I found my Modesty greatly relieved by the communicative Temper of this Nation, who are so very sociable, as to think they are never better Company, than when they are all opening at the same time.
I then fancied I might receive great Benefit from Female Conversation, and that I should have a Convenience of talking with the greater Freedom, when I was not under any Impediment of thinking: I therefore threw my self into an Assembly of Ladies, but could not for my Life get in a Word among them; and found that if I did not change my Company, I was in Danger of being reduced to my primitive Taciturnity.
The Coffee-houses have ever since been my chief Places of Resort, where I have made the greatest Improvements; in order to which I have taken a particular Care never to be of the same Opinion with the Man I conversed with. I was a Tory at
Button's
, and a Whig at
Childe's
; a Friend to the
Englishman
, or an Advocate for the
Examiner