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He talked to me, not as a man to a boy, but as an elder to a younger man; paid me the courtesy of asking my opinion and listening to my answers; and, by all the little arts of the practised converser, made me feel on good terms with myself and the world. Yankee or Frenchman, my actor was a very jolly fellow; and I only wished that he would tell me a little about himself.

The more we know of him, the more certain are we to agree with this closing sentence from Macaulay's Life of Johnson: "And it is but just to say that our intimate acquaintance with what he would himself have called the anfractuosities of his intellect and of his temper serves only to strengthen our conviction that he was both a great and a good man." A Great Converser and Literary Lawgiver.

But this converser with himself did not immediately set to work, as agreed upon by that twofold one. He rose and walked restlessly to and fro the floor, stopping ever and anon to look at the pictures on the walls.

George Ellis was the best converser I ever knew; his patience and good breeding made me often ashamed of myself going off at score upon some favourite topic. Richard Sharp is so celebrated for this peculiar gift as to be generally called Conversation Sharp. The worst of this talent is that it seems to lack sincerity.

"Now, Catherine, since this young man came into the house, what with his conversation, he's a most gentlemanlike, agreeable converser as ever I met with ... and the prayers, and the chapters, and such like; and, in short, a certain new tone of thought altogether; there has been gradually something new growing up in me.

Conversation is essentially reciprocal, and when a good converser flings out his ball of thought he knows just how the ball should come back to him, and feels balked and defrauded if his partner is not even watching to catch it, much less showing any intention of tossing it back on precisely the right curve.

The bare, uncurtained, uncarpeted rooms, the big dormitory with its cubicles, the stone-flagged passages, all appeared to him mean and sordid. His schoolmaster was a man of real force of character, a tall stately personage, with a great enthusiasm for literature, a fine converser and teacher, and with a deep insight into character.

His celebrated work on the Spirit of Laws is just and humane in its tone, and full of original and inspiring views on history and government. He is one of the founders of modern political science. He was play-writer, poet, historian, critic, and brilliant converser, all in one.

In society he was a converser of extraordinary brilliancy. Few men were his rivals in this art, so well practised in Paris. His flow of ideas was not more remarkable than the choiceness and vigor of his expression. But he was not a tyrant in talk, and he was as ready to listen as to seek for listeners. His social powers were at the service of his friends.

A small and not beautiful woman, but with a variety of expression that more than compensated for the want of handsome features, with a frank, animated manner, and that highest tact which sets guests at ease, there was something specially attractive in her first address. But beyond this she was the pleasantest converser of all the ladies of the day.