d as the other; there
is not a pin to choose between them. There is the same bright easy,
gossiping style, the same pleasing rapidity. There is nothing tedious,
nothing dull anywhere. They do not profess to have anything to do with
the graver processes of history--these entertaining volumes; they seek
rather to amuse than to instruct, and they fulfil their purpose
excellently. There is instruction in them, but it comes in by the way;
one is conscious of being entertained, and it is only after the
entertainment is over that one finds that a fair amount of information
has been thrown in to boot. The Whartons have but old tales to tell, but
they tell them very well, and that is the first part of their business.

Looking over these articles is like looking over the list of a good
club. Men are companionable creatures; they love to get together and
gossip. It is maintained, and with reason, that they are fonder of their
own society than women are. Men delight to breakfast together, to take
luncheon together, to dine together, to sup together. They rejoice in
clubs devoted exclusively to their service, as much taboo to women as a
trappist monastery. Women are not quite so clannish. There are not very
many women's clubs in the world; it is not certain that those which do
exist are very brilliant or very entertaining. Women seldom give supper
parties, "all by themselves they" after the fashion of that "grande dame
de par le monde" of whom we have spoken elsewhere. A woman's
dinner-party may succeed now and then by way of a joke, but it is a joke
that is not often repeated. Have we not lately seen how an institution
with a graceful English name, started in London for women and women
only, has just so far relaxed its rigid rule as to allow men upon its
premises between certain hours, and this relaxation we are told has been
conceded in consequence of the demand of numerous ladies. Well, well, if
men can on the whole get on better without the society of women than
women can without the society of men it is no doubt because they are
rougher creatures, moulded of a coarser clay, and are more entertained
by eating and drinking, smoking and the telling of tales than women are.

If all the men whom the Whartons labelled as wits and beaux of society
could be gathered together they would make a most excellent club in the
sense in which a club was understood in the last century. Johnson
thought that he had praised a man highly when he cal