acquaintance of all those gentlemen if we wish to belong to the fashion.
They are the persons who can make or unmake a reputation at Paris; you
know that there are some, whose visits alone are sufficient to start the
report that you are a _Connaisseuse_, though there should be no other
reason for it. As for me, what I value particularly is, that by means of
these ingenious visits, we learn a hundred things which we ought
necessarily to know, and which are the quintessence of wit. Through them
we hear the scandal of the day, or whatever niceties are going on in
prose or verse. We know, at the right time, that Mr. So-and-so has
written the finest piece in the world on such a subject; that Mrs.
So-and-so has adapted words to such a tune; that a certain gentleman has
written a madrigal upon a favour shown to him; another stanzas upon a
fair one who betrayed him; Mr. Such-a-one wrote a couplet of six lines
yesterday evening to Miss Such-a-one, to which she returned him an
answer this morning at eight o'clock; such an author is engaged on such
a subject; this writer is busy with the third volume of his novel; that
one is putting his works to press. Those things procure you
consideration in every society, and if people are ignorant of them, I
would not give one pinch of snuff for all the wit they may have.

CAT. Indeed, I think it the height of ridicule for any one who possesses
the slightest claim to be called clever not to know even the smallest
couplet that is made every day; as for me, I should be very much ashamed
if any one should ask me my opinion about something new, and I had not
seen it.

MASC. It is really a shame not to know from the very first all that is
going on; but do not give yourself any farther trouble, I will establish
an academy of wits at your house, and I give you my word that not a
single line of poetry shall be written in Paris, but what you shall be