but the habits of the _trade_ triumphed over the occasional excess which Sir Marmaduke’s hospitality had caused his guests to commit, and so profoundly discreet was this book-making assembly, that while, on the one hand, not a syllable that betrayed either taste or genius escaped, and laid them open to plagiarism, I must do justice to the equal taciturnity which they observed upon every subject less immediately connected with the direct views of their calling; insomuch, that, for the greater number, they withstood the most pedantic efforts, on the side of the _blues_, to draw them out, and--with the exception of some tedious verbiage pronounced, _ex cathedrâ_, by the man in the black cap, who, perceiving the advantage which his abstemiousness gave him over the rest, grew loquacious and collected a circle of ladies around him--One might have imagined that rumination was the object of the meeting, and that the members of this tiresome confraternity had come together principally for the purpose of feeding first, and then chewing the cud on the subjects of their next lucubrations. I never was so weary of the “human face divine,” as on the memorable occasion which I have mentioned, and gladly banished all recollection of a party, over which the goddess of dulness had especially presided--in the most leaden slumber that I have experienced since my arrival in the British capital. I shall part from Arthur with such sorrow as a brother’s love might feel. He must positively be a changeling in his mother’s house, so entirely does he differ from his family. Yet in Louisa there are, as our country taylor would say, “_the makings_” of something good, had she received a decent education. But empty heads and flinty hearts are quite _the thing_; and if nature throw away her labours, and, forgetting the class on which she is operating, lavish fine faculties and gentle affections on one of your _exquisites_, whether male or female, these, like troublesome excrescences, must be amputated; and a better hand at performing such a species of excision cannot exist than that of my aunt. Her influence is enough to eradicate the deepest sensibilities, and cut to the quick the most promising intellect. She cannot bear me, because my uncle takes kind notice of me, and it is time that we should part; for a day in Grosvenor Square seems to me as if passed in purgatory; though Arthur is there. With true loves, adieu, and believe me Your affectionate FREDERICK. LETTER XXVIII. ARTHUR HOWARD TO FREDERICK DOUGLAS. _Paris._ My dear Fred.