"On both sides of her sat men and women of the highest distinction. Every man, it was said, had been a Prime Minister and every woman, it was whispered, had been the mistress of a king. Certain it is that all were brilliant, and all were famous. Orlando took her seat with a deep reverence in silence. … After three hours, she curtseyed profoundly and left. But what, the reader may ask with some exasperation, happened in between. In three hours, such a company must have said the wittiest, the profoundest, the most interesting things in the world. So it would seem indeed. But the fact appears to be that they said nothing. It is a curious characteristic which they share with all the most brilliant societies that the world has seen. Old Madame du Deffand and her friends talked for fifty years without stopping. And of it all, what remains? Perhaps three witty sayings."
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Chapter 4
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Orlando%3A_A_Biography
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Orlando: A Biography
Orlando: A Biography (1928) is a novel by Virginia Woolf, which she called "a biography", intending it to be the first of a new genre breaking barriers between fiction and non-fiction. It was inspired by the life and behavior of her friend Vita Sackville-West.
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