Lord Chesterfield has
been loudly laughed at with leathern lungs for his anathema against
laughter. But though often wrong, there his lordship was right, and for
that one single rule of manners he deserves a monument, as having been
one of the benefactors of his species. Let smiles mantle--and that
sweet, soft, low sound be heard, the _susurrus_. Let there be a
many-voiced quiet music, like that of the summer moonlight sea when the
stars are in its breast. But laughter--loud peals of laughter--are like
breakers--blind breakers on a blind coast, where no verdure grows except
that of tangle, and whatever is made into that vulgarist of all
commodities, kelp.

'Tis not a literary conversazione, mind ye, gentle reader; for we leave
that to S. T. Coleridge, the Monarch of the Monologue. But all
speak--talk--whisper--or smile, of all the speakable, talkable,
whisperable, and smileable little interesting affairs, incidents, and
occurrences, real or fabulous, of public, private, demi-public, or
demi-semi-private life. Topics are as plentiful as snow-flakes, and melt
away as fast in the stream of social pleasure,

"A moment white, then gone for ever!"

Not a little scandal--much gossip, we daresay; but as for scandal, it
is the vulgarest error in the world to think that it either means, or
does any harm to any mortal. It does infinite good. It ventilates the
atmosphere, and prevents the "golden-fretted vault" from becoming "a
foul congregation of vapours." As for gossip, what other vindication
does it need, than an order for you to look at a soiree of swallows in
September on a slate-roof, the most innocent and white-breasted
creatures that pay

"Their annual visits round the globe,
Companions of the sun,"

but such gossipers that the whole air is a-twitter with their talk about
their neighbours' nest--when--whew! off and away they go, winnowing
their way westwards, through the setting sunlight, and all in perfect
amity with themselves and their kind, while

"The world is all before them, where to choose,
And Providence their guide."

And, madam, you do not matronise--and, sir, you do not
patronise--_waltzing_? 'Tis very O fie-fieish, you think--and in danger
of becoming very, very faux-papa-ish!

"Oh! the great goodness of the knights of old,"

whose mind-motto was still--

"_Honi soit qui mal y pense!_"

Judging by ourselves, 'tis a wicked world we unwillingly confess; but be
not terr