to be absurd, and is troublesome by a romantic effort of generosity. You cannot say to him, “All this may be interesting to you, but I have no concern in it;” you cannot put him off in that way. He has got possession of a subject which is of universal and paramount interest, and on that plea may hold you by the button as long as he chooses. His delight is to harangue on what nowise regards himself; how then can you refuse to listen to what as little amuses you? The business admits of no delay. The question stands first on the order of the day--takes precedence in its own right of every other question. Any other topic, grave or gay, is looked upon in the light of impertinence, and sent to Coventry. Business is an interruption to it, pleasure a digression from it. As Cicero says of study, it follows the man into the country, it stays with him at home; it sits with him at breakfast, and goes out with him to dinner. It is like a part of his dress, of the costume of his person, without which he would be at a loss what to do. If he meets you in the street, he accosts you with it as a form of salutation; if you see him at his own house, it is supposed you come upon that. If you happen to remark, “it is a fine day,” or “the town is full,” it is considered as a temporary compromise of the question; you are suspected of not going the whole length of the principle. Is not this a species of sober madness more provoking than the real? Has not the theoretical enthusiast his mind as much warped, as much enslaved by one idea, as the acknowledged lunatic, only that the former has no lucid intervals? If you see a visionary of this class going along the street, you can tell as well what he is thinking of and will say next as the man that fancies himself a tea-pot or the Czar of Muscovy. The one is as inaccessible to reason as the other: if the one raves, the other dotes!--_Hazlitt’s Table-Talk._ * * * * *