There existed in the highest Parisian society
towards the end of that century a comprehensiveness of curiosity and
inquiry, a freedom of opinion, an independence, and soundness of
judgment, never seen before or since. Its pursuits, its pleasures, its
admirations, its vanities, were all intellectual. Look at the success of
Hume. His manners were awkward; he was a heavy, though an instructive,
converser; he spoke bad French; he would pass now for an intelligent
bore. But such was the worship then paid to talents and
knowledge--especially to knowledge, and talents employed on the
destruction of prejudices--that Hume was, for years, the lion of all the
salons of Paris. The fashionable beauties quarrelled for the fat
philosopher. Nor was their admiration or affection put on, or even
transitory. He retained some of them as intimate friends for life.
If the brilliant talkers and writers of that time were to return to life,
I do not believe that gas, or steam, or chloroform, or the electric
telegraph, would so much astonish them as the dulness of modern society,
and the mediocrity of modern books.'
In the evening we discussed the new scheme of throwing open the service
of India and of the Government offices to public competition.
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