n me to emulate.

The force Henley used with such success was simply his talk. He did not
let my attention wander for one minute, so full of interest was all he
had to say, while the enthusiasm with which he said it became
contagious. I can remember to this day how he made me see a miracle in
the mere number of the Velasquezes in the Prado, an adventure in every
hansom drive through the London streets, an event in the dressing of the
salad for dinner--how he transformed life into one long Arabian Nights'
Entertainment, which is why I suppose it has always been my pride that
his poem called by that name he dedicated to me. And so the evening that
began as one of the most embarrassing in my experience ended as one of
the most delightful, and the man whom I had trembled to meet because of
his reputation with those who did not know him or understand intolerance
in a just cause, won me over completely by his kindness, his
consideration, his charm.

Henley delighted in talk, that was why he talked so well. On Thursday
night his crutch would be left with his big hat at the front door; then,
one hand leaning on his cane, the other against the wall for support, he
would hobble over to the chair waiting for him, usually by the window
for he loved to look out on the river, and there, seldom moving except
to stand bending over with both arms on the back of the chair, which was
his way of resting, and always with his Young Men round him, the talk
would begin and the talk would last until only my foolish ideas of
civility kept me up to listen. As a woman, I had not then, nor have I
yet, ceased to be astonished by man's passion for talking shop and his
power of going on with it forever. My explanation of this special power
used to be that the occupation supplied him by the necessity of keeping
his pipe or his cigarette or his cigar going, with the inevitable
interruptions and pauses and movement, and the excitement of the eternal
hunt for the matches, made the difference and helped to keep him
awake--there is nothing more difficult for me personally than to sit
still long when my hands are idle, unless I am reading. But the women I
know who smoke are not men's equals in the capacity for endless talk and
the reason must be to seek elsewhere. He who divines it will have gone
far to solving the tedious problem of sex.

Of Henley the talker, at least, one portrait remains. He was the
original of Stevenson's Burly--the talker who would r