of Pall-Mall. The work
of imitation, so far as decoration went, was not difficult. Indeed, in
some respects, in this they went beyond us, but there ended the success.
The Club abroad is a room where men gamble and talk of gambling, but no
more; it is not a Club.

For the working of the Club, as for that of constitutional government, a
special class are required. It, is the great masses of the middle ranks
in England, varied enough in fortune, education, habits, and tastes, but
still one in some great condition of a status, that supply the materials
for the work of a parliamentary government; and it is through the supply
of a large community of similar people that Clubs are maintained in
their excellence with us.

For the success of a Club you need a number of men perfectly incapable
of all life save such as the Club supplies; who repair to the Club,
not alone to dine and smoke and sup, and read their paper, but to
interchange thought in that blended half-confidence that the Club
imparts; to hear the gossip of the day told in the spirit of men of
their own leanings; to ascertain what judgments are passed on public
events and public characters by the people they like to agree with;--in
fact, to give a sort of familiar domestic tone to intercourse,
suggesting the notion that the Club is a species of sanctuary where men
can talk at their ease. The men who furnish this category with us are
neither young nor old, they are the middle-aged, retaining some of the
spring and elasticity of youth, but far more inclining to the solidity
of riper years. If they frequent the Opera, it is to a stall, not to the
_coulisses_, they go. They are more critical than they used to be
about their dinners, and they have a tendency to mix seltzer with their
champagne. They have reached that bourne in which egotism has become an
institution; and by the transference of its working to the Club, they
accomplish that marvellous creation by which each man sees himself and
his ways and his wants and his instincts reflected in a thousand varied
shapes.

Now, there are two things no nation of the Continent possesses--Spring,
and middle-aged people. You may be young for a good long spell--some
have been known, by the judicious appliances of art, to keep on for
sixty years or so; but when you do pass the limit, there is no neutral
territory--no _mezzo termine_. Fall out of the Young Guard, and you must
serve as a Veteran. The levity and frivolity, the ab