SHAPES AND SIZES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume I, Issue 238, 17 August 1864, Page 4

SHAPES AND SIZES.

(From the " Saturday Review.") The absolute subjection of humanity to material influences is one of the saddest aspects of its aliased condition. It is painful to think what low physical auxiliaries are necessary to the manifestations of the ideal. In theory, the poet is inspired by a Muse. and waits for a Divine afflatus; in practice, he lights a weed, and indulges in an afflatus of a very different kind before ho sits down to work. A great orator may seem, to an imaginative reader who studies his efforts at a distance, to have borrowed his fire from heaven : but, to those who hear him, the frequent appearance of a silver flask reveals that the world of spirits from which lie seeks his inspiration Is a world not unknown to moaner intelligences. In the same way, idealising lovors wiU sometimes he painfully reminded, by {lie earliest rays of dawn at the close of a brilliant ball, how much the worship of the beautiful depends upon wax caudles and clean tarlatan. iJut (►rie of the most humiliating reminders of the partner* ship of soul and matter is the clfeet which the si tape of (lie buildings in which wo live lias up<m our thoughts, words. ami deeds. There are few departments of human energy in which more care has been bestowed to ensure that action shall be guided by the highest intelligence than that of politics. Isut no one can look back at the political history of the last ten years without feeling that the spirit of the House ol Commons, and consequently the destiny of the Empire, has been mainly determined by the shape of the chamber in which that assembly sits. The tendency of all the best thought- in England has been, for many years, towards a central position in the political controversies of the day. Extreme change, indiscriminate relentless theorising, or inexorable tenacity of what exists, have long been equally distasteful to the most influential minds that give their attention to polities, and to the mass of the influential classes who take little interest in political disputes.' The 1 louse of Commons in general tends to be an accurate reflex of educated opinion. If it had followed its natural instincts, its various sections would have arranged themselves in accordance with the true ben of public opinion, and a strong central Ministry would have been enabled to defy the attacks of the extremes on either side. 13ut the traditional shape of the room in which it sits has been an insuperable dillieulty in its way. Modern opinion tends to the form of a united centre of moderate men, flanked on either side hy only a few outsiders, between whom a strong ineffaceable distinction of opinion exists. But the shape of the House of Commons admits of no centre, and recognises only two sides. In vain has political thought .struggled to overleap this materia] barrier. Repeated efforts have been made to organise a central party, and to construct a central Administration. ihit it is of no use. Members must take a side, otherwise they would have to sit upon the floor. Ami so they must sit on one Mde or the other, and in doing so expose themselves to all the influences which are brought, to bear by constant and exclusive intercourse. Many a man has come into i'arliament loudly declaring that he is independent, ami means to give his unreserved adhesion to no particular party. l>ut he must sit with a particular party; and before many sessions are over, incessant neighbourhood overcomes the coyness of independence, and sitting with a particular party ends in voting with a particular party too.

However, it is naturally in social matters that you can best trace what the .shapes anil sizes ol' rooms run do. Take a dining room, lor instance, and relleM what its shape can effect to foster or to blight the growth of that tender plant, English good-fellowship. There are two typos of entertainers —those who give dinners, and those who give dinner parties: and there arc two types of dining-rooms, or rather of dinnertables, to match. There is one which is the commonest type—that which prevails in schools, prisons, hotels, and the houses of the people who g'ive formal dinners. The dining-room is long and narrow ; and the dinner table in angular sympathy, is rectilinear rikl narrow too. There are few destinies more horrible to contemplate than that of a diner-out, who has often to take his seat in those two parallel rows of seats, separated by u central row of gilt tankards, which constitutes in the eyes of so many Englishnen the ideal of a sociail evening. Of course its just possible that yon may sit between two pleasant people; but, as the large majority of people are tiresome, the chances are heavily against you. And there is no escape for you. At a parallel table you are united to your two dinner-partners by an indissoluble tie. If they are dull you must be dull too ; if they are gossipping, or scandalous, or courtly, you must display

