adopted without debate, and on the 1st January following, a date corresponding to II Nivose, An. XIV., the revolutionary calendar ceased to be. It had lasted nominally for fourteen years, but as it was not brought into operation until 12 October, 1793, its actual life was only twelve years and eighty-seven days. During that limited space of time, however, it created a perfectly unequalled amount of trouble and inconvenience; it may be doubted, indeed, whether any human invention has ever given a thousandth part of the annoyance to inoffensive people which has been caused by the scientific "idea" of the mathematical Romme and his coadjutor, Fabre, the poetaster and stock-jobber.

One thing only remains to be added. The completion of the new calendar was thought important enough to be commemorated by a medal, and a large and pretentious one, adorned with an orthographical blunder, was accordingly struck. On the obverse is the well-known figure by Duvivier, of France, helmed, and seated in a classic chair, with the fasces, etc. Legend: République Une et Indivisible (in exergue) Nation Française. Reverse: In the upper segment of the circular field three signs of the Zodiac, Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius, the sun being shown as entering the first in allusion to the Autumnal equinox (22 Sept. 1792), the date of the proclamation of the French republic. Beneath the signs are the words, Ere Française commencée à l'Equinoxe d'Automn (sic) 22 Sept. 1792 9 heures 18 min. 30 sec. du Matin à Paris.

FRANCIS HITCHMAN.

From The Nineteenth Century.
THE ART OF CONVERSATION.
Eye nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies,
And catch the manners living as they rise:
Laugh when we must, be candid when we can.

thing to say to this; country surroundings and pursuits provide poor material for conversation, and, outside a charmed circle in London society, to talk agreeably about nothing, or almost nothing, does not come easily to ordinary people. Shut out, then, as they are from the stimulating influences of the periodical press, and of a second post- no second post meaning the London papers a day old-it will readily be imagined that my parents talk of little worth talking about, and that I have learned little from them. My father's attempts are limited to what are familiarly styled travellers' tales, collated from a wide reading of travels, particularly polar travels; my mother's to fairly accurate observations upon the obvious, such, for instance, as the abundance of our apple blossom, or the scarceness of good plain cooks.

Sometimes, however—indeed, oftener than is supposed a parent's example becomes useful as a warning when it breaks down as a model; and in this indirect way I have been able to turn both my father's and my mother's quasi conversation to good account. They have illustrated for ine two different but equally certain methods of what has been finely called beheading conversation.

I am afraid I must pass over my mother's method as radically vicious to all time; my father's, however, may certainly have had its vogue, for on more than one occasion I have heard him cited by gentlemen of his own age and standing in our neighborhood as a valuable addition to their social gatherings on the ground of his being full of information. There is a Rip Van Winkleishness about this idea which is amusing. As all know, conversation is subject to sentimental regulations which the lapse of every few years recasts. Thus the art of conversation varies with the mental habit of the day, and its most agreeable expression is that which best reflects the mental needs and interests of its day. My poor father and his simple admirers are sadly out of date. In the society I am anxious to frequent, to be full of information, particuMy father and mother are both fond of larly of the outlandish information my talking, yet I never remember hearing sire deals in, is, as I am told, to be voted what I now recognize as conversation at quite a bore. But to admit that the tone home. This may be partly accounted for of our conversation changes with the shiftby the fact of my father taking in none of ing needs of our contemporary thought, our leading reviews and magazines, Sun- or that the taste of one time is the disday at Home and the Gardener's Chron taste of another time, is not of itself icle hardly filling the intellectual void enough. Seriously to consider the art thus wilfully created. At the same time of conversation of our own day, we must the dulness of their lives may have some- | also bear in mind that the character of

It is only since I came to live in London, some six months ago, that I have seriously thought about the art of conversation.

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conversation itself has changed much in The society whose conversational meththe same way as the character of a busi- od I have decided to study is essentially ness changes, when from a private con- leisured, and seems to me wholly sympacern it becomes a company, and when thetic. Professional and learned social to use the technical expression its circles command my respect, but not my shares are offered to the public. The inclination. I cannot project myself into reason for this change of character is not far to seek. The possibilities of social intercourse and social culture-integral parts, as we must suppose them to be, both of a polite society and a polite style of conversation have already so increased, and are daily so facilitated and so increasing, that we are being forced out of one into many social groups, according to our social circumstances, tastes, and ambitions; like the kingdom of Heaven, society and the conversation of society now boast of many mansions. These social groups are knit together by their common allegiance to the taste and tone of the time, to what is styled the spirit of the age. They all observe and respect fundamental points of agreement. But, admitting, as it were, the principle of an Act of Uniformity in social aesthetics, each group interprets the act very much to its own liking and requirements. It is this expansion of society into societies which has brought about the change in the character of our conversation upon which I am insisting. Conversation, from being almost a private concern, has become a public concern.

