people whom for a while they estimate over
highly, they even fall into such people's ways,
and are temporarily as cruel and as worldly as
the worst about them. But this is only, after all,
a phase. They are dissatisfied. There is
compunction in their hearts. Ultimately, they either
abandon the field in disgust, or remain, the fairest
specimens of "people in the world," the pillars
that support the fabric of society, the salt which
keeps the great mass from becoming corrupt.

It is extraordinary how soon and how completely
a person of naturally amiable character
will, by a course of thoroughly "good society,"
be rendered arrogant and disagreeable. He is
obliged to be so in pure self-defence. He
begins by being good natured and unassuming,
and he finds that it will not do. He begins by
cheerfully saluting any individual to whom he
has been introduced, whenever he sees him; he
wears a pleased expression when in society, is
ready to enjoy himself, and to help others to
enjoy themselves. But, unless the man is
foolish, this happy state of affairs is but of short
duration. Honeywood finds his good nature
imposed upon, and after a series of small
conflicts in which he is worsted, he wakes up at
last to the conviction that to live in society is to
be engaged in a campaign. Snares, pitfals,
ambuscades, await him at every turn. Hand-to-
hand encounters are numerous and fierce, while
the general mêlée is of a terrific nature, and
requires a quick eye, a confident and brazen soul,
and a ruthless and unpitying heart. And after
a few encounters Honeywood acquires these
qualities. He never receives an invitation without
misgivings whether it may not be a cover to
some ambuscade. If the notice be a short one,
he is sent for as a stop-gap; if a long one, the
people are so anxious to get him that they are
not worth visiting. How long after he has
entered a room shall he take note of the
existence of Mr. So-and-So? What length of
time shall elapse before he bows to Mrs. So-and-
So? It must all be calculated. No eagerness,
no frank good nature, no admiration for anybody
or for anything, and, above all, no quarter.
Every slight must be treasured up, set down on
memory's tablets, revenged years afterwards,
if the thing be possible, repaid with interest,
simple and compound. And it is well if this be
all, and if the person who has injured Mr.
Honeywood alone suffers by his retaliation.
Things are not always managed with even so
much of justice, and it often happens that Mr. A.,
or, still more likely, Mrs. A., revenges herself for
the injuries inflicted by Mrs. B. on the miserable
Mrs. C., who is herself altogether harmless and
unoffending. And this is an almost incomprehensible
depth of villany. Suppose you have
been in a large company, and have been cut
dead by the illustrious Prospero, it is natural
that you should abhor that individual with that
hearty hatred which Dr. Johnson is said to have
approved of; but it is not natural that you should
straightway go forth and cut Unprospero, who
has never harmed you. Yet this is done, and
done very often.

Among the novelties which it is the duty of
a Small-Beer Chronicler to put on record as
belonging to the age, must be mentioned an
invention highly useful in killing time, called
"Five-o'clock Tea." This is purely a thing of
the day, and was a bright idea on Society's part.
Ladies of all ages are very partial to this meal.
It plays the deuce with the nerves, and it
entirely destroys the appetite for dinner; but this
five-o'clock tea has filled up a blank waste place.
There is no time for ennui, now—unless,
perchance, that terrific demon should be present on
every occasion throughout the day, and preside
over them all. It is always possible. For with
all this variety, it is curious to think that a marvellous
degree of monotony is perfectly consistent.
Whether the social gathering is called a five-
o'clock tea, or an at home, really matters little.
The same people meet continually, the same
things are said over and over again, and the same
situations and scenery are in every drama. A
man who goes about much, gets, at last, to know
to a dead certainty what is going to happen at
certain social crises. As surely as a particular
scene at the opera, with a baronial hall and a
table with an inkstand and an enormous pen,
informs him that directly the curtain rises he is
in for a notary and a contract, so surely does
the appearance of certain instruments at a
dinner-table and the tuning-up of the conversational
orchestra inform him of what is coming.

I wonder how often the ensuing conversation
has taken place, word for word, during the last
twelve months?

"Lord Dundreary—oh yes, delightful, is it
not?"

"Yes, capital—very amusing."

"I wonder what he's like off the stage. Did
you ever see him?"

"Yes. I met him once at dinner."

"Yes? How very nice. And what is he like?"

"Oh, well, you know, he's a quiet, gentleman-
like man."

"Really. How very delightful. I'd give
anything to see him. They say that acting the
part so often has quite made him stammer.

"Oh no, not at all. You wouldn't know he
had ever acted the part. He doesn't look the
least like the character," &c. &c.

Can anything be more monotonous, again,
than the conversation of that wonderful class of
semi-diplomatic wiseacres who get together at
conversational clubs and other places of male
resort? The man who "knows for certain that
on that particular question government must
go out—there is no help for it;" he, again, who
"has it from a source that he mustn't mention,
but which leaves no doubt of the correctness of
the report, that Pilgrimstone was sent for in the
middle of the night to Windsor in consequence
of the expressions let fall by the Secretary for
Peace in the House, the night before last, and
that on his return a cabinet council was called to
consider, &c. And is it not remarkable that
these same political prophets in no wise lose caste
or fall in the estimation of those who listen to
them, in consequence of the failure of their