the former as a 'bore,' and call us pedants for dwelling on it; but if, as is too often the case, he can give us nothing more general than the discussion of the 'points' of a horse that, perhaps, we have never seen, he is as great a pedant in his way.

"Reason plays a less conspicuous part in good society because its frequenters are too reasonable to be mere reasoners. A disputation is always dangerous to temper, and tedious to those who cannot feel as eager as the disputants; a discussion, on the other hand, in which every body has a chance of stating amicably and unobtrusively his or her opinion, must be of frequent occurrence. But to cultivate the reason, besides its high moral value, has the advantage of enabling one to reply as well as attend to the opinions of others. Nothing is more tedious or disheartening than a perpetual, 'Yes, just so,' and nothing more. Conversation must never be one-sided. Then, again, the reason enables us to support a fancy or an opinion, when we are asked why we think so. To reply, 'I don't know, but still I think so,' is silly and tedious.

"But there is a part of our education so important and so neglected in our schools and colleges, that it cannot be too highly impressed on the young man who proposes to enter society. I mean that which we learn first of all things, yet often have not learned fully when death eases us of the necessity-the art of speaking our own language. What can Greek and Latin, French and German be for us in our every-day life, if we have not acquired this? We are often encouraged to raise a laugh at Doctor Syntax and the tyranny of Grammar,

but we may be certain that more misunderstandings, and, therefore, more difficulties arise between men in the commonest intercourse from a want of grammatical precision than from any other cause. It was once the fashion to neglect grammar, as it now is with certain people to write illegibly, and, in the days of Goethe, a man thought himself a genius if he could spell badly.

"Precision and accuracy must begin in the very outset; and if we neglect them in grammar, we shall scarcely acquire them in expressing our thoughts. But since there is no society without interchange of thought, and since the best society is that in which the best thoughts are interchanged in the best and most comprehensible manner, it follows that a proper mode of expressing ourselves is indispensable in good society.

"The art of expressing one's thoughts neatly and suitably is one which, in the neglect of rhetoric as a study, we must practice for ourselves. The commonest thought well put is more useful in a social point of view, than the most brilliant idea jumbled out. What is well expressed is easily seized, and therefore readily responded to; the most poetic fancy may be lost to the hearer, if the language which conveys it is obscure. Speech is the gift which distinguishes man from animals, and makes society possible. He has but a poor appreciation of his high privilege as a human being, who neglects to cultivate, 'God's great gift of speech.'

"As I am not writing for men of genius, hut for ordinary beings, I am right to state that an indispensable part of education is a knowledge of the literature of the English language. But how to read, is, for

The man who takes up nothing but a newspaper, but reads it to think, to deduct conclusions from its premises, and form a judgment on its opinions, is more fitted for society than he, who having all the current literature and devoting his whole time to its perusal, swallows it all without digestion. In fact, the mind must be treated like the body, and however great its appetite, it will soon fall into bad health if it gorges, but does not ruminate. At the same time an acquaintance with the best current literature is necessary to modern society, and it is not sufficient to have read a book without being able to pass. a judgment upon it. Conversation on literature is impossible, when your respondent can only say, 'Yes, I like the book, but I really don't know why.'

society more important than what we read.

"An acquaintance with old English literature is not perhaps indispensable, but it gives a man great advantage in all kinds of society, and in some he is at a constant loss without it. The same may be said of foreign literature, which in the present day is almost as much discussed as our own; but, on the other hand, an acquaintance with home and foreign politics, with current history, and subjects of passing interest, is absolutely necessary; and a person of sufficient intelligence to join in good society, cannot dispense with his daily newspaper, his literary journal, and the principal reviews and magazines. The cheapness of every kind of literature, the facilities of our well ad circulating libraries, our public reading rooms, and numerous excellent lectures on every possible subject, leave no excuse to poor or rich for an ignorance of any of the topics discussed in