Both the last talkers deal much in points of conduct and religion
studied in the "dry light" of prose. Indirectly and as if against his
will the same elements from time to time appear in the troubled and
poetic talk of Opalstein. His various and exotic knowledge, complete
although unready sympathies, and fine, full, discriminative flow of
language, fit him out to be the best of talkers; so perhaps he is with
some, not _quite_ with me--_proxime accessit_,[42] I should say. He
sings the praises of the earth and the arts, flowers and jewels, wine
and music, in a moonlight, serenading manner, as to the light guitar;
even wisdom comes from his tongue like singing; no one is, indeed, more
tuneful in the upper notes. But even while he sings the song of the
Sirens, he still hearkens to the barking of the Sphinx. Jarring Byronic
notes interrupt the flow of his Horatian humours. His mirth has
something of the tragedy of the world for its perpetual background; and
he feasts like Don Giovanni to a double orchestra, one lightly sounding
for the dance, one pealing Beethoven in the distance. He is not truly
reconciled either with life or with himself; and this instant war in his
members sometimes divides the man's attention. He does not always,
perhaps not often, frankly surrender himself in conversation. He brings
into the talk other thoughts than those which he expresses; you are
conscious that he keeps an eye on something else, that he does not shake
off the world, nor quite forget himself. Hence arise occasional
disappointments; even an occasional unfairness for his companions, who
find themselves one day giving too much, and the next, when they are
wary out of season, giving perhaps too little. Purcel is in another
class from any I have mentioned. He is no debater, but appears in
conversation, as occasion rises, in two distinct characters, one of
which I admire and fear, and the other love. In the first, he is
radiantly civil and rather silent, sits on a high, courtly hilltop, and
from that vantage-ground drops you his remarks like favours. He seems