Society affords ample scope for the formation of just such friendly ties. Among old and young, the cultured and the unlettered, the bonds of a fidelity that shall outlast this frail life itself may be made and sealed. It is done every day. Little knots of people learn each other, cherish a common affection, and their friendship evermore abideth. This fact is what gives the poem of the three Indians who met and communed under the pine at the time of their departure from Dartmouth College so strong a hold upon our hearts: When shall we three meet again? 'Though in distant lands we sigh, "When these burnished locks are gray, When the dreams of life are fled, There shall we three meet again." THE ART OF BEING AGREEABLE. What man would be without society and social organization is forcibly expressed in the following passage: "Without society there could be no union of labor; every man would have to do everything for himself, and would consequently spend life in the lowest occupations; progress would be impossible. There could be no intellectual advancement from age to age without society, nothing inherited from the past, nothing given to the future, no additions made to knowledge and experience. Without society there could be no fraternizing commerce, no fine arts, no enlarged ideas of integrity and benevolence, no public opinion, no religion, no true humanity in man, no common enjoyment." "Man in society, is like a flower, Blown in its native bed. 'Tis there alone His faculties expanded in full bloom Shine out, there only reach their proper use." Cowper expressed an important truth in these lines. Man is a social being. He finds it not good to be alone. Solitude saddens him, as it did Alexander Selkirk on the lonely island : "Society, friendship and love, Divinely bestowed upon man— In the ways of religion and truth; And be cheered by the sallies of youth." Society naturally divides itself into circles and grades. As birds of a feather flock together, so people of similar character, acquirements and circumstances court one another's presence and intercourse. In these social grades certain rules or customs obtain, the observance of which is by common consent binding upon all. It is said that thieves, in their intercourse with each other, have welldefined notions of propriety, and are more or less exacting in the common respect to be paid to them. In the best social circles he is a happy man who is skilled in the art of being agreeable. There is such a diversity of sentiment, and so much change in custom, that along with good natural endowments a person needs training to shine as a social star. Cicero said of Catiline that he lived with the sad severely, with the cheerful agreeably, with the old gravely, and with the young pleasantly. Sir Richard Steele remarked of his good acquaintance Acasto, that at the tables and conversations of the wise, the impertinent, the grave, the frolicsome, and the witty, he had such natural good sense, good nature and discretion, that every one enjoyed himself in his company, and though Acasto contributed nothing to the entertainment, he was always welcome at a place the second time. He had the genuine social quality. To appear well pleased with those you are engaged with, and rather seem well entertained than to bring entertainment to others, is the secret of one good kind of social acceptability. Such a man conciliates the minds of others more by his friendly behavior than could be done by the highest sallies of wit or starts of humor. There are comparatively few persons really gifted in conversational power. Men of genius and learning are often found deficient in this particular. Themistocles, when asked to play on a lute, was wont to say: "I cannot fiddle, but I can make a little village a great city;" so, many a man of letters is compelled to demur: "I cannot talk, but I can produce the ideas to talk about.” Addison's deficiencies in conversation are well known. He was entirely silent among strangers, and Mandeville, after passing an evening in his company, compared him to "a silent parson in a tie wig." But Addison, not Mandeville, made the "Spectator" forever famous. Virgil was heavy in conversation, and resembled more an ordinary man than an enchanting poet. "La Fountaine," says La Bruyere, "appeared coarse, heavy and stupid. He could not speak or describe what he had just seen, but when he wrote, he was the model of poetry." Dryden says of himself: "My conversation is slow and dull; my humor saturnine and reserved. In short, I am none of those who endeavor to break jests in company or make repartees." Isocrates, celebrated for beautiful oratorical compositions, was so timid of disposition that he never ventured to speak in public. He compared himself to a whetstone, which will not cut, but enables other things to do this; for his productions served as models to other orators. Nevertheless, conversational talent is a thing to be desired. Silence is not always a proof of wisdom, nor timidity an indication of genius. In society reticence is often taken as a proof of stupidity, and whether so or not, it robs one of half the joy of life, and confines his usefulness to a narrow sphere. Prof. Hart has shown that a "talent for conversation has an extraordinary value for common, every-day uses of life. Let any one who has this gift enter in a social circle anywhere. "How every one's face brightens at his entrance! How soon he sets all the little wheels in motion, encouraging the timid, calling out unostentatiously the resources of the reserved and shy, subsidizing the facile, and making everybody glad and happy! "To converse well is not to engross the conversation. It is not to do all the talking. It is not necessary to talk with very great brilliancy. A man may talk with such surpassing power and splendor, as to awe the rest of the company into silence, or excite their envy, and so produce a chill where his aim should be to produce warmth and sunshine. "He should seek the art of making others feel quite at home with him, so that, no matter how great may be his attainments or reputation, or how small may be theirs, they find it insensibly just as natural and pleasant talking to him as hearing him talk. "The talent for conversation, indeed, more almost than anything else in life, requires tact and discretion. It requires one to have more varied knowledge, and to have it at instant and absolute disposal, so that he can use just as much or just as little as the occasion demands. "It requires the ability to pass instantly and with ease from the playful to the serious, from books to men, from the mere phrase of courtesy to the expressions of sentiment and passion." Another writer also observes that "affability is an essential quality which we should bring and employ in social life. Affability should be widely distinguished from loquacity. The affable man entertains, but the loquacious confounds. The former speaks with reflection, and selects the most profitable and agreeable from what he has to say; the latter delivers everything which happens to come into his mind, and shakes out of his wallet good things and bad, proper and improper, windy conceits and stupid dreams, in every man's face he meets. The former actually converses with others, and hearkens when they speak, with the same attention he in his turn requires of them; the latter is constantly speaking-never has time to hear, and his perpetual torrent of words rushes over all like a deluge, deprives the intelligent of the desire and opportunity to speak, and both the wise and the unwise of all power to hear. "The former, in short, knows the fit time to hold his tongue, and is not ashamed of his silence; the other would rather have recourse to vile reports, or slander, or lies, than allow himself to be robbed of the imaginary honor of possessing an inexhaustible fund of entertainment." HOSPITALITY. "You must come home with me and be my guest; All that is in my power to honor you." The old Greeks considered themselves sacredly and inviolably bound to be hospitable, and their descendants have not wholly forgotten the art, as travelers in Greece can tell. Reciprocal hospitality became hereditary in Grecian families, the friendship thus contracted being as binding as the ties of affinity and blood. Individuals between whom a regard had been cemented by the intercourse of hospitality were provided with some distinguishing mark or badge, which, being handed down from father to son, established a permanent friendship and alliance between the families and their descendants. In the Middle Ages hospitality among Europeans was considered a virtue of the first rank. If any felt disinclined toward it they were yet not excused, the civil statutes rendering them liable to punishment in cases of neglect. The Slavi were so particular in this direction that they ordained that an inhospitable person's house should be burned and his personal effects confiscated. Our American Indians, when in possession of the land, considered that whatever grew out of the earth was intended jointly for all that lived upon it, and from this principle hospitality among |