"Mr. Oily, I ought to have told you, perhaps,
that I hate the fields. I think Nature
in general something eminently disagreeable
—the country, in short, quite odious. If you
ask me why, I can't tell you. I know I'm
wrong; but hating Nature is one of my
vices."

Mr. Oily eloquently remonstrates. Mrs.
Marblemug only says, "Yes, very likely
—but, you see, it's one of my vices." Mr.
Oily tries a dexterous compliment. Mrs.
Marblemug only answers, "Don't!—I see through
that. It's wrong in me to see through
compliments, being a woman, I know. But I
can't help seeing through them, and saying, I
do. That's another of my vices." Mr. Oily
shifts the subject to Literature, and thence,
gently but surely, to his own books—his second
great topic after the fields. Mrs. Marblemug
lets him go on, because she has something
to finish on her plate—then lays down
her knife and fork—looks at him with a kind
of wondering indifference, and breaks into his
next sentence thus:—

"I'm afraid I don't seem quite so much
interested as I know I ought to be," she says;
"but I should have told you, perhaps, when
we first sat down, that I have given up
reading."

"Given up reading! " exclaims Mr. Oily,
thunderstruck by the monstrous
confession. "You mean only the trash that
has come into vogue lately; the morbid,
unhealthy——"

"No, not at all," rejoins Mrs. Marblemug.
"If I read anything, it would be morbid
literature. My taste is unhealthy. That's
another of my vices."

"My dear madam, you amaze—you alarm
me,—you do indeed!" cries Mr. Oily, waving
his hand in graceful deprecation and polite
horror.

"Don't," says Mrs. Marblemug; "you'll
knock down some of the wine-glasses, and
hurt yourself. You had better keep your
hand quiet,—you had, indeed. No; I have
given up reading, because all books do me
harm—the best—the healthiest. Your books
even, I suppose, I ought to say; but I can't,
because I see through compliments, and
despise my own, of course, as much as other
people's! Suppose, we say, I don't read,
because books do me harm—and leave it
there. The thing is not worth pursuing.
You think it is? Well, then, books do me
harm, because they increase my tendency to
be envious (one of my worst vices). The
better the book is the more I hate the man
for being clever enough to write it—so
much cleverer than me, you know, who
couldn't write it at all. I believe you call
that Envy. Whatever it is, it has been
one of my vices from a child. No, no wine
—a little water. I think wine nasty, that's
anothter of my vices—or, no, perhaps, that
is only one of my misfortunes. Thank you.
I wish I could talk to you about books;
but I really can't read them—they make
me so envious."

Perhaps Oily (who, as I infer from certain
passages in his Memoirs, could be a sufiiciently
dogged and resolute man on occasions
when his dignity was in danger) still valiantly
declines to submit and be silent, and, shifting
his ground, endeavours to draw Mrs. Marblemug
out by asking her questions. The new
effort, however, avails him nothing. Do
what he will, he is always met and worsted
by the lady in the same, quiet, easy, indifferent
way; and, sooner or later, even his distinguished
mouth is muzzled by Mrs. Marblemug,
like the mouths of all the degenerate
talkers of my own time whom I have ever
seen in contact with her. Are Mr. Oily's
biographers not to be depended on, or can it
really be the fact that, in the course of all
his long conversational career, that illustrious
man never once met with a check in the
shape of a Mrs. Marblemug? I have no
tender prepossession in favour of the lady; but
when I reflect on the character of Mr. Oily,
as exhibited in his Memoirs, I am almost
inclined to regret that he and Mrs. Marblemug
never met. In relation to some people, I
involuntarily regard her as a dose of strong
moral physic; and I really think she might
have done my distinguished countryman,
some permanent good.

To take another instance, there is the case
of the once-brilliant social luminary, Mr.
Endless—extinguished, unfortunately for the
new generation, about the time when we
were most of us only little boys and girls.
What a talker this sparkling creature must
have been, if one may judge by that racy
anonymous publication (racy was, I think,
the word chiefly used in reviewing the book
by the critics of the period), Evenings with
Endless. By A Constant Listener! "I
could hardly believe," I remember the
Listener writes, "that the world was the same
after Endless had flashed out of this mortal
scene. It was morning while he lived—it was
twilight, or worse, when he died. I was
very intimate with him. Often has the hand
that writes these trembling lines smacked
that familiar back—often have those thrilling
and matchless accents syllabled the fond
diminutive of my Christian name. It was not so
much that his talk was ceaseless (though that
is something), as that it moved incessantly
over all topics from heaven to earth. His
variety of subject was the most amazing part
of this amazing man. His fertility of allusion
to topics of the past and present alike
was truly inexhaustible. He hopped, he
skipped, he fluttered, he swooped, from
theme to theme. The butterfly in the
garden, the bee in the flower-bed, the changes
of the kaleidoscope, the sun and shower of
an April morning, are but faint emblems of
him." With much more to the same eloquent
purpose; but not a word from the first page to
the last to hint even that Endless was ever