Life & Wisdom Quote by Elizabeth Montagu

A social refusal dressed up as a compliment, Montagu turns the language of deference into a neat little escape hatch. She "honours great ladies" and "admires great wits" - the required curtsy to rank and intellect - then pivots to the real message: she is not going, and she has a theory that makes her absence sound principled rather than personal. The oyster rule is the masterstroke. In one stroke she demotes "assemblies" (the 18th-century ecosystem of salons, cards, and performative conversation) from serious social obligation to seasonal seafood: sometimes fashionable, often risky, and best avoided when conditions are wrong.

The wit works because it lets her refuse without openly offending. "She kindly laments" signals the polite script women, especially public-minded women like Montagu, were expected to perform: everyone must appear to want inclusion, even while jockeying for control over their own time. Montagu's subtext is autonomy. She will not be guilted into attendance by someone else's "lament", and she will not pretend the party is inherently enriching just because the guest list is prestigious.

Context sharpens the edge. As a Bluestocking figure, Montagu helped legitimize female intellectual sociability, yet she is also savvy about how quickly "conversation" curdles into display, gossip, and status-management. The joke gives her the upper hand: she sounds amused, not defensive. It is social criticism smuggled in as culinary common sense - and it lands because everyone knows exactly which months, and which rooms, make you regret showing up.