Excerpt from Society and Solitude (excerpt II)
Ralph Waldo Emerson

2 It by no means follows that we are not fit for society, because soirées are tedious, and because the soirée finds us tedious. A backwoodsman, who had been sent to the university, told me that, when he heard the best-bred young men at the law school talk together, he reckoned himself a boor; but whenever he caught them apart, and had one to himself alone, then they were the boors, and he the better man. And if we recall the rare hours when we encountered the best persons, we then found ourselves, and then first society seemed to exist. That was society, though in the transom of a brig, or on the Florida Keys.


What ironic point does the author make in paragraph 2?
Group of answer choices

People are bored by society, but society is also bored by them.

As a species, we are far more interesting than we think we are.

Smart individuals are rarely encountered when they are needed.

The best conversations are usually found in the oddest of places.