Page:Compromises (Repplier).djvu/34

 18 since silenced,—light laughter following the light words, so swiftly spoken, yet so surely placed. The time was coming fast when this smooth graciousness of speech would inspire singular mistrust, and when Rousseau—ardently embracing nature—would write of the "fine and delicate irony called politeness, which gives so much ease and pliability to the intercourse of civilized man, enabling him to assume the appearance of every virtue without the reality of one." Later on, illusions being dispelled, the painful discovery was made that the absence of politeness does not necessarily imply the presence of virtue, and that taciturnity may be wholly disassociated with the truth. We owe to one another all the wit and good humour we can command; and nothing so clears our mental vistas as sympathetic and intelligent conversation. It can never languish in an age like ours, teeming with new interests widely shared, and with new wonders widely known. We must talk, because we have so much to talk about; and we ought to talk well, because our inspirations are of a noble order. Each new discovery made by science,