These reflections have been much impressed upon me by a ramble I took yesterday in company with one of the most agreeable of all our diplomatists--one of those men who seem to weld into their happy natures all the qualities which make good companionship, and blend with the polished manners of a courtier the dash of an Eton boy and the deep reflectiveness of a man of the world--a man to whom nothing comes wrong, and whom you would be puzzled to say whether he was more in his element at a cabinet council, or one of a shooting-party in the Highlands. “I say, O’Dowd,” cried he, after a pause of some time in our conversation, “has it never struck you that those tall poles and wires are destined to be the end of both your trade and mine, and that within a very few years neither of our occupations will have a representative left? Take my word for it,” said he, more solemnly, “in less than ten years from the present date a penny-a-liner will be as rare as a posthorse, and a post-shay not more a curiosity than a minister-plenipotentiary.” “Do you really think so?” “I am certain of it. People nowadays won’t travel eight miles an hour, or be satisfied to hear of events ten days after they’ve happened. Life is too short for all this now, and, as we can’t lengthen our days, we must shorten our incidents. We are all more or less like that gentleman Mathews used to tell us of at Boulogne, who said to the waiter, ‘Let me have some-thing expensive; I am only here for an hour.’ Have you ever thought seriously on the matter?” “Never,” said I. “You ought, then,” said he. “I tell you again, we are all in the same category with flint locks and wooden ships--we belong to the past. Don’t you know it? Don’t you feel it?” “I don’t like to feel it,” said I, peevishly. “Nonsense!” cried he, laughing. “Self-deception does nothing in the matter, say what one will. A modern diplomatist is only a ‘smooth-Bore.’ What ‘our own correspondent’ represents, I leave to your own modesty.” “It will be a bad day for us when the world comes to that knowledge,” said I, gloomily. “Of course it will, but there’s no help for it. Old novels go to the trunkmakers; second-hand uniforms make the splendour of dignity-balls in the colonies: who is to say that there may not be a limbo for us also? At all events, I have a scheme for our transition state--a plan I have long revolved in my mind--and there’s certainly something in it.