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
forever.





CHAPTER XI. TALK AND TALKERS (6)


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, a higher power of silence, the quiet
of the evening shared by ruminating friends. There is something,
aside from personal preference, to be alleged in support of this
omission. Those who are no chimney-cornerers, who rejoice in the