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
illuminate each other. I am I, and You are You, with all my heart; but
conceive how these lean propositions change and brighten when, instead
of words, the actual you and I sit cheek by jowl, the spirit housed in
the live body, and the very clothes uttering voices to corroborate the
story in the face. Not less surprising is the change when we leave off
to speak of generalities--the bad, the good, the miser, and all the
characters of Theophrastus--and call up other men, by anecdote or
instance, in their very trick and feature; or trading on a common
knowledge, toss each other famous names, still glowing with the hues of
life. Communication is no longer by words, but by the instancing of
whole biographies, epics, systems of philosophy, and epochs of history,
in bulk. That which is understood excels that which is spoken in
quantity and quality alike; ideas thus figured and personified, change
hands, as we may say, like coin; and the speakers imply without effort
the most obscure and intricate thoughts. Strangers who have a large
common ground of reading will, for this reason, come the sooner to the
grapple of genuine converse. If they know Othello and Napoleon, Consuelo
and Clarissa Harlowe, Vautrin and Steenie Steenson, they can leave
generalities and begin at once to speak by figures.

Conduct and art are the two subjects that arise most frequently and that
embrace the widest range of facts. A few pleasures bear discussion for
their own sake, but only those which are most social or most radically