Swann's Way

his horror of having to give a serious opinion was something Parisian
and refined, in contrast to the provincial dogmatism of my grandmother's
sisters; and I had imagined also that it was characteristic of the
mental attitude towards life of the circle in which Swann moved,
where, by a natural reaction from the 'lyrical' enthusiasms of earlier
generations, an excessive importance was given to small and precise
facts, formerly regarded as vulgar, and anything in the nature of
'phrase-making' was banned. But now I found myself slightly shocked
by this attitude which Swann invariably adopted when face to face with
generalities. He appeared unwilling to risk even having an opinion, and
to be at his ease only when he could furnish, with meticulous accuracy,
some precise but unimportant detail. But in so doing he did not take
into account that even here he was giving an opinion, holding a brief
(as they say) for something, that the accuracy of his details had an
importance of its own. I thought again of the dinner that night, when I
had been so unhappy because Mamma would not be coming up to my room, and
when he had dismissed the balls given by the Princesse de Léon as being