and folly take refuge in that unmeaning gabble
which it would be profanation to call language, and which even those
whom long experience in "the dreary intercourse of daily life" has
screwed up to such a pitch of stoical endurance that they can listen
to it by the hour, have branded with the ignominious appellation of
"_small talk_." Small indeed!--the absolute minimum of the infinitely
little.

_Mr Jenkison._
Go on. I have said all I intended to say on the favourable side. I
shall have great pleasure in hearing you balance the argument.

_Mr Escot._
I expect you to confess that I shall have more than balanced it. A
ball-room is an epitome of all that is most worthless and unamiable in
the great sphere of human life. Every petty and malignant passion is
called into play. Coquetry is perpetually on the alert to captivate,
caprice to mortify, and vanity to take offence. One amiable female is
rendered miserable for the evening by seeing another, whom she
intended to outshine, in a more attractive dress than her own; while
the other omits no method of giving stings to her triumph, which she
enjoys with all the secret arrogance of an oriental sultana. Another
is compelled to dance with a _monster_ she abhors. A third has set her
heart on dancing with a particular partner, perhaps for the amiable
motive of annoying one of her _dear friends_: not only he does not ask
her, but she sees him dancing with that identical _dear friend_, whom
from that moment she hates more cordially than ever. Perhaps, what is
worse than all, she has set her heart on refusing some impertinent
fop, who does not give her the opportunity.--As to the men, the case
is very nearly the same with them. To be sure, they have the privilege
of making the first advances, and are, therefore, less liable to have
an odious partner forced upon them; though this sometimes happens, as
I know by woeful experience: but it is seldom they can procure the
very partner they prefer; and when they do, the absurd necessity of
changing every two dances forces them away, and leaves them only the
miserable alternative of taking up with something disagreeable perhaps
in itself, and at all events rendered so by contrast, or of retreating
into some solitary corner, to vent their spleen on the first idle
coxcomb they can find.

_Mr Jenkison._
I hope that is not the motive which brings you to me.

_Mr Escot._
Clearly not. But the most afflicting consideration o