I comprehend how people can have the confidence to converse in large
companies, where each word must pass in review before so many, and where
it would be requisite to know their several characters and histories to
avoid saying what might give offence. In this particular, those who
frequent the world would have a great advantage, as they know better
where to be silent, and can speak with greater confidence; yet even they
sometimes let fall absurdities; in what predicament then must he be who
drops as it were from the clouds? it is almost impossible he should speak
ten minutes with impunity.

In a tete-a-tete there is a still worse inconvenience; that is; the
necessity of talking perpetually, at least, the necessity of answering
when spoken to, and keeping up the conversation when the other is silent.
This insupportable constraint is alone sufficient to disgust me with
variety, for I cannot form an idea of a greater torment than being
obliged to speak continually without time for recollection. I know not
whether it proceeds from my mortal hatred of all constraint; but if I am
obliged to speak, I infallibly talk nonsense. What is still worse,
instead of learning how to be silent when I have absolutely nothing to
say, it is generally at such times that I have a violent inclination: and
endeavoring to pay my debt of conversation as speedily as possible, I
hastily gabble a number of words without ideas, happy when they only
chance to mean nothing; thus endeavoring to conquer or hide my
incapacity, I rarely fail to show it.

I think I have said enough to show that, though not a fool, I have
frequently passed for one, even among people capable of judging; this was
the more vexatious, as my physiognomy and eyes promised otherwise, and
expectation being frustrated, my stupidity appeared the more shocking.
This detail, which a particular occasion gave birth to, will not be