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; 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 (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