oquent, and that we swell in each other's eyes to such a vast
proportion. For talkers, once launched, begin to overflow the limits
of their ordinary selves, tower up to the height of their secret
pretensions, and give themselves out for the heroes, brave, pious,
musical and wise, that in their most shining moments they aspire to
be. So they weave for themselves with words and for a while inhabit a
palace of delights, temple at once and theatre, where they fill the
round of the world's dignities, and feast with the gods, exulting in
Kudos. And when the talk is over, each goes his way, still flushed
with vanity and admiration, still trailing clouds of glory;[6] each
declines from the height of his ideal orgie, not in a moment, but by
slow declension. I remember, in the _entr'acte_ of an afternoon
performance, coming forth into the sunshine, in a beautiful green,
gardened corner of a romantic city; and as I sat and smoked, the music
moving in my blood, I seemed to sit there and evaporate _The Flying
Dutchman_[7] (for it was that I had been hearing) with a wonderful
sense of life, warmth, well-being and pride; and the noises of the
city, voices, bells and marching feet, fell together in my ears like a
symphonious orchestra. In the same way, the excitement of a good talk
lives for a long while after in the blood, the heart still hot within
you, the brain still simmering, and the physical earth swimming around
you with the colours of the sunset.

Natural talk, like ploughing, should turn up a large surface of life,
rather than dig mines into geological strata. Masses of experience,
anecdote, incident, cross-lights, quotation, historical instances, the
whole flotsam and jetsam of two minds forced in and in upon the matter
in hand from every point of the compass, and from every degree of
mental elevation and abasement--these are the material with which talk
is fortified, the food on which the talkers thrive. Such argument as
is proper to the exercise should still be brief and seizing. Talk
should proceed by instances; by the apposite, not the expository. It
should keep close along the lines of humanity, near the bosoms and
businesses of men, at the level where history, fiction and experience
intersect and illuminate each other. I am I, and You are You, with all
my heart; but conceive how these lean propositions change and brighten
when, instead of words, the actual you and I sit cheek by jowl, the
spirit housed in the live body