I ask her if she has been to Barnum's Circus; she
hasn't, but is going. I give her my impressions of Barnum's Circus,
which are precisely the impressions of everybody else who has seen
the show.
"Or if luck be against me, she is possibly a smart woman, that is to
say, her conversation is a running fire of spiteful remarks at the
expense of every one she knows, and of sneers at the expense of
every one she doesn't. I always feel I could make a better woman
myself, out of a bottle of vinegar and a penn'orth of mixed pins.
Yet it usually takes one about ten minutes to get away from her.
"Even when, by chance, one meets a flesh-and-blood man or woman at
such gatherings, it is not the time or place for real conversation;
and as for the shadows, what person in their senses would exhaust a
single brain cell upon such? I remember a discussion once
concerning Tennyson, considered as a social item. The dullest and
most densely-stupid bore I ever came across was telling how he had
sat next to Tennyson at dinner. 'I found him a most uninteresting
man,' so he confided to us; 'he had nothing to say for himself--
absolutely nothing.' I should like to resuscitate Dr. Samuel
Johnson for an evening, and throw him into one of these 'At Homes'
of yours.
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