his power in the smart which he inflicts. These unamiable motives are least justifiable, when the victim is a social inferior, or a person who, by his age or position, is unable to retaliate on equal terms. To vanity and cruelty are then added cowardice, and, though all these vices may only be displayed on a very small scale, they are none the less really present. It may be laid down, however difficult, with our present social habits, it may be to keep the rule, that sarcasm should never be employed, except deliberately, and as a punishment, and that for innuendo, if justifiable by facts, men should always have the courage to substitute direct assertion. Of the minor social vices, one of the commonest is a disregard, in conversation, of other persons' feelings. Men who lay claim to the character of gentlemen are specially bound to shew their tact and delicacy of feeling by avoiding all subjects which have a disagreeable personal reference or are likely to revive unpleasant associations in the minds of any of those who are present. And yet these are qualities which are often strangely conspicuous by their absence even in educated and cultivated society. One of the most repulsive and least excusable forms which this indifference to other persons' feelings takes is in impertinent curiosity. There are some people who, for the sake of satisfying a purposeless curiosity, will ask questions which they know it cannot be agreeable to answer. In all cases, curiosity of this kind is evidence of want of real refinement, and is a breach of the finer rules of social morality; but, when the questions asked are intended to extract, directly or indirectly, unwilling information on a man's private life or circumstances, they assume the character of sheer vulgarity. A man's private affairs, providing his conduct of them does not injuriously affect society, are no one's business but his own, and much pain and vexation of the smaller kind would be saved, if this very plain fact were duly recognised in social intercourse. It may be noticed in passing, that there still lingers on in society a minor form of persecution, a sort of inquisition on a small scale, which consists in attempting to extract from a man a frank statement of his religious, social, or political opinions, though it is known or suspected all the time, that, if he responds to the invitation, it will be to his social or material disadvantage. In cases of this kind, it becomes a casuistical question how far a man is called on to disclose his real sentiments at the bidding of any impertinent questioner. That the free expression of opinion should be attended with this danger is, of course, a proof how far removed we still are from perfect intellectual toleration.