And follow, furtive, took my heart away!"

That faced me, pale," he urged, "that night in town."

Such well-known raiment." But he still went on

'That he was not mistaken

Nor misled.

I felt like one forsaken,

Wished me dead,

That he could think thus of the wife he had wed.

III.

Thus far the lady's story.

Now she, too,

Reclines within that hoary

Last dark mew

In Mellstock Quire, with him she loved so true.

A yellowing marble, placed there
Tablet-wise,

And two joined hearts enchased there
Meet the eyes;

And reading their twin names we moralise:

Did she, we wonder, follow

Jealously?

Was her denial hollow?

Or saw he

Some semblant dame? Or can wraiths really be?

THE ART OF CONVERSATION.

A LECTURE.

BY THE LATE CANON AINGER.

In a very charming book which I hope you will all soon be reading -the Letters of the late James Russell Lowell '-you will find an anecdote of his meeting Professor Mahaffy, of Trinity College, Dublin. The two professors met at a friend's house in Birmingham, and the friend confessed he had never listened to four hours of such admirable converse before. And no wonder, for those who have the privilege of knowing Professor Mahaffy, author of 'Social Life in Greece,' and other works full of scholarship and charm, know him to be one of the best talkers living. When Lowell drove away in the carriage, he exclaimed to his host: 'Well, that's one of the most delightful fellows I ever met, and I don't mind if you tell him so!' The friend did so, and Mr. Mahaffy received the compliment with equal grace and modesty. 'Poor Lowell!' he exclaimed; to think that he can never have met an Irishman before !'

Yes; and doubtless race is an element in the humour and special conversational readiness of men like Professor Mahaffy and his countrymen; and it is this circumstance which, to my mind, slightly weakens the force of an admirable little book which Professor Mahaffy published a few years ago, on 'The Art of Conversation'-a title which I must apologise to him for having borrowed. Not that I am sure the title correctly describes Mr. Mahaffy's disquisition any more than it will precisely fit mine. It is with the ethics of conversation that he largely deals on those moral qualities of tact, courtesy, self-repression, and others, which have so much to do with the success of a conversationalist. But what I meant by a certain defect in the premises of Mr. Mahaffy's arguments is this-that he too readily assumes, I think, the existence in everybody of a talent in this direction-a talent which he conceives can in all cases be cultivated and made to minister to an adequate brilliancy of conversation. The writer, belonging to a nation of humorists, and gifted with that rare facility and

versatility of expression that belong to the Celtic race, and, in addition, possessing a wide and various culture rare in any individual of any race, may well be excused for pitching the average of human capability in this kind too high. The society of wits and scholars, among which his calling and pursuits place him, not unnaturally engenders the idea that conversation elsewhere, being so much duller, might be improved if only people would take pains and have a few lessons. And it is significant, as I have said, that starting from something like this ground, he is yet found falling back at last upon the moral rather than the intellectual faculties. For the former can be cultivated, the latter, perhaps, not so certainly.

For there is a wide and clear difference, though often strangely overlooked, between talking and conversation, and the rules for each, and the qualifications for each, are quite distinct. They are two separate arts, and have both to be practised by us in turn; and one of the chief points we have on occasion to settle-and herein lies one of the chief secrets of our 'social success' (a hateful expression, by the way, but for the moment it will serve)—will consist in our understanding the two things, and knowing when to practise the one and when the other. Indeed, there is yet a third art, which some persons find harder than either of the others. I mean the art of listening. Each man in his time plays many parts'; and in this matter of conversation there are three of them that have to be studied. The first-that of the talker-is the easiest; and that whether we belong to the good talkers or the poor-the di majores or the di minores of conversation. The former class must always obviously be the smaller. The great talkers who were also excellent stand out in our history. They rise at once to memory-Samuel Johnson, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Macaulay. These had doubtless the defects of their qualities, and did not always afford unmixed pleasure by their great gifts. Their talent had its humorous, even its provoking, aspect. Inferior talkers grudged these men their monopoly. They wanted their own innings' to come; and it never came. They thought what they had got to say was quite as important, and did not see why it should not be said. But the men of greater mark were glad to listen. It was not the Burkes and Reynoldses who would have stopped Samuel Johnson's mouth. They enjoyed to the full the masculine good sense, the wisdom (as of the just), the keen eye to cut through paradox and sophistry, the ever-flowing wit and

humour of their friend's discourse, even though he did at times lose his self-control, and was often very rude. And so, too, the poets and critics and philosophers loved to hear Coleridge talk on those Thursday evenings at Highgate, though, unlike Johnson, his speech went on with no punctuation at all. You know how once he buttonholed a friend and began to talk, with his eyes closed, after his fashion; and how, after an hour or so, the friend, who could not well stay longer, silently severed the button with his pocketknife and stole away, returning after another hour, to find Coleridge still talking, with the button in his hand! Some enemy, of course, invented the story, but it shows which way the wind was blowing. No doubt it was not conversation! Pour un monologue,' said Madame de Staël; 'c'était excellent; mais pour un duologueah, mon Dieu!' And so with Macaulay, and we know how his witty friend praised his flashes of silence.' And yet you and I would give something to be allowed to sit still and hear these geniuses talk, and, I venture to say, would not even wish to get a word in.' And the race of good talkers, as distinguished from conversers, is not extinct yet, though, as has been often pointed out, the extraordinary development of periodicals causes men, somewhat mercenarily, to 'save up' their good thoughts and happy expressions, and, instead of using them in conversation, send them to some magazine. They grudge to give for nothing what is worth twenty guineas. And then, too, in so-called intellectual society, there has been such a gradual levelling up, in cleverness and information, that the good talker is rarely so much in advance of his company as to be justified in appropriating so much of their time. Indeed, in certain educated societies that I have heard of, the general average of learning and accomplishment is so high that not only talking' but 'conversation' is almost extinguished. In the college society of the great University of Oxbridge, I have been assured by those who know' that this happens. Every one is so terribly afraid of every one else that no one dares to express a sentiment for fear it should be decried as a novelty, or scorned as a truism, or by some other test tried and found wanting. Things, in fact, come to a deadlock, with no one to enter, as in 'The Critic,' and cry: In the Queen's name, drop your swords and daggers!'

Now all this is very sad, and may well make us thankful that we do not move always in societies so highly cultivated. But there is another kind of 'talker,' at the opposite end of the scale.