t
wait another year before we can put it to the test again; wait till the
trees once more stand perfectly still: yellow, yellowish-green, crimson,
russet, and the wind comes up and blows them bare, and yet another
summer is dead, and the mourners, the ghosts, the _revenants_ have once
more returned to town.

II

PERSONAL AND EPISTOLARY ADDRESSES

A constant reader of the Easy Chair has come to it with a difficulty
which, at the generous Christmas-tide, we hope his fellow-readers will
join us in helping solve: they may, if they like, regard it as a merry
jest of the patron saint of the day, a sort of riddle thrown upon the
table at the general feast for each to try his wits upon

"Across the walnuts and the wine."

"How," this puzzled spirit has asked, "shall I address a friend of mine
who, besides being a person of civil condition, with a right to the
respect that we like to show people of standing in directing our letters
to them, has the distinction of being a doctor of philosophy, of
letters, and of laws by the vote of several great universities? Shall I
greet him as, say, Smythe Johnes, Esq., or Dr. Smythe Johnes, or Smythe
Johnes, Ph.D., Litt.D., LL.D., or simply Mr. Smythe Johnes?"

Decidedly, we should answer, to begin with, _not_ "Mr. Smythe Johnes" if
you wish to keep the finest bloom on your friendship with any man who
knows the world. He will much prefer being addressed simply "Smythe
Johnes," with his street and number, for he feels himself classed by
your "Mr. Smythe Johnes" with all those Mr. Smythe Johneses whom he
loves and honors in their quality of tradesmen and working-men, but
does not hold of quite the same social rank as himself. After our revolt
in essentials from the English in the eighteenth century, we are now
conforming more and more in the twentieth to their usages in
non-essentials, and the English always write Smythe Johnes, Esq., or Dr.
Smythe Johnes or the like, unless Mr. Smythe Johnes is in trade or below
it. They, indeed, sometimes carry their scruple so far that they will
address him as Mr. Smythe Johnes at his place of business, and Smythe
Johnes, Esq., at his private residence.

The English, who like their taffy thick and slab, and who, if one of
them happens to be the Earl of Tolloller, are not richly enough
satisfied to be so accosted by letter, but exact some such address as
The Right Honorable the Earl of Tolloller, all like distinctions in
their taffy, and a