it: first, he was not always understood—and whatever people in general do not understand, they are always prepared to dislike; the incomprehensible is always the obnoxious. Secondly, he often and openly expressed his contempt of the selfishness, meanness, and littleness, that enter so largely into the composition of the present: now, a general compliment is utterly thrown away, but a general affront every one individualises. Yet no person could be more delightful in conversation: it was amusement, to whose service various powers paid tribute; there was observation, thought, mirth, and invention. Mr. Trevyllian was witty, though certainly not what is so often called a wit: he made no puns—he gave no nicknames—and was not particularly ill-natured.
One sweeping censure, in passing, on our now-a-days style of conversation. Its Scylla of sarcasm, its Charybdis of insincerity, which, one or other, bid fair to engulf its all of originality or interest. Ridicule is suspended, like the sword of Damocles, in every drawing-room—but, unlike that sword, is over every head; hence every one goes into society with the armour of indifference, or the mantle of deceit. None say either what they think or
