Page:Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home (Volume 1).djvu/110

Rh by an indication that he is in the way. Thus conversation becomes a succession of illuminations and triumphs—or failures. There is no such "horreur" as a bore; no such bore as a proser. A bore might be defined to be a person that must be listened to. I remember R. saying that "kings are always bores, and so are royal dukes, for they must not be interrupted as long as they please to talk." The crowning grace of conversation, the listening with pleased eagerness, I have rarely seen. When Dr. C. was told that Coleridge pronounced him the most agreeable American he had eyer seen, he replied, "Then it was because he found me a good listener, for I said absolutely nothing!" And yet, as far as we may judge from Coleridge's Table-Talk, he would have been the gainer by a fairer battle than that where

A feature in society here that must be striking to Americans, is the great number of single women. With us, you know, few women live far beyond their minority unmated, and those few sink into the obscurity of some friendly fireside. But here they have an independent existence, pursuits, and influence, and they are much happier for it; mind, I do not say happier than fortunate wives and good mothers, but than those who, not having drawn a husband in the lottery of life, resign themselves to a merely passive existence. Englishwomen, married and single, have more leisure and fer more opportunity for intellectual cultivation, than with us. The