resentment can only cling to them as grovel.
Forgiveness and tact stand confessed.

I was carpeted;—and my Lord, with his glass
in his eye, and a heap of letters before him, and
opening first one, and then a second, and
fourthly, a third, with his eyes stupified on
some of the documents, and so up to sixteen.
"Timothy," says my Lord, "to whom has the
Tankard of other days been exposed?" And then
he acquainted me, that having been led by the
instigator of that soirée (actuated by the contents of
the frame) to the photographicatiater, my cousin,
my Lord had questioned him, and not merely
derived that, but also antecedent particulars
regarding my person, including the last pas dy do
(a foreign friend of mine who presides above
banquets authenticates this diction) betwixt me
and Mistress Mary.

We are thereof, both the latter young person
and myself, discharged till more propitious
epochs may beam.—If so, you may hear again
from a party that warns you against his cousin the
Photogrophicator. Meanwhile, the houses his
apparatious has brought dissatisfaction into passes
number. What with taking the Countess of
Crossdown's dormitory chamber, with its pink
Bohemian glass suit and service (and that was
shown in his frame, too)—what with Sir Archibald
Dane in his conservatoire, overlooking aloes
in tubs in his dressing-gown, the same also
surreptiously derived by the connivance of Mr.
Potter, the gardener—there is not a family in
our connextion in which the servants, I may
say, do not sit with their hair standing on end,
and expecting with every ring at the bell the
outbreak of a pealing tornado earthquake, which
may tend to dissipate the air, it is true—but
the first fruits of which is dismission.

TALK.

ACCORDING to Saint-Evremond, "conversation
is the bond of society. By its agency, the
commerce of civil life is maintained; minds
communicate their thoughts; hearts express
their impulses; friendships are inaugurated and
continued." Conversation might be defined as
the interchange of ideas between two or more
persons, by means of talking one with the
other.

Talking is an eminently social act. It is the
presence of our fellow men and women which
mainly induces us to talk. A monologue, a
soliloquy, is merely a literary contrivance for
expressing a current of thought through the
medium of spoken words. Alexander Selkirk
might have written, but he hardly recited aloud,
the verses beginning "I am monarch of all I
survey." A speech is not conversation, any
more than a book is conversation. It is an
audible exposition, a statement made aloud to
the public, a communication of the speaker's
notions to the world; and that is all. To
constitute conversation, there must be reciprocity.
A sermon is still less a conversation than a
speech, because the preacher has it all his own
way. After the peroration, no opposing counsel
is allowed to rise and reply to his arguments.

Talking to one's self is either an ejaculatory
outbreak of strong emotion which would be
marked in print by a note of admiration; it is
either the part of speech called an interjection,
expanded into one or more sentences; or else it
is the act of a weak and wandering mind,
forgetful, perhaps unconscious, that it is alone, as
happens in cases of delirium; when the speaker,
fancying himself carried away to other scenes
and circumstances, holds audible converse with
imaginary companions and associates. But even
in this case—so painful to witness—the idea
that he is in society of some sort or other, is the
motive of the patient's talk. It is probable that
he would not talk at all, if he fancied himself
utterly and absolutely alone.

Talking to one's self may also be the result
of what has been called the dualism of the mind.
There are moments when we are conscious of
having two selves, as it were; just as there are
times when our bodily eyes see double: one
self addresses itself to the other self,
remonstrates with it, reasons, argues, or condoles with
it. St. Paul eloquently describes this psychical
condition in the passage where he laments
"that which I do, I allow not: for what I
would, that I do not; but what I hate, that I
do." There is going on within us a sort of
"choice of Hercules." This, then, is a true
conversation, and continues to be so, until the
two intellectual halves of our nature converge
and combine, like the double picture in a stereoscope,
into one. Our soul then becomes a
unity, and we no longer talk to ourselves, but
either remain silent, or address our observations
to others. Also, this phenomenon occurs only
under circumstances of great mental agitation,
internal struggle, or passional excitement.

To talk well, and to write well, are quite
distinct accomplishments, although they are
sometimes found united to a high degree in the same
individual. Often, however, it is quite otherwise.
Poor Goldsmith occurs as a familiar
example. The observations he let fall in
company with his literary colleagues were so
notoriously flat and pointless as to provoke the
remark that he "wrote like an angel, and talked
like poor Poll." Other great talkers, famous
wits, have written so little, that their reputation
rests on bon-mots and anecdotes recorded by
others. But even when a great talker is also
a great writer, it is rarely through his own
"Remains" that we appreciate his conversational
abilities. We owe that privilege to the
bands of camp-followers who pick clean the
bones of deceased celebrities. Johnson's
reputation, in this respect, owes more to Boswell
than it did to himself. The unreported talker
shares the fate of the singer; after his departure
from the scene, his fame remains a matter
of faith and tradition which people believe in
because their fathers have told them so, but the
proof of which is for ever silenced.

Some very respectable talkers cannot write
anything beyond an inventory or a short letter.