cannot go far along a stony track. Diderot observed that whenever he was in the company of men and women who were reading Richardson's books, either privately or aloud, the talk was sure to be animated and interesting. Some secret springs of emotion were let loose by this great master of sentiment. Our ancestors allowed themselves a wider field of discussion than we are now in the habit of conceding; but after all, as Stevenson reminds us, "it is not over the virtues of a curate-and-tea-party novel that people are abashed into high resolutions." We may not covet Socratic discourses at the dinner table, but neither can we long sustain what has been sadly and significantly called "the burden of conversation" on the lines adopted by William the Fourth, who, when he felt the absolute necessity of saying something, asked the Duke of Devonshire where he meant to be buried.
The most perfect and pitiful pictures of intercourse stripped bare of interest have been given us in Miss Austen's novels. Reading them, we grow sick at heart to think what depths of experience they reflect, what hours of
