n for
luncheon and exercise; again some solitary hours; but then I love to
dine in company and, if possible, to spend the rest of the evening with
two or three congenial persons. But more and more, as life goes on, do
I find the mixed company tiresome, and the tete-a-tete delightful. The
only amusement of society is the getting to know what other people
really think and feel: what amuses them, what pleases them, what shocks
them; what they like and what they loathe; what they tolerate and what
they condemn. A dinner-party is agreeable, principally because one is
absolutely tied down to make the best of two people. Very few English
people have the art of conversing unaffectedly and sincerely before a
circle; when one does come across it, it is a rare and beautiful art,
like singing, or oratory. But the presence of such an improvisatore is
the only thing that makes a circle tolerable. On the other hand, a
great many English people have the art of tete-a-tete talking; and I
can honestly say that I have very seldom been brought into close
relations with an individual without finding an unsuspected depth and
width of interest in the companionship.

But in any case the whole thing is a mere question of pleasure; and I
return to my thesis, which is that the only possible theory is for
every one to find and create the kind of society that he or she may
like. Depend upon it, congenial society is the only kind of society to,
and in which, any one will give his best. If people like the society of
the restaurant, the club, the drawing-room, the dining-room, the open
air, the cricket-field, the moor, the golf-course, in the name of
pleasure and common sense let them have it; but to condemn people, by
brandishing the fiery sword of duty over their heads, to attend
uncongenial gatherings seems to me to be both absurd and unjust.

The case of my friend Perry is, I must admit, complicated by the fact
that he does add greatly to the happiness of any circle of which he is
a member; he is an admirable listener and a sympathetic talker. But if
Egeria desires to make a Numa of him, and to inspire him with her own
gentle wisdom, let her convince him quietly that he does owe a duty to
society, and not censure him before his friends. If Egeria, in her own
inimitable way, would say to him that the lives of academical ladies
were apt to be dull, and that it was a matter of graceful chivalry for
him to brighten the horizon, why, Perry could not r