high like a meteor and makes a light in darkness; the other, with many
changing hues of fire, burns at the sea-level, like a conflagration; but
both have the same humour and artistic interests, the same unquenched
ardour in pursuit, the same gusts of talk and thunderclaps of
contradiction.

Cockshot[41] is a different article, but vastly entertaining, and has
been meat and drink to me for many a long evening. His manner is dry,
brisk and pertinacious, and the choice of words not much. The point
about him is his extraordinary readiness and spirit. You can propound
nothing but he has either a theory about it ready-made, or will have one
instantly on the stocks, and proceed to lay its timbers and launch it in
your presence. "Let me see," he will say. "Give me a moment. I _should_
have some theory for that." A blither spectacle than the vigour with
which he sets about the task, it were hard to fancy. He is possessed by
a demoniac energy, welding the elements for his life, and bending ideas,
as an athlete bends a horseshoe, with a visible and lively effort. He
has, in theorising, a compass, an art; what I would call the synthetic
gusto; something of a Herbert Spencer, who should see the fun of the
thing. You are not bound, and no more is he, to place your faith in
these brand-new opinions. But some of them are right enough, durable
even for life; and the poorest serve for a cock-shy--as when idle
people, after picnics, float a bottle on a pond and have an hour's
diversion ere, it sinks. Whichever they are, serious opinions or humours
of the moment, he still defends his ventures with indefatigable wit and
spirit, hitting savagely himself, but taking punishment like a man. He
knows and never forgets that people talk, first of all, for the sake of
talking; conducts himself in the ring, to use the old slang, like a
thorough "glutton," and honestly enjoys a telling facer from his
adversary. Cockshot is bottled effervescency, the sworn foe of sleep.