there is never such discourse between two, across the table, as takes
place when you leave them alone. In good company, the individuals at
once merge their egotism into a social soul exactly co-extensive with
the several consciousnesses there present. No partialities of friend
to friend, no fondnesses of brother to sister, of wife to husband, are
there pertinent, but quite otherwise. Only he may then speak who can
sail on the common thought of the party, and not poorly limited to
his own. Now this convention, which good sense demands, destroys the
high freedom of great conversation, which requires an absolute running
of two souls into one.

15. No two men but being left alone with each other, enter into
simpler relations. Yet it is affinity that determines _which_ two
shall converse. Unrelated men give little joy to each other; will
never suspect the latent powers of each. We talk sometimes of a great
talent for conversation, as if it were a permanent property in some
individuals. Conversation is an evanescent relation,--no more. A man
is reputed to have thought and eloquence; he cannot, for all that, say
a word to his cousin or his uncle. They accuse his silence with as
much reason as they would blame the insignificance of a dial in the
shade. In the sun it will mark the hour. Among those who enjoy his
thought, he will regain his tongue.

16. Friendship requires that rare mean betwixt likeness and
unlikeness, that piques each with the presence of power and of consent
in the other party. Let me be alone to the end of the world, rather
than that my friend should overstep by a word or a look his real
sympathy. I am equally balked by antagonism and by compliance. Let him
not cease an instant to be himself. The only joy I have in his being
mine, is that the _not mine_ is _mine_. I hate, where I looked for a