Thus a tete-a-tete with a man of similar tastes, who is just and yet sympathetic, critical yet appreciative, whose point of view just differs enough to make it possible for him to throw sidelights on a subject, and to illumine aspects of it that were unperceived and neglected—­this is a high intellectual pleasure, a potion to be delicately sipped at leisure.

But after all it is impossible to say what makes a conversationalist.  There are people who seem to possess every qualification for conversing except the power to converse.  The two absolutely essential things are, in the first place, a certain charm of mind and even manner, which is a purely instinctive gift; and, in the second place, real sympathy with, real interest in the deuteragonist.

People can be useful talkers, even interesting talkers, without these gifts.  One may like to hear what a man of vigorous mind may have to say on a subject that he knows well, even if he is unsympathetic.  But then one listens in a receptive frame of mind, as though one were prepared to attend a lecture.  There are plenty of useful talkers at a University, men whom it is a pleasure to meet occasionally, men with whom one tries, so to speak, a variety of conversational flies, and who will give one fine sport when they are fairly hooked.  But though a University is a place where one ought to expect to find abundance of the best talk, the want of leisure among the present generation of Dons is a serious bar to interesting talk.  By the evening the majority of Dons are apt to be tired.  They have been hard at work most of the day, and they look upon the sociable evening hours as a time to be given up to what the Scotch call “daffing”; that is to say, a sort of nimble interchange of humorous or interesting gossip; a man who pursues a subject intently is apt to be thought a bore.  I think that the middle-aged Don is apt to be less interesting than either the elderly or the youthful Don.  The middle-aged Don is, like all successful professional men, full to the brim of affairs.  He has little time for general reading.  He lectures, he attends meetings, his table is covered with papers, and his leisure hours are full of interviews.  But the younger Don is generally less occupied and more enthusiastic; and best of all is the elderly Don, who is beginning to take things more easily, has a knowledge of men, a philosophy and a good-humoured tolerance which makes him more accessible.  He is not in a hurry, he is not preoccupied.  He studies the daily papers with deliberation, and he has just enough duties to make him feel wholesomely busy.  His ambitions are things of the past, and he is gratified by attention and deference.