en on a sudden there falls in a crystal of wit, so polished that the
dull do not perceive it, but so right that the sensitive are silenced.
True talk should have more body and blood, should be louder, vainer, and
more declaratory of the man; the true talker should not hold so steady
an advantage over whom he speaks with; and that is one reason out of a
score why I prefer my Purcel in his second character, when he unbends
into a strain of graceful gossip, singing like the fireside kettle. In
these moods he has an elegant homeliness that rings of the true Queen
Anne. I know another person who attains, in his moments, to the
insolence of a Restoration comedy, speaking, I declare, as Congreve
wrote; but that is a sport of nature, and scarce falls under the rubric,
for there is none, alas! to give him answer.

One last remark occurs: It is the mark of genuine conversation that the
sayings can scarce be quoted with their full effect beyond the circle of
common friends. To have their proper weight they should appear in a
biography, and with the portrait of the speaker. Good talk is dramatic,
it is like an impromptu piece of acting where each should represent
himself to the greatest advantage; and that is the best kind of talk
where each speaker is most fully and candidly himself, and where, if you
were to shift the speeches round from one to another, there would be the
greatest loss in significance and perspicuity. It is for this reason
that talk depends so wholly on our company. 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, is founded as deep as love in the constitution of our
being, and is a thing to relish with all our energy, while yet we have
it, and to be grateful for for ever.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] Robert Alan Mowbray Stevenson (1847-1900).

[9] W. E. Henley (1849-1903).

[10] Fleeming Jenkin (1833-85).

[11] Sir Walter Grindlay Simpson, Bart. (1843-98).

[12] John Addington Symonds (1840-93).

[13] Mr. Edmund Gosse.

XI

TALK AND TALKERS[14]

II

In the last paper there was perhaps too much about mere debate; and
there was nothing said at all about that kind of talk which is merely
luminous and restful