London news-agency.

"I dare say to the political fellows they are delightful," reflects
Brandolin, as he glances down the lines, "but to me they unpleasantly
recall an uncomfortable world. I don't dine the worse, certainly, for
knowing that there is a revolution in Patagonia or an earthquake in
Bolivia, but neither do I dine the better for being told that the French
government is _destituant_ all moderate prefets in favor of immoderate
ones. It is very interesting, no doubt, but it doesn't interest me, and
I think the possession of these fresh scraps of prosaic news spoils
dinner-conversation."

Brandolin does not consider it conversation to say, "Have you seen
so-and-so?" or, "What a sad thing such-and-such is, isn't it!" He likes
persiflage, he likes banter, he likes argument, he likes antithesis, he
likes brilliancy, and the dinner-tables of the epoch seldom offer these
good things with their Metternich hock and Mouton Rothschild. He is fond
of talking himself, and he can be also a very good listener. If you
cannot give the _quid quo pro_ in hearing as in speaking, you may be
immensely clever, but you will be immediately pronounced a bore, like
Macaulay and Madame de Stael. Brandolin likes talking not for the sake
of showing himself off, but for the sake of being amused, of eliciting
the opinions and observing the minds of others, and he is convinced that
if the conversational art were cultured as it used to be in Bourbon
Paris, life would become more refined, more agreeable, more sympathetic,
and less given over to gross pleasures of the appetites.

"Children should be taught to talk," he observes one day to Lady Usk,
"and they should not be allowed to be slovenly in their speech any more
than in their dress. You would not let them enter your presence with
unbrushed hair, but you do let them use any bald, slangy, or
inappropriate words which come uppermost to them. There is so much in
the choice of words! A beautiful voice is a delicious thing, but it
avails little without the usage of apt and graceful phrases. Did you
ever hear Mrs. Norton sustain a discussion or relate an anecdote? It was
like listening to perfect phrasing in music. When she died, the art of
conversation died with her."

"We are always in such a hurry," says Lady Usk, which is her habitual
explanation of anything in which her generation is at fault. "And hurry
is always vulgar, you know, as you said the other day: it cannot help
itself."

"