Thence comes it that the art of conversation now has its different schools; just as the arts of painting, of music, and of literature have their schools every school affecting its own method, its own tests, its own jargon so many different means to one and the same end, the best expression of art. Take painting: the French school insists on a standard of drawing and enjoins a method of color which the English school does not insist upon and does not enjoin, yet the expression of the best art is the result both schools are honestly striving to attain. In this way the method and tests and jargon of conversation vary with the school, or rather the society, applying them. They vary as that society is leis ured or professional, educated or highly educated, grave or gay. With this variation the student of the art of conversation will do well to reckon. He has to study the method of the society in which he hopes to enjoy the fruit of his labor, but to gather figs and grapes he need not perplex himself with the botany of thorns and thistles. He need only master the tillage of fig-trees and vines.

their atmosphere. They appeal to none of my instincts, they awaken no impression. Lord Byron used to say that the man who made the best first impression upon him he ever met subsequently picked his pocket; but favorable first impressions are things which I for one refuse to ignore. Now the first step in all æsthetic criticism, as Mr. Oscar Wilde says, is to realize our impressions. Of themselves, impressions are rather shadowy things; they want focussing into distinct and distinguishing opinions. From being to all practical purposes supine and dim-sighted, they must become active, discerning, and articulate. This activity, clear-sightedness, and articulation can only be given them by exercise and practice. "All the treatises in the world," says somebody somewhere, "are not equal to giving one a view in a moment." Nor will the most imperative first impressions. We must get into actual touch with them. To have impressions about charity is not the same thing as being charitable; we are only charitable when we have realized our impressions about charity, got into actual touch with charity, by giving something away. In the same way, to have vivid impressions about the charm of smart society's conversation will never of themselves make me proficient in the art of charming smart society. I must realize these impressions. I must be given a real view of smart society.

How is this to be done? As I have tried to show, different societies have different standards of taste. As pabulum for conversation, what is meat at Melton may be thought poison, or at all events garbage, at Oxford. What to eat, what to drink, and what to avoid in the social and conversational climate you prefer, can only be learned by noticing what the individuals who thrive best in that climate eat, drink, and avoid. Even then, unless, as Mr. Carlyle read books" with the flash of the eye," you pick up things with a flash of the understanding, this noticing of others before setting up on your own account is not the affair of a moment, it is an affair of special training, and it may become as tedious as working at the antique and the skeleton before being allowed to attack the life-model becomes to an art student. But. further, the people whose observ

ances you mean to copy, the models upon | els of home. To have no engagements which you hope to model yourself, must be in London is an unchartered freedom, not got at; and here I am met by a veritably only of a tiring, but a depressing kind, disagreeable difficulty. and I begin to "feel the weight of vain Had it been a school of painting or a desires." But a fortnight ago I ran up school of music, whose method I yearned against my old schoolfellow, Sebastian P. to master, its theory in print and its palpa- I remembered him perfectly, whilst his ble expressions on canvas or in sound are pleasure at seeing me again would have certain, humanly speaking, to be accessi- gratified a pelican in the wilderness. ble. If I wish to realize my impressions Sebastian we all called him by his of Velasquez at the pains of a long journey | christian name went up to the top of the and a horrid hotel, I can do so at Madrid. school very quickly, but as lower boys we If I wish to realize my impressions of happened twice to be in the same form Wagner, I can subscribe to the Richter together. He was a peculiar-looking boy, concerts, or, better still, fare to Bayreuth. with very fat thighs, which the boys imme. Then painting and music have an impos- diately next him in form pinched at all ing literature; their several schools, their decent and possible intervals during several scribes and critics. But this art schooltime. Sebastian was not a Spartan of conversation has no foundations laid youth, and this generally ended in his. on the rock of time, force, and opinion. having to go down to the bottom of the The particular school of the art of conver- form for interrupting the "school." For sation I wish to study has neither galleries my part I honestly liked Sebastian, and I nor concert-rooms, neither an historic nor often got him to lend me a tizzy," as we a contemporary critical literature. called a sixpence, after school. But I always pinched him, not because I liked pinching him, as himself, as Sebastian, but because I always pinched any boy whom all the other boys pinched. This just now is rather interesting, for I suppose it to have been the young embryo of my pres. ent strong social instinct.

Conversation, with its schools, is itself a branch of the science and art of speech. Rhetoric, elocution, and debate are branches of this great science; each with their several schools. But the schools of rhetoric, and elocution, and debate are, as it were, free schools, open to the general public; whereas the schools of polite conversation are not free indeed, so far from being free, they are exclusive, and in some degree exquisite. We cannot, because we wish to do so, or because our idiosyncrasy or turn of mind sways us thither, abonner ourselves to a school of literary or beau monde, of artistic or sporting, society and conversation. Unless the accident of birth or of circumstances places us within the radius of a literary or a fashionable circle, admission to its inti-looking-glasses are crammed with invita mate fellowship becomes a question in the former case of merit or repute, in the latter of wealth or invitation.

