are listening, a gesture asks a question, and an expressive look gives
the answer. In short, and in a word, everything is wit and mind.

The phenomenon of speech, which, when duly studied and well handled,
is the power of the actor and the story-teller, had never so
completely bewitched me. Nor was I alone under the influence of its
spell; we all spent a delightful evening. The conversation had drifted
into anecdote, and brought out in its rushing course some curious
confessions, several portraits, and a thousand follies, which make
this enchanting improvisation impossible to record; still, by setting
these things down in all their natural freshness and abruptness, their
elusive divarications, you may perhaps feel the charm of a real French
evening, taken at the moment when the most engaging familiarity makes
each one forget his own interests, his personal conceit, or, if you
like, his pretensions.

At about two in the morning, as supper ended, no one was left sitting
round the table but intimate friends, proved by intercourse of fifteen
years, and some persons of great taste and good breeding, who knew the
world. By tacit agreement, perfectly carried out, at supper every one
renounced his pretensions to importance. Perfect equality set the
tone. But indeed there was no one present who was not very proud of
being himself.

Mademoiselle des Touches always insists on her guests remaining at
table till they leave, having frequently remarked the change which a
move produces in the spirit of a party. Between the dining-room and
the drawing-room the charm is destroyed. According to Sterne, the
ideas of an author after shaving are different from those he had
before. If Sterne is right, may it not be boldly asserted that the