Page:In the dozy hours, and other papers.djvu/173

 Rh awaken some pangs of conscience on the way. It is the restraint we put upon ourselves, the honest effort we make at amiability, which renders social intercourse possible and pleasant. When the restraint grows irksome, the amiability a burden, we pay to those we love best on earth the dubious compliment of being perfectly natural in their company. "What is the use of having a family if you cannot be disagreeable in the bosom of it?" was the explicit acknowledgment I once overheard of a service which seldom meets with such clear and candid recognition. Hazlitt himself could have given no plainer expression to a thought which few of us would care to trick out in all the undisguised sincerity of language.

Guests are the delight of leisure, and the solace of ennui. It is the steady and merciless increase of occupations, the augmented speed at which we are always trying to live, the crowding of each day with more work and amusement than it can profitably hold, which have cost us, among other good things, the undisturbed enjoyment of our friends. Friendship takes time, and we have no time to give it. We have to go to so many teas, and lectures,