These are mournful days for the Polite Arts. One by one they are passing away—the Art of Conversation, the Art of Paying Calls, the Art of Letter Writing.

The Art of Conversation is no longer even a subject for conversation. No one so much as remembers of what it died. Did it languish and fade away into an Eternal Pause as such a dignified gentleman of the old school as the Art of Conversation would be expected to do—or was it murdered?

The mystery surrounding the death of the Art of Conversation has never been properly cleared up. Some think it died of heart failure induced by the killing modern pace. Others say it starved to death. Others again, that it was done to death by the chewing-gum trust. For my part, I believe the Art of Conversation talked itself to death. It died of obesity—it grew and grew and grew until, when all the world talked there was nobody left to listen. Then it burst.

No such mystery hangs about the death of the Art of Paying Calls. Here it was a case of plain every-day murder—and what is more, the murderer still lives. Millions of electric volts are pumped into him every day, but he still lives—the more electricity we give him the livelier he grows. He is the Telephone, and the Telephone is the murderer of the Art of Calling.

Poor old Art of Calling! We shake our heads and murmur perfunctory regrets—“good old chap,” and all that sort of thing, but really in our heart of hearts, let me whisper it very low—we don’t really miss him very much; to tell the truth, we are rather, that is to say, quite glad he is dead. If anyone of us had had the courage of his conviction he would have killed him long ago. To speak plainly, the Art of Calling was a pestiferous tyrant—and he only got what he deserved.