There is a tenderness about old associations to which few persons can be quite insensible, so within the last few days Sebastian and I have seen a good deal of each other. I still like him, and it is very pleasant to like a person without any incumbency to pinch him. Indeed, from a social point of view, the incumbency lies all the other way, for I find Sebastian moves much in society, and is metaphorically petted, and not pinched. Both his

tion cards to parties. I was struck with the number of invitations "from 4 to 7;" but Sebastian has since explained that Now in my own case, that of a candi- these are parties solely got up for purdate for admission to the latter by invita- poses of conversation, "conversational tion, this question of invitation-confus- orgies," he happily styled them. These ing enough of itself—is further perplexed gatherings appear to be, from his descripby the facts that the only two families Ition, the modernized equivalent of the know in London live in what I heard salons of which we hear so much in rather picturesquely called the wildest memoirs and elsewhere- now, happily, part of South Kensington, and that they things of the past. All this, it will readily are given neither to hospitality nor to go-be imagined, was of special and opportune ing out. Indeed, had it not been that I lately received some assistance and stimulus from an unexpected quarter, I should seriously think of taking back my defeated social gifts to the local breeds of sheep and cattle, the local littlenesses of a clay district, the apple blossom and polar trav

interest for me; and I am pleased to say
that, without showing the weakness of my
own hand, I managed-much as I used
to manage to borrow the tizzy to get a
good deal out of Sebastian.
After several talks around the subject
of conversation generally, and what con-

These practical hints, he thinks, and anything like ordinary luck, should help me to make a handsome beginning; and that with the addition of a few religious doubts, I may soon turn fearless somersaults in the smartest society. I thought this very vigorous, but he showed me the same idea in the current Fortnightly marked in violet ink for later use, the acrobat in the original being Mr. Robert Browning.

stitutes success in conversation, Sebastian and all that sort of men, which I did not showed me yesterday what he variously quite catch the drift of. calls "the implements of the trade,” and his "box of tricks." They consist of a neatly shelved accumulation of reviews and magazines, the collection extending over two years or more. Sebastian has discriminatingly marked passages in particular articles in every number; and, to use his own metaphor of a man's conversation being like an empty room which he has to furnish, these marked passages are the fond d'ameublement of my Mentor's conversation. "But," said Sebastian, "my room wants enrichment and originality, ," and he handed me a "Golden Treasury,' and a well-known compilation of extracts from our national prose and poetry; both heavily marked. But Sebastian did not content himself with showing me over this well-stored arsenal of implements. He was kind enough to give me some practical hints as to their employment, and that in a way which delighted me from its gay wisdom.

In the first place, Sebastian warned me to let a full three months go by from the time of an article's appearance to the time of adapting either its thought, its images, or its expressions to my conversational uses. Indeed, as I think modestly, he attributes his own justly merited reputation of being an original and brilliant talker largely to this habit of self-restraint. In the second place, it seems that classicism and erudition are best avoided. They are out of repute. Besides which, the temper of the day is one of selfcontemplation, and concerns itself with neither. In the third place, quotations, especially at any length, must be most guardedly resorted to, having in view this fact that as the evening paper is out by one o'clock the aptest quotation must be a little behind time. I thought this quite neat. Sebastian only smiled, and showed me the original idea in a monthly review nearly a year old. He thinks that the source of a quotation, whether from prose or poetry, should never be given; it is better manners to usher in one's quotation with an easy "who, or some one, says; no one then can feel stupid or ill-read. Sebastian then said, jokingly, although I did not quite see the joke, that as Plato's philosophy was cloudland to the average intelligence, smart society was enchanted by it; so that I must read up one or two things in a book called "Jowett." There was something he said too about Hobbes,

Well, the secret of Sebastian's system is now mine, at all events. I have only to get together my box of tricks, furbish up some implements, and get som; tuff to work upon. Conversation may be a trade or a game, its art only artifice, its artists only handicraftsmen. It is possible that in these abundant days, conversation has only time to be, as Sebastian says, "le vernis de toutes choses." It may be that good conversation is merely the most nimble manipulation of other men's thoughts, the most tuneful arrangement of the most popular airs. It may all depend upon dexterity and opportunism, and yet I do not feel altogether confirmed that it is so, nor can I quite satisfy myself-the 4 to 7 cards notwithstanding that Sebastian P. and his method have expressed the artist and the art of conversation; or that ̧ they have helped me to realize my impres sions.

"There are many kinds of readers, and each has a sort of perusal suitable to his kind." There are also many kinds of talkers, each with the conversation of his kind. Sebastian P. is one kind, and understands what suits his kind. But a master of the art of conversation surely understands and suits all kinds? Mr. Bagehot's subtle reader the passage occurs in the essay on Gibbon-pursues with a fine attention the most delicate and imperceptible ramifications of a topic, "marks slight traits, notes changing manners, is minutely attentive to every prejudice and awake to every passion, watches syllables and waits on words, is alive to the light airs of nice association which float about every subject-the motes in the bright sunbeam the delicate gradations of the passing shadows."

Can Sebastian P. do all this? If he can, then Sebastian P. has the grand style of the art of conversation, and for a model I need look no further. RIBBLESDALE.