lance, the weakness of my heart conquered, and I remained.

Our conversation turned partly upon books, and principally on the
science du coeur et du monde, for Lady Roseville was un peu philosophe,
as well as more than un peu litteraire; and her house, like those of
the Du Deffands and D'Epinays of the old French regime, was one where
serious subjects were cultivated, as well as the lighter ones; where it
was the mode to treat no less upon things than to scandalize persons;
and where maxims on men and reflections on manners, were as much in
their places, as strictures on the Opera and invitations to balls.

All who were now assembled were more or less suited to one another; all
were people of the world, and yet occasional students of the closet;
but all had a different method of expressing their learning or their
observations. Clarendon was dry, formal, shrewd, and possessed of the
suspicious philosophy common to men hacknied in the world. Vincent
relieved his learning by the quotation, or metaphor, or originality of
some sort with which it was expressed. Lady Roseville seldom spoke
much, but when she did, it was rather with grace than solidity. She was
naturally melancholy and pensive, and her observations partook of the
colourings of her mind; but she was also a dame de la cour, accustomed
to conceal, and her language was gay and trifling, while the sentiments
it clothed were pensive and sad.

Ellen Glanville was an attentive listener, but a diffident speaker.
Though her knowledge was even masculine for its variety and extent, she
was averse to displaying it; the childish, the lively, the tender, were
the outward traits of her character--the flowers were above, but the
mine was beneath; one noted the beauty of the former--one seldom dreamt
of the value of the latter.

Glanville's favourite method of expressing himself was terse and
sententious. He did not love the labour of detail: he conveyed the
knowledge of years in a problem. Sometimes he was fanciful, sometimes
false; but, generally, dark, melancholy, and bitter.

As for me, I entered more into conversation at Lady Roseville's than I
usually do elsewhere; being, according to my favourite philosophy, gay
on the serious, and serious on the gay; and, perhaps, this is a juster
method of treating the two than would be readily imagined: for things
which are usually treated with importance, are, for the most part,
deserving of ridicule; and those which we receive as