Subjects of conversation are sometimes exceedingly difficult to be had. I have known many a company of well-dressed men and women feel themselves most awkwardly situated for want of something to talk about. The weather, which is said to be a never-failing subject, cannot hold out above a few minutes at a time. It will stand a round or two rounds, but not more. It is then knocked up for the evening, and cannot with decency be again brought forward. Being thus disposed of, the subject of “news” is introduced; but, as a matter of course, there being no “news stirring,” “not a word,” “nothing in the papers,” that subject is soon also dispatched. If there happen to be any very remarkable occurrence worth talking of, what a blessing it is on such occasions! It is food for the company a whole night, and may be again and again brought above board for their amusement. But it much more frequently happens that there is no exciting event to talk about, and then the condition of the company is truly miserable. There being ladies present, or there being two factions in the room, politics are proscribed. Every attempt at getting up a topic failing, the company look into the fire, or in each other’s faces, or begin to examine with much interest the pattern of the carpet; and the silence which ensues is truly terrific. A slight whisper is the only sound in the apartment, and is caught at or watched by the company, for it may chance to be the commencement of a conversation in which they may join, without exciting particular attention. But it, too, dies away. It was only a passing under-current of remark between the two married ladies in the blue and white turbans, on the dearth of coals, the difficulty of getting good servants, or the utility of keeping children muffled in flannel nightgowns from October till March. At length some good soul makes an effort to brush away his diffidence. He projects a remark across the room towards the little man with the smirking countenance, about Mr This or Miss That, or Signor Such-a-thing, who are at present enlivening the town with their exhibitions. The remark is in itself a very ordinary remark, but it has its use: it quickens the intellects of those who hear it, and the tongues of a number of individuals are set a-going upon the subject of theatrical amusements, singing in the Assembly Rooms, Pasta, Paganini, and private parties, so that the original remark is lost sight of, and the company go on pretty well with what it has produced for perhaps half an hour. All these topics being exhausted, another horrible silence ensues. The company again look into the fire, or in one another’s faces, and once more examine the carpet. What _is_ to be said next? All think upon saying something, yet nobody speaks. The national _mauvaise honte_ is now displayed to the height of its perfection. The agony of the company, however, approaches its crisis. The awful stillness is broken, and in a most natural and unexpected manner.