Now were an ordinary social winter evening
party tested by such principles, what would a candid spectator judge to
have been the principal topics of reading or study? I remember once, in
my earlier years, to have passed an evening in a room where a number of
my intimate friends were engaged in playing at cards. As I did not play,
I took my seat at an office-table, and hastily sketched the conversation
which I afterwards read for their amusement. But the whole was in
reality a bitter satire on their language and sentiments, although it
was not so designed by me, nor received by them. I several years
afterwards saw the sketch of this conversation among my papers, and was
forcibly struck with this reflection.
Let me revert to some of the topics of conversation introduced in the
circles where I have visited this day, or in my own room. It is
Goldsmith, I think, who says that our thoughts take their tinge from
contiguous objects. A man standing near a volcano would naturally speak
of burning mountains.
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