454 D'ALEMBERT. 



humour of the circle is well known, and gives a zest to 

 trifles, or sallies of pleasantry, that would be little re- 

 lished by strangers. Add to which, that the familiarity 

 of all with one another, though giving all a considerable 

 interest in the welfare of each, stops short of inspiring so 

 great an interest as would too much excite the feelings; 

 and in this quasi family circle none of the anxiety is felt 

 which often becomes too painful in the real domestic 

 relations. The national character is, perhaps, better 

 suited to such habits than ours would be. Certain it 

 is that our neighbours consider us as having nothing 

 which can be, with any propriety of speech, called 

 society ; for those whose lives are spent in coteries, when 

 not occupied with business, regard with unmitigated 

 aversion the large parties which, on rare occasions, bring 

 together hundreds of their countrymen at some of our 

 fair country-women's houses, and would have joined a late 

 chief-justice in his description of the obstruction which 

 such assembled multitudes occasion of our streets, if his 

 lordship, passing through the outer door, had extended his 

 definition of a nuisance to the scenes which pass within the 

 walls of those fashionable and not inhospitable mansions. 

 All accounts agree in describing D'Alembert as a most 

 agreeable and most acceptable member of those circles, 

 first at Madame du Deffand's, and afterwards at Made- 

 moiselle de FEspinasse's and Madame Geoffrin's. His wit 

 was very playful and easy, and it was without a particle 

 of gall, though not unaccompanied with traits of satire, 

 from which his writings are entirely free. He is described 

 as coming into society from his geometry like a boy 

 escaped from school; and with the buoyant spirits which 

 he drew from the success of his morning's investigations, 



