e, with Burly, none of the dangers that attend
debate with Spring-Heel'd Jack; who may at any moment turn his powers of
transmigration on yourself, create for you a view you never held, and
then furiously fall on you for holding it. These, at least, are my two
favourites, and both are loud, copious, intolerant talkers. This argues
that I myself am in the same category; for if we love talking at all, we
love a bright, fierce adversary, who will hold his ground, foot by foot,
in much our own manner, sell his attention dearly, and give us our full
measure of the dust and exertion of battle. Both these men can be beat
from a position, but it takes six hours to do it; a high and hard
adventure, worth attempting. With both you can pass days in an
enchanted country of the mind, with people, scenery, and manners of its
own; live a life apart, more arduous, active, and glowing than any real
existence; and come forth again when the talk is over, as out of a
theatre or a dream, to find the east wind still blowing and the
chimney-pots of the old battered city still around you. Jack has the far
finer mind, Burly the far more honest; Jack gives us the animated
poetry, Burly the romantic prose of similar themes; the one glances high
like a meteor and makes a light in darkness; the other, with many
changing hues of fire, burns at the sea-level, like a conflagration; but
both have the same humour and artistic interests, the same unquenched
ardour in pursuit, the same gusts of talk and thunderclaps of
contradiction.

Cockshot[10] is a different article, but vastly entertaining, and has
been meat and drink to me for many a long evening. His manner is dry,
brisk, and pertinacious, and the choice of words not much. The point
about him is his extraordinary readiness and spirit. You can propound
nothing but he has either a theory about it ready-made, or will have one
instantly on the stocks, and proceed to lay its timbers and launch it in
your presence. "Let me see," he will say. "Give me a moment. I _should_
have some theory for that." A blither spectacle than the vigour with
which he sets about the task, it were hard to fancy. He is possessed by
a demoniac energy, welding the elements for his life, and bending ideas,
as an athlete bends a horse-shoe, with a visible and lively effort. He
has, in theorising, a compass, an art; what I would call the synthetic
gusto; something of a Herbert Spencer, who should see the fun of the
thing. You are n