ABSTRACT
Conversation and Conversations' begins with an elaboration of the Paterian idea that art aspires to the condition of music. All emphasis of one personality at the cost of another, or, in a general conversation, all emphasis of the minority at the expense of the majority are fatal deviations of the Golden Rule which alone leads towards perfection. Lovers and fugues, indeed, do not make up between them the sum of conversations; and there must always remain to be considered that unfaltering and unalterable mass of human speech which babbles brook-wise through ages. A mathematician may discern in the mass of conversations a treble division corresponding, perhaps fantastically, to the three mathematical progressions. The Drama is conversation treated architecturally. Rage in conversation magnificently raises it above the common level, and sounds a splendid note; but to employ it other than sparingly were to play with gunpowder and run the risk of a general conflagration.
