Look into the pages of history! You will find there innumerable examples in support of our opinion. When the Greeks begged Achilles to pocket his affronts and make an end of Hector, he refused. Very well, we have no doubt he did all for the best; but we are morally sure that Patroclus would not have been slain if Achilles had known how to say “Yes.” We all know how he cried about it when it was too late. To draw another illustration from the same epoch, how disastrous was the ignorance which Priam displayed of this art when a treaty was on foot for the restoration of Helen. Nothing was easier than to finish all disputes, to step out of all difficulties, by one civil, obliging, gentlemanly “Yes.” But he refused--and Troy was burned. What glorious results would a contrary conduct have produced! It would have prevented a peck of troubles both to the Greeks and the Etonians. It would have saved the Ancients ten years, and the Moderns twelve books, of bloodshed. It is almost unnecessary to allude to the imprudent, the luckless Hippolytus: he never would have been murdered by a marine monster if he could but have said “Yes;” but the word stuck in his throat, and he certainly paid rather dear for his ignorance. “Yes,” cries a critic, “I agree with all this, but it’s all so old.” We assent to your opinion, my good friend, and will endeavour to benefit by your suggestion. Come, then, we will look for illustrations among the characters of our own age. There’s Lord Duretête, the misanthrope. He has a tolerable fortune, tolerable talents, and tolerable person. He plays a tolerable accompaniment on the flute, and a tolerable hand at whist. Yet, with all these tolerable qualifications, he is considered a most intolerable man. What is the reason of this seemingly anomalous circumstance? The reason is obvious--His Lordship can’t say “Yes.” This abominable ignorance of our favourite art interferes in the most trivial incidents of life; it renders him alike miserable and disagreable. “Will your Lordship allow me to prefix your name to a dedication?” says Bill Attic, the satirist. “I must go mad first,” says his Lordship. “Duretête! lend me a couple of hundreds!” says Sir Harry. “Can’t, ’pon honour!” says his Lordship. “You dear creature, you’ll open my ball this evening!” says Lady Germain. “I’ll be d--d if I do!” says his Lordship. See the catastrophe. Bill Attic lampoons him, Sir Harry spits in his face, and Lady Germain votes him a bore. How unlucky that he cannot say “Yes!” * * * * *