But since
then I have seen very much of men, and I find that I was right in the
view I then took of his conversational powers. When his spirits were
at their highest he was without an equal as a wit, without an equal
as a humourist. He had more than even Cyril Aylwin's quickness of
repartee, and it was of an incomparably rarer quality. To define it
would be, of course, impossible, but I might perhaps call it poetic
fancy suddenly stimulated at moments by animal spirits into rapid
movements--so rapid, indeed, that what in slower movement would be
merely fancy, in him became wit. Beneath the coruscations of this wit
a rare and deep intellect was always perceptible.
His humour was also so fanciful that it seemed poetry at play, but
here was the remarkable thing: although he was not unconscious of his
other gifts, he did not seem to be in the least aware that he was a
humourist of the first order; every _jeu d'esprit_ seemed to leap
from him involuntarily, like the spray from a fountain. A dull man
like myself must not attempt to reproduce these qualities here.
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