admiration of his adversary. All natural talk is a festival of
ostentation; and by the laws of the game each accepts and fans the
vanity of the other. It is from that reason that we venture to lay
ourselves so open, that we dare to be so warmly eloquent, and that we
swell in each other's eyes to such a vast proportion. For talkers, once
launched, begin to overflow the limits of their ordinary selves, tower
up to the height of their secret pretensions, and give themselves out
for the heroes, brave, pious, musical, and wise, that in their most
shining moments they aspire to be. So they weave for themselves with
words and for a while 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.[39] 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 orgy, 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