Dr. Johnson used to say that he loved to stretch his legs and have his talk out; and the fact remains that the best conversation one gets is the conversation that one does not scheme for, and even on occasions from which one has expected but little.  The talks that remain in my mind as of pre-eminent interest are long leisurely tete-a-tete talks, oftenest perhaps of all in the course of a walk, when exercise sends the blood coursing through the brain, when a pleasant countryside tunes the spirit to a serene harmony of mood, and when the mind, stimulated into a joyful readiness by association with some quiet, just, and perceptive companion, visits its dusty warehouse, and turns over its fantastic stores.  Then is the time to penetrate into the inmost labyrinths of a subject, to indulge in pleasing discursiveness, as the fancy leads one, and yet to return again and again with renewed relish to the central theme.  Such talks as these, with no overshadowing anxiety upon the mind, held on breezy uplands or in pleasant country lanes, make the moments, indeed, to which the mind, in the sad mood which remembers the days that are gone, turns with that sorrowful desolation of which Dante speaks, as to a treasure lightly spent and ungratefully regarded.  How such hours rise up before the mind!  Even now as I write I think of such a scene, when I walked with a friend, long dead, on the broad yellow sands beside a western sea.  I can recall the sharp hiss of the shoreward wind, the wholesome savours of the brine, the soft clap of small waves, the sand-dunes behind the shore, pricked with green tufts of grass, the ships moving slowly on the sea’s rim, and the shadowy headland to which we hardly seemed to draw more near, while we spoke of all that was in our hearts, and all that we meant to do and be.  That day was a great gift from God; and yet, as I received it, I did not know how fair a jewel of memory it would be.  I like to think that there are many such jewels of recollection clasped close in the heart’s casket, even in the minds of men and women that I meet, that seem so commonplace to me, so interesting to themselves!

It is strange, in reflecting about the memorable talks I have held with different people, to find that I remember best the talks that I have had with men, rather than with women.  There is a kind of simple openness, an equal comradeship in talks with men, which I find it difficult to attain in the case of women.  I suppose that some unsuspected mystery of sex creeps in, and that with women there is a whole range of experiences and emotions that one does not share, so that there is an invisible and intangible barrier erected between the two minds.  I feel, too, in talking with women, that I am met with almost too much sympathy and tact, so that one falls into an egotistical mood.  It is difficult, too, I find, to be as frank in talking with women as with men; because I think that women tend more than men to hold a preconceived idea of one’s character and tastes; and it is difficult to talk simply and naturally to any one who has formed a mental picture of one, especially if one is aware that it is not correct.  But men are slower to form impressions, and thus talk is more experimental; moreover, in talking with men, one encounters more opposition, and opposition puts one more on one’s mettle.