It is not eloquence, not fairness, not
obstinacy, but a certain proportion of all of these that I love to
encounter in my amicable adversaries. They must not be pontiffs
holding doctrine, but huntsmen questing after elements of truth.
Neither must they be boys to be instructed, but fellow-teachers
with whom I may wrangle and agree on equal terms. We must reach
some solution, some shadow of consent; for without that, eager talk
becomes a torture. But we do not wish to reach it cheaply, or
quickly, or without the tussle and effort wherein pleasure lies.
The very best talker, with me, is one whom I shall call Spring-
Heel'd Jack. I say so, because I never knew any one who mingled so
largely the possible ingredients of converse. In the Spanish
proverb, the fourth man necessary to compound a salad, is a madman
to mix it: Jack is that madman. I know not which is more
remarkable; the insane lucidity of his conclusions the humorous
eloquence of his language, or his power of method, bringing the
whole of life into the focus of the subject treated, mixing the
conversational salad like a drunken god. He doubles like the
serpent, changes and flashes like the shaken kaleidoscope,
transmigrates bodily into the views of others, and so, in the
twinkling of an eye and with a heady rapture, turns questions
inside out and flings them empty before you on the ground, like a
triumphant conjuror.
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