chanting primers, "cannot be entirely learned from books,"—a generous admission in a day given over to the worship of print.
But in good truth, the contagious ardour, the urbane freedom of the spoken word lift it immeasurably from the regions of pen and ink. Those "shy revelations of affinity," which now and then open to the reader sweet vistas of familiarity and friendship, are frequent, alluring, persuasive, in well-ordered speech. It is not what we learn in conversation that enriches us. It is the elation that comes of swift contact with tingling currents of thought. It is the opening of our mental pores, and the stimulus of marshaling our ideas in words, of setting them forth as gallantly and as graciously as we can. "A language long employed by a delicate and critical society," says Mr. Bagehot, "is a treasure of dexterous felicities;" and the recognition of these felicities, the grading of terms, the enlarging of a narrow and stupid vocabulary make the charm of civilized social contact. Discussion without asperity, sympathy without fusion, gayety unracked by too abundant jests, mental ease in approaching
