CONDITIONS OF SOCIAL ENJOYMENT. 105 



we multiply and complicate appliances, the more certam 

 are we to drive it away. 



The reason is patent enough. These higher emotions 

 to which social intercourse ministers, are of extremely com- 

 plex nature ; they consequently depend for their production 

 upon very numerous conditions ; the more numerous the 

 conditions, the greater the liability that one or other of 

 them will be disturbed, and the emotions consequently pre- 

 vented. It takes a considerable misfortune to destroy ap- 

 petite ; but cordial sympathy with those around may be ex- 

 tinguished by a look or a word. Hence it follows, that the 

 more multiplied the unnecessary requirements with which 

 social intercourse is surrounded, the less likely are its 

 pleasures to be achieved. It is difficult enough to fulfil 

 continuously all the esseiitials to a pleasurable communion 

 with others : how much more difficult, then, must it be 

 continuously to fulfil a host of non-essentials also ! It is, 

 indeed, impossible. The attempt inevitably ends in the 

 sacrifice of the first to the last — the essentials to the non- 

 essentials. What chance is there of getting any genuine 

 response from the lady who is thinking of your stupidity in 

 taking her in to dinner on the wrong arm ? How are you 

 likely to have agreeable converse with the gentleman who 

 is fuming internally because he is not placed next to the 

 hostess ? Formalities, familiar as they may become, neces- 

 sarily occupy attention — necessarily multiply the occasions 

 for mistake, misunderstanding, and jealousy, on the j)art of 

 one or other — necessarily distract all minds from the 

 thoughts and feelings that should occupy them — necessa- 

 rily, therefore, subvert those conditions under which only 

 any sterling intercourse is to be had. 



And this indeed is the fatal mischief which these con- 

 ventions entail^a mischief to which every other is sec- 

 ondary. They destroy those highest of our pleasures 

 which they profess to subserve. All institutions are alike 

 5* 



