One last remark occurs: It is the mark of genuine conversation that the sayings can scarce be quoted with their full effect beyond the circle of common friends. To have their proper weight they, should appear in a biography, and with the portrait of the speaker. Good talk is dramatic; it is like an impromptu piece of acting where each should represent himself to the greatest advantage; and that is the best kind of talk where each speaker is most fully and candidly himself, and where, if you were to shift the speeches, round from one to another, there would be the greatest loss in significance and perspicuity. It is for this reason that talk depends so wholly on our company. We should like to introduce Falstaff and Mercutio, or Falstaff and Sir Toby; but Falstaff in talk with Cordelia seems even painful. Most of us, by the Protean quality of man, can talk to some degree with all; but the true talk, that strikes out all the slumbering best of us, comes only with the peculiar brethren of our spirits, is founded as deep as love in the constitution of our being, and is a thing to relish with all our energy, while yet we have it, and to be grateful for forever. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 38: The first of two papers on this subject written in 1881-2; reprinted here, by permission of the publishers, from "Memories and Portraits" in the Biographical Edition of Stevenson's Works, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907.] [Footnote 39: Kudos (Greek): glory.] [Footnote 40: Court of love: a mediaeval institution for the discussion of questions of chivalry.] [Footnote 41: The Late Fleeming Jenkin--Author's note.] [Footnote 42: Proxime accessit: he comes very close to it.] THE SOCIAL VALUE OF THE COLLEGE-BRED[43] WILLIAM JAMES Of what use is a college training? We who have had it seldom hear the question raised--we might be a little nonplussed to answer it offhand. A certain amount of meditation has brought me to this as the pithiest reply which I myself can give: The best claim that a college education can possibly make on your respect, the best thing it can aspire to accomplish for you, is this: that it should _help you to know a good man when you see him_. This is as true of women's as of men's colleges; but that it is neither a joke nor a one-sided abstraction I shall now endeavor to show.