conscience, they make no sort of apology for
their misdeeds, but affect quite a virtuous
surprise if you reproach them. If you reproach
them warmly they end by being the aggrieved
parties, and perhaps quarrel with you because
you did not approve of their delay. Perhaps,
if the appointment has been for the settling
of some important business, in which minutes
count for hours, and the sands in the glass of
time are all golden, perhaps then you can
impress them with a sense of their enormity if
they come very far beyond the appointed hour.
And if it can be made clear to them that they
have really run any risk, and incurred any loss,
by their unpunctuality, that, touching
themselves, may give them a stir up in the right
direction, and may make them more careful for
the immediate future. At least in important
matters; but for the comparatively unimportant
matters (comparatively with life and death and
fortune, that is), say, a dinner engagement as
an example, what habitually unpunctual man
cares for that! He is asked for seven; at
half-past seven or a quarter to eight, in he
comes, with a happy smile on his face, as if he
had struck the very point of time, and knew
nothing of such vulgar annoyances as chilled
soup or sodden entrées. If he can say that he
missed the train, he is quite at ease with
himself and all mankind; if he can further say
that a man came in and kept him, that is reason
enough and to spare for being too late for
heaven. It never seems to occur to him that it
was part of his duty not to be too late for the
train—and that if any man whatsoever came in,
his first obligation was to send him out again
when the fitting moment for departure arrived.
He can give no valid reason why he should have
been late. His chief duty was to keep his
dinner engagement punctually, and all the rest
is merely excuse, of no real value to any one.

I have known a man of this kind, asked for
seven, come in jauntily at nine. He had a
patient, timid hostess, who had counted on him
as a tower of strength, being a man with a
presence, and a jovial manner, and an abundant
atmosphere, and a generous vitality, and who,
therefore, was of considerable value to the
young dinner-giver. She waited for her tower
just an hour and five minutes by the clock.
When another half-hour had passed he entered
with the air of a prince coming to his throne,
and coolly accepted the offer of such meats and
dishes as had long ago been relegated to the
region of accomplished facts. He said he had
been kept; further, that he had missed the
train; and he had not the shadow of remorse so
soon as he had made his excuse. The distress
of the young hostess, her anxiety lest her
dinner would be spoilt and her guests set out
of tune, the fiercer annoyance of the host,
careful of his bride and specially desirous that
her trial dinner should succeed, the discomfiture
of the people whose places he had already
deranged and now again shifted—all this was
of no more consequence to that unpunctual
guest than so many drops of rain falling gently
on the back of a sailing swan. I am bound to
confess that my friend is notorious for this kind
of thing. He is the best fellow in the world,
frank, warm, and generous, a faithful friend, and
kind and noble-hearted in all his relations, but
he is unpunctual. You must give him a margin
of perhaps some hours in all your appointments
with him, and then think yourself lucky if you
get him at the end. He makes it a practice to
begin to dress at the hour of invitation, and he
lives half a dozen miles from everywhere.

Another minor morality is carefulness and
punctuality in answering letters. There are
those who never answer letters at all, and
those who answer without replying to them.
You write for a special purpose. Unwisely
you may imbed your special purpose in such
a thick surrounding of padding that the point
of it may be blunted by just so much. Still,
you ask your question distinctly enough, and
you make your point fairly visible. Your
friend returns you letter for letter. Certainly
so much morality he does accomplish; but you
may look in vain from one end of the sheet to
the other for any real reply. Your questions
are all ignored, but your gossip is taken up and
commented on. Padding is returned by padding,
but the point is not so much as mentioned even
in the most airy fashion. In all the husks so
scrupulously exchanged, there is a total oblivion
of the fruitful corn that was due as well.

Some great man, whose name I have forgotten
at this moment, used to counsel his younger
friends to spend but little thought in answering
letters, because, he said, after a certain time
they answer themselves. Not always; if even
often. And granting that they do answer
themselves, the sickness of hope deferred, the anxious
watching for some assurance of certainty, the
yearning, the disappointment, meanwhile, ought
to be sufficient cause why any man with a
human heart in him should reply with some
degree of punctuality. How many love affairs
have come to nothing just for want of answering
letters! The lover is lazy, and puts off his
answer till to-morrow. He had time to-day, if
he would have exerted himself, but, like Christina
Rosetti's prince, he dallies and delays, and
does everything but what he ought; and when
to-morrow comes, then come duties and
occupations which cannot be put off. The next day
it is the same; and the next; and the next; till
such a time has elapsed that he is ashamed to
write now. And so the affair dwindles and
pines, and at last dies the death of starvation.

This may be said of all other relations which
fail for want of the written food they live on.
A gift is sent—a present of game, of flowers, of
fruit, of wine—and naturally a reply is looked
for: a few words of acknowledgment and
thanks, just to let the donor know you have
received his gift, and appreciate it as it deserves.
But you cannot, or rather you will not, make
the amount of leisure sufficient for those few
words. You delay and delay, until at last you,
too, are ashamed to write at all; the
consequence is, that your friend takes offence.