Society used to depend on conversation much more than it does now, when there is so much hurry, so much wealth, so many amusements, so little privacy, and so much printed about it that practically there is no compact society at all--merely a touring menagerie. Disraeli, in one of his earlier novels,[165] has an excellent essay in miniature on social conversation:-- “The high style of conversation where eloquence and philosophy emulate each other, ... all this has ceased. It ceased in this country with Johnson and Burke, and it requires a Johnson and a Burke for its maintenance. There is no mediocrity in such intercourse, no intermediate character between the sage and the bore. The second style, where men, not things, are the staple, but where wit and refinement and sensibility invest even personal details with intellectual interest, does flourish at present, as it always must in a highly civilised society.... Then comes your conversation man, who, we confess, is our aversion. His talk is a thing apart, got up before he enters the company from whose conduct it should grow out. He sits in the middle of a large table, and, with a brazen voice, bawls out his anecdotes about Sir Thomas or Sir Humphry, Lord Blank or Lady Blue. He is incessant, yet not interesting; ever varying, yet always monotonous. Even if we are amused, we are no more grateful for the entertainment than we are to the lamp over the table for the light which it universally sheds, and to yield which it was obtained on purpose. _We are more gratified by the slight conversation of one who is often silent, but who speaks from his momentary feelings, than by all this hullabaloo._ Yet this machine is generally a favourite piece of furniture with the hostess. You may catch her eye, as he recounts some adventure of the morning, which proves that he not only belongs to every club, but goes to them, light up with approbation; and then when the ladies withdraw, and the female senate deliver their criticism on the late actors, she will observe with a gratified smile to her _confidante_, that the dinner went off well, and that Mr. Bellow was very strong to-day. All this is horrid, and the whole affair is a delusion. A variety of people are brought together, who all come as late as possible, and retire as soon, merely to show that they have other engagements. A dinner is prepared for them, which is hurried over, in order that a certain number of dishes should be--not tasted, but seen. And provided that there is no moment that an absolute silence reigns; that, besides the bustling of the servants, the clattering of the plates and knives, a stray anecdote is told, which, if good, has been heard before, and which, if new, is generally flat; provided a certain number of certain names of people of consideration are introduced, by which some stranger, for whom the party is often secretly given, may learn the scale of civilisation of which he this moment forms a part; provided the senators do not