A NOTION, self-begotten in me, of the limitations of my friend is
answerable for the barrenness of my intercourse with him. I set him down
as hard; I speak to him as if he were hard and from that which is hard in
myself. Naturally I evoke only that which is hard, although there may be
fountains of tenderness in him of which I am altogether unaware. It is
far better in conversation not to regulate it according to supposed
capacities or tempers, which are generally those of some fictitious
being, but to be simply ourselves. We shall often find unexpected and
welcome response.
Our estimates of persons, unless they are frequently revived by personal
intercourse, are apt to alter insensibly and to become untrue. They
acquire increased definiteness but they lose in comprehensiveness.
Especially is this true of those who are dead. If I do not read a great
author for some time my mental abstract of him becomes summary and false.
I turn to him again, all summary judgments upon him become impossible,
and he partakes of infinitude. Writers, and people who are in society
and talk much are apt to be satisfied with an algebraic symbol for a man
of note, and their work is done not with him but with _x_.