and trace its influence. But the nameless attraction that held
for so long a period the most serious men of letters as well as
the gay world still eludes us.

We find the same elusive quality in the women who presided over
these reunions. They were true daughters of a race of which Mme.
De Graffigny wittily said that it "escaped from the hands of
Nature when there had entered into its composition only air and
fire. They certainly were not faultless; indeed, some of them
were very faulty. Nor were they, as a rule, remarkable for
learning. Even the leaders of noted literary salons often lacked
the common essentials of a modern education. But if they wrote
badly and spelled badly, they had an abundance of that delicate
combination of intellect and wit which the French call ESPRIT.
They had also, in superlative measure, the social gifts which
women of genius reared in the library or apart from the world,
are apt to lack. The close study of books leads to a knowledge
of man rather than of men. It tends toward habits of
introspection which are fatal to the clear and swift vision
required for successful leadership of any sort. Social talent is
distinct, and implies a happy poise of character and intellect;
the delicate blending of many gifts, not the supremacy of one.
It implies taste and versatility, with fine discrimination, and
the tact to sink one's personality as well as to call out the
best in others. It was this flexibility of mind, this active
intelligence tempered with sensibility and the native instinct of
pleasing, that distinguished the French women who have left such
enduring traces upon their time. "It is not sufficient to be
wise, it is necessary also to please," said the witty and
penetrating Ninon, who thus very aptly condensed the feminine