figured at the moment as effective talkers; yet, in mere sincerity, and
without a vestige of misanthropic retrospect, we must say that never
once has it happened to us to come away from any display of that nature
without intense disappointment; and it always appeared to us that this
failure (which soon ceased to be a disappointment) was inevitable by a
necessity of the case. For here lay the stress of the difficulty: almost
all depends in most trials of skill upon the parity of those who are
matched against each other. An ignorant person supposes that to an able
disputant it must be an advantage to have a feeble opponent; whereas, on
the contrary, it is ruin to him; for he can not display his own powers
but through something of a corresponding power in the resistance of his
antagonist. A brilliant fencer is lost and confounded in playing with a
novice; and the same thing takes place in playing at ball, or
battledore, or in dancing, where a powerless partner does not enable you
to shine the more, but reduces you to mere helplessness, and takes the
wind altogether out of your sails. Now, if by some rare good luck the
great talker, the protagonist, of the evening has been provided with a
commensurate second, it is just possible that something like a brilliant
"passage of arms" may be the result,--though much even in that case will
depend on the chances of the moment for furnishing a fortunate theme,
and even then, amongst the superior part of the company, a feeling of
deep vulgarity and of mountebank display is inseparable from such an
ostentatious duel of wit. On the other hand, supposing your great talker
to be received like any other visitor, and turned loose upon the
company, then he must do one of two things: either he will talk upon
_outré_ subjects specially tabooed to his own private use,--in which
case the great man has the air of a quack-doctor addressing a mob from a
street stage; or else he will talk like ordinary people upon popular
topics,--in which case the company, out of natural politeness, that they
may not seem to be staring at him as a lion, will hasten to meet him in