tho snmo amiable qualifies „I S o. If von find that your next neighbour can talk of nothing but Royal babies, or tho probable marriages of her next-door acquaintance*, you must ho content to follow sill! is housewifely, anil eloquent on bilh fi teething mixtures, there is nothing Lft for v'-u but to accompany her without a munuer into the niiruerv and tho boor-crller. Tf she is sentimental,and des> to you her inner life, you have no choice hut to pull out and exhibit your inner life too—supposing von have one. It is a union for two or perhapslhrcg hours, from, -which there.is no divorce—and, what is • more, in -which infidelities however tempting, are impossible. The parallel lines in tho midst of which you are imprisoned, bring you up sharp if you nui'ice any effort to escape. You cannot talk to your next neighbour but one without either condemning your tiresome partner to total abstinence, or brina-ino- y o u r face into perilous proximity to tho operations of hor knife and fork. You cannot console yourself W shouting to your opposite neighbour without either dodging a candlestick or.projecting your voice at ah angle, like a bomb-shell, over the top of an intervening eperyne.. The risk which you run under the parallel system is productive of a terrible anxietv a( tho critical moment when you choose your place. ' At a round table, you do not peril very much wherever you may sit down. You have the'choice of four or even six people, any one of whom you mav talk to or bring into the conversation without much inconvenience. and if one among that number is not endurable, the luck is against you. But at the parallel table, you stake the happpincss of at least two hours or rather you risk tho chance of being compelled to remain for that space of time in the worst of all pi]: lories —the pillory that encloses you between two borer. —upon the skill and the presence of n:ind of one hurrie d and feverish moment, for the few who arc themselves bore-proof, there is no pleasantor amusement than to watch their fellow guests as thev file into the dining-room, and fix their fate for the evening. The dosperate efforts to avoid the bore of the party, tho fierce struggle across the room, the ferocious disregard of a partner's murmured en treat v that sho mav be allowed to avoid the fire, the momentary scufTle, and the look of blank despair with which tho defeated competitor subsides into a chair bv the side of his allotted bore—all this is about tho most amusing part of an average dinner. Tn of j.er departments of that which in the metropolis is called gaiety, it is the size more than the shape of the room that is in fault. An evening party for instance, generally represents an effort on the part of the ho~t to induce tho doors of his drawing-rooms to contain exactly twice the number of persons which, on the smallest estimate of the human diameter, their area can mathematically include. A London "at home " is principally remarkable for bringing with impunity within four walls a crowd that would be indictable if it were crammed into the space of a common lodging-house. A host looks upon his rooms as a good valet looks upon his master's carpet bag—lie never knows how much it will contain until he has tried. Of course, the effects of this system are seriously aggravated by the existing stvlc of female fashion. Many complaints arc made against London society at the present day. It is accused of being still'. But stiffness is the result of compression. A bit of iron that has passed through a rolling-mill is stiff. A guest who has borne upon his ribs the accumulated pressure caused by the agonizing struggles of five bundled fellow-sufferers is also stiff. Ho would be more or less than human —he would rather bear an analogy to a jelly-fish—if he was anvthing else. Again it is said'that London Society is not oasv or graceful. But how can a man move gracefully or easily when he has to displace several hundredweight of petticoats at every step r "Walking through a thick bramble covert is a trifle compared to the labour of walking through a London "at home." It falls heaviest on those who happen to bo considerably below tho average standard of stature ; and several of our prominent men are very small indeed. Perhaps you may see one of these in the distance, and a kind of ocular telegram passes between you expressive of a desire for conversation. Suddenly your brief friend disappears. He seems to sink beneath the wave, and you seetn him no rnore< Perhaps for the moment your attention is distracted bv some one else, when suddenly, as you are talking, vou notice a disturbance and an upheaving in the sea of muslin before you. It jumps and pushes, and shakes to and fro. like the dry i'em when you have kicked up a rabbit. Evidently there is something living beneath it, of whose subterranean or subtarlu--1 tanian struggles you are witnessing the external record. At last the disturbance reaches close to your s ;,]e —a head emerges from beneath the textile foam —and vou rapturously greet the reappearance of vour political friend. ' If his manners are rather stiff, and his air a little ttistraif, can you wonder ai it : It would be too much to expect that a man should be perfectly at his ease in the intervals of continual submersion. Of course, it is only the very short men who sutler to this extent. But the physical aflliction is very sensible in any case: and it is impossible that the' graces of a man's mind should develop themselves while any part of him, though it "be only his legs, is ill at e:»sc<