This master of diverse knowledge would have smiled at the notion of finding either profit or amusement in meeting women for the purpose of conversation on the plane of the intellect. The few rare exceptions only emphasize this fact. “A woman, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can,” said Jane Austen. We are far from that time; but men of affairs even now find literary talks in the drawing-room tiresome, and persistently stay away. Thoughts, too, had become a commodity with a market value, and men of letters no longer found their pleasure or interest in wasting them on limited coteries. They preferred sending them out to a larger audience, at so much a page, while they smoked and chatted more at their ease among themselves at their clubs. Whether they did not find women inspiring,--which, under such conditions, is quite possible,--or did not care to be inspired in that way, the rôle of inspirer was clearly ended. The few efforts to take up the fallen scepter of the salon proved futile in intellectual prestige, though they may have served to while away some pleasant hours. A society based upon wealth without the traditions of culture is apt to smother in accessories the delicacy of insight and the esprit which were the life of the salons. On the other hand, those who pose as apostles of plain living and high thinking make the mistake of ignoring the imagination altogether, and too often serve their feasts of reason without any sauces at all, which fact should probably be laid to the account of the race that takes its diversion as seriously as its work. After all, one cannot say “Let us have esprit,” and have it, any more than one can say, “Let us have charm,” and put it on like a garment.