five or six nights before they were fit to be put to paper: thus it
is that I succeed better in works that require laborious attention, than
those that appear more trivial, such as letters, in which I could never
succeed, and being obliged to write one is to me a serious punishment;
nor can I express my thoughts on the most trivial subjects without it
costing me hours of fatigue. If I write immediately what strikes me, my
letter is a long, confused, unconnected string of expressions, which,
when read, can hardly be understood.

It is not only painful to me to give language to my ideas but even to
receive them. I have studied mankind, and think myself a tolerable
observer, yet I know nothing from what I see, but all from what I
remember, nor have I understanding except in my recollections. From all
that is said, from all that passes in my presence, I feel nothing,
conceive nothing, the exterior sign being all that strikes me; afterwards
it returns to my remembrance; I recollect the place, the time, the
manner, the look, and gesture, not a circumstance escapes me; it is then,
from what has been done or said, that I imagine what has been thought,
and I have rarely found myself mistaken.

So little master of my understanding when alone, let any one judge what I
must be in conversation, where to speak with any degree of ease you must
think of a thousand things at the same time: the bare idea that I should
forget something material would be sufficient to intimidate me. Nor can
I comprehend how people can have the confidence to converse in large
companies, where each word must pass in review before so many, and where
it would be requisite to know their several characters and histories to
avoid saying what might give offence. In this particular, those who
frequent the world would have a great advantage, as they know better
where to be silent, and can speak with greater confidence; yet even they
sometimes let fall absurdities; in what predicament then must he be who
drops as it were from the clouds? it is almost impossible he should speak
ten minutes with impunity.

In a tete-a-tete there is a still worse inconvenience; that is; the
necessity of talking perpetually, at least, the necessity of answering
when spoken to, and keeping up the conversation when the other is silent.
This insupportable constraint is alone sufficient to disgust me with
variety, for I cannot form an idea of a greater torment than being
obliged to sp