Page:Romance & Reality 2.pdf/226

224 to talk, and few to listen. Is it not Pelham who wonders what becomes of servants when they are not wanted;—whether, like the tones of an instrument, they exist but when called for? About servants we will not decide; but that some such interregnum certainly occurs in female existence on rising from table, no one can doubt who ever noted the sound of the dining and the silence of the drawing-room. Women must be very intimate to talk to each other after dinner. The excitement of confidence alone supplies the excitement of coquetry; and, with that peculiar excellence which characterises all our social arrangements, people who meet at dinner are usually strangers to each other. Very young people soon get acquainted; but then they must be very young. Few general subjects have much feminine attraction; women are not easily carried, not exactly out of themselves (for selfishness is no part of the characteristic I would describe), but out of their circle of either interests, vanities, or affections. A woman's individuality is too strong to take much part in those abstract ideas which enter largely into masculine discussion. Ask a woman for an opinion of a book—her criticism