read rather than those that the host and the hostess have read.  Books are a fine subject for a talk at table.  Only, let great readers order their learned and literary talk so as not to lead the less learned into temptation.  There is no finer exercise of fine feeling than to be able to carry on a conversation about matters that other people present are ignorant of, and at the same time to interest them, to set them at ease, and to make them forget both you and themselves.  I had a letter the other day from an English Church clergyman, in which he tells me that his bishop is coming this month to his vicarage for a kind of visitation and retreat, and that they are to have William Law’s Characters and Characteristics read aloud to them when the bishop and the assembled clergy are at their meals.  For my part, I would rather hear a good all-round talk on that book by the bishop and his clergy after they had all read the book over and over again at home.  But such readings at assembled meals have all along been a feature of the best fraternal life in the Church of England and in some of the sister churches.

6.  Now, after dining and supping repeatedly with garrulous old Gaius, and with the all-but-silent Mr. Mnason, I have come home ruminating again and again on this—­that a good host, the best host, lets his guests talk while he attends to the table.  If the truth may even be whispered to one’s-self about a table that one has just left, Gaius did his best to spoil his good supper by his own over-garrulity.  It was good talk that he entertained his waiting guests with, but we may have too much of a good thing.  His oration in praise of women was an excellent oration, had it been delivered in another house than his own; and, say, when he was asked to give the health of Christiana, or of Matthew the bridegroom and Mercy the bride, it would then have been perfect; but not in his own house, and not when his guests were waiting for their supper.  On the other hand, you should have seen that perfect gentleman, Mr. Mnason.  For that true old Christian and old English gentleman never once opened his mouth after he had set his guests a-talking.  He was too busy watching when any man’s dish was again empty.  He was too much delighted to see that every one of his guests was having his punctual share of the supper, and at the same time his full share of the talk.  Mr. Fearing’s small voice was far more pleasant to Mr. Mnason than his own voice was in his own best story.  As I opened my own door the other night after supping with Mr. and Miss Mnason, I said to myself—­One thing I have again seen and learned to-night, and that is, that a host, and still more a hostess, should talk less at their own table than their most silent, most bashful, and most backward guest.  “Make this an ordinance for thee,” said Rabban Shammai to his sons in the law; “receive all thy guests with a pleasant expression of countenance, and then say little and do much.”