It is rather hard that this spoiled child should spoil such a
sentence as that was going to be; but the wind shifted all at once, and
the talk had to come round on another tack, or at least fall off a point
or two from its course.
--I'll tell you who I think are the best talkers in all probability,
--said I to the Master, who, as I mentioned, was developing interesting
talent as a listener,--poets who never write verses. And there are a
good many more of these than it would seem at first sight. I think you
may say every young lover is a poet, to begin with. I don't mean either
that all young lovers are good talkers,--they have an eloquence all
their own when they are with the beloved object, no doubt, emphasized
after the fashion the solemn bard of Paradise refers to with such
delicious humor in the passage we just heard,--but a little talk goes a
good way in most of these cooing matches, and it wouldn't do to report
them too literally. What I mean is, that a man with the gift of musical
and impassioned phrase (and love often deeds that to a young person for a
while), who "wreaks" it, to borrow Byron's word, on conversation as the
natural outlet of his sensibilities and spiritual activities, is likely
to talk better than the poet, who plays on the instrument of verse. A
great pianist or violinist is rarely a great singer.
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