of a crowd of interrupters who scream each
other down.

Conversation is essentially reciprocal, and when a good converser flings
out his ball of thought he knows just how the ball should come back to
him, and feels balked and defrauded if his partner is not even watching
to catch it, much less showing any intention of tossing it back on
precisely the right curve. "The habit of interruption," says Bagehot,
"is a symptom of mental deficiency; it proceeds from not knowing what is
going on in other people's minds." It is impossible for a good talker to
talk to any advantage with a companion who does not concern himself in
the least with anybody's mental processes--not even his own.

Given conversation which is marked by conformity to all its unwritten
precepts, "Men and women then range themselves," says Henry Thomas
Buckle, "into three classes or orders of intelligence. You can tell the
lowest class by their habit of talking about nothing else but persons;
the next by the fact that their habit is always to talk about things;
the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas." Discussion
is the most delightful of all conversation, if the company are _up to
it_; it is the highest type of talk, but suited only to the highest type
of individuals. Therefore, a person who in one circle might observe a
prudent silence may in another very properly be the chief talker. Highly
bred and cultured people have attained a certain unity of type, and are
interested in the same sort of conversation. "Talk depends so wholly on
our company," says Stevenson. "We should like to introduce Falstaff and
Mercutio, or Falstaff and Sir Toby; but Falstaff in talk with Cordelia
seems even painful. Most of us, by the Protean quality of man, can talk
to some degree with all; but the true talk that strikes out all the
slumbering best of us comes only with the peculiar brethren of our
spirits.... And hence, I suppose, it is that good talk most commonly
arises among friends. Talk is, indeed, both the scene and the instrument
of friendship."

On the whole, then, the very best social intercourse is possible only
when there is equality. Hazlitt in one of his delightful essays has said
that, "In general, wit shines only by reflection. You must take your cue
from your company--must rise as they rise, and sink as they fall. You
must see that your good things, your knowing allusions, are not flung
away, like the pearls in the adage. What a check it is