Page:In the dozy hours, and other papers.djvu/175

 Rh life. It never occurred to this charming Frenchwoman, nor to her contemporaries, that time could be better spent than in entertaining or being entertained by friends. Conversation was not then small coin, to be paid our hastily like car-fare, merely in order to get from one necessary topic to another. It was the golden mean through which a generous regard, a graceful courtesy, or a sparkling wit lent beauty and distinction to every hour of intercourse. A little group of friends in a quiet countryside, with none of the robust diversions of English rural life. It has a sleepy sound; yet such was the pleasure-giving power of hostess and of guest that this leisurely companionship was fraught with fine delight, and its fruits are our inheritance to-day, lingering for us in the pages of those matchless letters from which time can never steal the charm.

It is Miss Austen, however, who, with relentless candor, has shown us how usefully guests may be employed as an antidote for the ennui of intellectual vacuity. They are the chosen relief for that direful dullness which country gentlemen "like Sir John Middleton," experience from lack of occupation and ideas; they