Now, to understand the charm of leisurely and sympathetic intercourse, we should read the letters of Madame de Sévigné; to appreciate the resources of ennui, we should read the novels of Jane Austen. With Madame de Sévigné guests were not useful as an alleviation of boredom; they were valuable because they added to the interest, the beauty and the zest of 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 are the solace of sickly, uninteresting women who desire some one to share with them the monotonous current of existence. The Middletons, we are assured, “lived in a style of equal hospitality and elegance. They were scarcely ever without some friends staying with them in the house, and they kept more company of every kind than any other family in the neighborhood.” This indulgence, it appears, while equally welcome to host and hostess, was more necessary to Sir John’s happiness than to his wife’s; for she at least possessed one other source of continual and unflagging diversion. “Sir John was a sportsman, Lady Middleton a mother. He hunted and shot, and she humored her children; and these were their only resources. Lady Middleton, however, had the advantage of being able to spoil her children all the year round, while Sir John’s independent employments were in existence only half the time.”