From a College Window

and exactly what he likes. He is not, as Mr. Enfield said, one of the fellows who go about doing what is called "good." But he contrives to give a great deal of happiness without having any pro

it be baited with the priceless privilege of tea, tobacco, and the talk of a well-informed man, comes, in troops and companies, to see him. He is a man too with a deep vein of humour, and, what is far more rare, a keen vein of appreciation of the humour of others. He laughs as if he were amused, not like a man discharging a painful duty. It is true that he will not answer letters; but then his writing-paper is generally drowned deeper than plummet can sound; his pens are rusty, and his ink i

friend Perry, though it is not his name; and having

turned upon Mr. Perry. She said with a graceful air of judgment that she had but one fault to find with him, and that was that he

ertain duty to society; that people had no business to pick and choose, to cultivate the society of those who happened to please and interest them, and to eschew the society of those who bored and weari

sweetness and light in many tedious assemblies; she is true to her

dips into society from a medicinal point of view, as a man should take a cold bath; even if he confers no pleasure on others by so doing, the mere sense, to a timid man, of having steered a moderately straight course through a social entertainment is in itself enlivening and invigorating, and gives the pleasing feeling of having escaped from a great peril. But the accusation of unsociability does not

ail upon him the duty of coming round till he finds one at home, and of disporting himself gingerly, like a dancing bear among the teacups. A card ought to be a species of charity, left on solitary strangers, to give them the chance of coming, if they like, to see the leaver

led upon them, which they performed, reluctantly and unwillingly, from a sense of obligation, I should respect them deeply and profoundly. But I have not often found that the people who complain most of their social duties, and who discharge them most sedulously, complain bec

d, a man who cares about his work, and who regards it as a primary duty, finds no occupation more dispiriting, more apt to unfit him for serious work, than pacing from house to house in the early afternoon, delivering a pack of visiting-cards, varied by a perfunctory conversation, seated at the edge of an easy-chair, on subjects of inconceivable triviality. Of course there are men so constituted that they find this pastime a rel

I once accompanied to an evening party rises before my mind. He was in deep depression at having to go; and when I ventured to ask his motive in going, he said, with an air of unutterable self-sacrifice, "I suppose that

hough of robust constitution) with the "mazes of heat and sound" in which my life seemed "turning, turning," like the life of the heroine of "Requiescat." I declare that such a performance is the sort of thing that I should expect to find in hell, even down to the burning marl, as Milton says. I got away dizzy, unstrung, unfit for life, with that terrible sense of fatigue unaccompanied by wholesome tiredness, that comes of standing in hot buzzing places. I had heard not a single word that amused or interested me; and yet there were plenty of people present with whom I should have enjoyed a leisurely talk, to whom I felt inclined to say, in the words of Prince Henry to Poins, "Prithee, Ned, come out of this fat room, and lend me thy hand to laugh a little!" But as I went away, I pondered sadly upon the almost inconceivable nature of the motive which could lead people to behave as I had seen them behaving, and resolutely to label it pleasure. I suppose that, as a matter of fact, many persons find stir, and movement, and the presence of a crowd an agreeable stimulus. I imag

hat I declare they might as well have a company of stuffed seals to sit down to dinner with, as a circle of living and breathing men. But I do not think it right, or at all events necessary, in the interests of human kindliness, that I should victimize myself so f

ect: "He asked me to sit down, so I sate down; he asked me to eat an apple, so I ate it. He asked me to take a glass of wine, so I poured one out, and drank it. I am told that he tries to get you to talk so that he may see the kind of fellow you are; but I didn't want him to know the kind of fellow I was, so I didn't talk; and presently I went away." I th

persons. But more and more, as life goes on, do I find the mixed company tiresome, and the tete-a-tete delightful. The only amusement of society is the getting to know what other people really think and feel: what amuses them, what pleases them, what shocks them; what they like and what they loathe; what they tolerate and what they condemn. A dinner-party is agreeable, principally because one is absolutely tied down to make the best of two people. Very few English people have the art of con

congenial society is the only kind of society to, and in which, any one will give his best. If people like the society of the restaurant, the club, the drawing-room, the dining-room, the open air, the cricket-field, the moor, t

ay, would say to him that the lives of academical ladies were apt to be dull, and that it was a matter of graceful chivalry for him to brighten the horizon, why, Perry could not resist her. But chivalry is a thing which must be courteously and generously conceded, and must never be pettishly claimed; and indeed I do not want Perry interfered with in this matter: he fills a very peculiar niche, he is a lodestar to enthusiastic underg

feel impelled to come in and talk to me, easily and simply. I have, it is true, several faithful friends, but very few of them will come except in response to a definite invitation; and really, if they do not want to come, I do not at all wish to force them to do so. It might amuse me; but if it amused them, they would come: as they do not come, I am quite ready to conclude that it does not amuse them. I am as conscious as every one else of the exquisitely stimulating and entertaining character of my own t

in answer to my questions as to the art he practised, "a few of them come; one or two because they like me; some because they, think there is going to be a row about attendance at chapel, and hope to mend matters; one or two because they like to stand well with the dons, when there is a chance of a fellowship; but the lowest motive of all," he went on, "was the