as if
there ever was a Bohemian with five hundred a year!--good company is
common. I may say, with fear and much trembling, that the man of
letters, the man who can name you all the Restoration comedies or tell
you the styles of the contemporaries of Alan Chartier is a most terrible
being, and I should risk sharks rather than remain with him on a
desolate island; but a mixed set of artists, musicians, verse-makers,
novelists, critics--yea, even critics--contrive usually to make an
unusually pleasant company. They are all so clever that the professional
wit dares not raise his voice lest some wielder of the bludgeon should
smite him; no long-winded talk is allowed, and, though a bore may once
be admitted to the company, he certainly will never be admitted more
than once. The talk ranges loosely from point to point, and yet a
certain sequence is always observed; the men are freed from conventions;
they like each other and know each other's measure pretty well; so the
hours fly in merry fashion, and the brethren who carried on the
symposium go away well pleased with themselves and with each other.
There can be no good company where the capacity for general agreement is
carried too far in any quarter. Unity of aim, difference of
opinion--those are the elements that make men's conversations valuable.
Last of all, I must declare that there can be no good company unless
women are present. The artists and authors and the rest are all very
well in their way, but the dexterous unseen touch of the lady is
needed; and no man can reckon himself fit to converse at all unless he
has been taught by women's care, and gently reproved by women's
impalpable skill. Young men of our day are beginning to think it
childish or tedious to mix much in women's society; the consequence is
that, though many of them go a long way toward being gentlemen, too many
are the merest cubs that ever exhibited pure loutishness in
conversation. The subtle blending, the light give-and-take of chat
between men and women is the true training which makes men graceful of
tongue, kindly in the use of phrases, and, I believe, pure in heart.

_October, 1888._

_GOING A-WALKING._

One of the most pestilent of all social nuisances is the athlete who
must be eternally performing "feats," and then talking about them. He
goes to the Alps, and, instead of looking at the riot of sunset colour
or the immortal calm of the slumbering peaks, he attempts performances