along some great succession of alien chords--common
contemplation, say, of a world grievous or pleasant to both--on towards
the peace, the consummation, of a great major close. Once we have
sufficient indication that another person cares for the same kind of
things that we do--or, as important quite, cares in the same degree or
in the same way--all further explanation becomes superfluous: detail,
delightful occasionally to quicken and bring home the sense of
companionship, but by no means needed.

This is the secret of our intercourse with those persons of whom our
friends will say (or think), What _can_ you have in common with
So-and-so? What _can_ you find to talk about? Talk about? Why, nothing;
the enigmatic person remains with us, as with all the rest of the world,
silent, inarticulate; incapable, sometimes, of any inner making of
formulae. But we know that our companion is seeing, feeling, the same
lines of the hills and washes of their colours, the same scudding or
feathering out of clouds; is _living_, in the completest sense, in that
particular scene and hour; and knowing this, it matters nothing how long
we trudge along the road or saunter across the grass without uttering.
The road of life, too, or the paths and thickets of speculation.

And speaking of walks, I know no greater torment, among those minor ones
which are the worst, than the intelligent conversation--full of
suggestion and fine analysis, perhaps, and descriptions of _other_
places--which reveals to us that the kindly speaker is indeed occupying
the same geographical space or sitting behind the same horse as we are,
but that his soul is miles and miles away. And the worst of it is that
such false companionship can distract us from any real company with the
moment and the place. We have to answer out of civility; then to think,
to get interested, and then ... well, then it is all over. "We had such
a delightful walk or drive, So-and-so and I," says our friend
on returning home, "and I am so glad to find that we have such a lot of
interests in common." Alas! alas!... Hazlitt was thinking of such
experiences, knowing perhaps the stealthiness and duplicity which the
fear of them develops in the honest but polite, when he recommended that
one should take one's walks alone.

But there is something more perfect even than one's own company: the
companion met once, at most twice, in a lifetime (for he is by no means
necessarily your dearest and nearest,