THE TRUE SOCIAL REQUIREMENT. 107 



the general recognition of this fact ; and this recognition, 

 logically developed, involves that all usages of behaviour 

 which are not based on natural requirements, are injurious. 

 That these conventions defeat their ovt^n ends is no new 

 assertion. Swift, criticising the manners of his day, says — 

 *' Wise men are often* more uneasy at the over-civility of 

 these refiners than they could possibly be in the conversa- 

 tion of peasants and mechanics." 



But it is not only in these details that the self-defeating 

 action of our arrangements is traceable : it is traceable in 

 the very substance and nature of them. Our social inter- 

 course, as commonly managed, is a mere semblance of the 

 reality sought. What is it that we want ? Some sympa- 

 thetic converse with our fellow-creatures : some converse 

 that shall not be mere dead words, but the vehicle of living 

 thoughts and feelings — converse in which the eyes and the 

 flice shall speak, and the tones of the voice be full of mean- 

 ing — converse which shall make us feel no longer alone, 

 but shall draw us closer to another, and double our own 

 emotions by adding another's to them. Who is there that 

 has not, from time to time, felt how cold and flat is all this 

 talk about politics and science, and the new books and the 

 new men, and how a genuine utterance of fellow-feeling 

 outweighs the whole of it ? Mark the words of Bacon : — 

 " For a crowd is not a company, and faces are but a gallery 

 of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is 

 no love." 



If this be true, then it is only after acquaintance has 

 grown into intimacy, and intimacy has ripened into friend- 

 Bhip, that the real communion which men need becomes 

 possible. A rationally-formed circle must consist almost 

 wholly of those on terms of familiarity and regard, with 

 but one or two strangers. What folly, then, underlies the 

 whole system of our grand dinners, our " at homes," our 

 evening parties — assemblages made up of many who nevei 



