A series of short essays and sketches ranges across literary criticism, cultural observation, and personal reflection. The writer probes ideas of femininity and women's public life, assesses contemporary novelists and the habits of readers, and paints lively portraits of literary figures and social types with irony and learned allusion. Other pieces examine political manners, the pleasures and pitfalls of taste, and the art of writing, blending anecdote, historical example, and close critical attention in concise, conversational essays.