His enjoyment was evidently to converse, and he had conversed
unintermittently for several hours. The man was an egoist, of course,
but he had not talked exclusively about himself. Much of his talk had
been devoted to other people, but they were all of them the people whom
he saw in his own private mirror. I have no doubt that for the time
being I was a figure in his dreams, and that I shall be described with
the same minuteness to the unhappy recipients of his confidences who
are now awaiting him at dinner,--at which I may mention he always
drinks whisky-and-seltzer.
I do not mean that every one is like this; but there are really a
larger number of people in the world than I like to think whose delight
it is not to perceive but to relate. The odd thing is that my friend
should think it necessary to preface his meeting with courteous
formulas, which I suppose are really merely liturgical, like the
_Dominus vobiscum_, relating to what a polite Frenchman the other day
called _votre presence et votre precieux concours_.
It is really impossible to convey anything to such people; in fact, it
is almost impossible to communicate with them at all. "Never tell
people how you are," as a trenchant lady of my acquaintance said to me
the other day; "they don't want to know."
I think that the society of people who do want to know, and who ply one
with questions as to one's tastes and habits, are almost more trying
than the purely narrative people, and induce a subtle sense of moral
hypochondria.
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