Marivaux was now some twenty-nine years of age, and had had but little success as a writer.  He must have felt that parody was not his forte, and, with his connection with le Mercure, an opportunity was presented to deal with actualities, where his powers of observation might come into play.  He was, as he says of himself, born an observer.  “Je suis ne de maniere que tout me devient une matiere de reflexion; c’est comme une philosophie de temperament que j’ai recue, et que le moindre objet met en exercice."[35] With his keen eyes constantly on the watch and his subtle mind ever ready to ferret out the eccentricities, defects, or hidden motives which some glance or gesture in his neighbor has revealed to him, and which a less delicate mind would have failed to grasp, going so far sometimes as to impute finesse where he has seen but the reflection of his own nature, he, nevertheless, presents to us, as no other author of the time, a vivid picture of the brilliant and refined society in which he moved, and sometimes, also, bold and clever sketches of the world at large.  “C’est une fete delicieuse,” he tells us, “pour un misanthrope, que le spectacle d’un si grand nombre d’hommes assembles; c’est le temps de sa recolte d’idees.  Cette innombrable quantite d’especes de mouvements forme a ses yeux un caractere generique.  A la fin, tant de sujets se reduisent en un; ce ne sont plus des hommes differents qu’il contemple, c’est l’homme represente dans plusieurs milliers d’hommes."[36] Wherever he might be, on the street, at the homes of his friends, at church, or at the theatre, he was ever a prey to this demon of observation.  Behold him coming from the theatre; forced by the throng to stop a moment, he employs the time to examine the passers-by:  “J’examinais donc tous ces porteurs de visages, hommes et femmes; je tachais de demeler ce que chacun pensait de son lot; comment il s’en trouvait; par exemple, s’il y en avait quelqu’un qui prit le sien en patience, faute de pouvoir faire mieux; mais je n’en decouvris pas un, dont la contenance ne me dit:  Je m’y tiens."[37]

Whatever he saw became food for meditation, and, if not used at once, was treasured up for future need.  Marivaux came at last to surmise that here lay the secret of his inspiration, but it was not for some years yet that he expressed himself, as he did in the Spectateur francais:  “Ainsi je ne suis point auteur, et j’aurais ete, je pense, fort embarrasse de le devenir... je ne sais point creer, je sais seulement surprendre en moi les pensees que le hasard me fait naitre, et je serais fache d’y mettre rien du mien."[38]