! ! A Conversation; Or, Dialectic

They walk down the passage, enter the room, as if called to some formal gathering of honour to be bestowed; humility and dignity together make them beautiful; watchers see this, feel this too. Seated, they glance into each other’s eyes; they barely know each other, yet glance with the level, cool respect of equality; and of precise love: a love of what they treasure in themself offered to another who is not other. And they begin to talk about some mighty topic: listen intently to the other; then at the finish of each offering, a pause as if the angels listen: you can hear humility, dignity in that sacred pause; and then the other offers speech; their eyes shine; the honour of this event warms their blood almost to tears of truth. The air around them turns to ether; as if their very talk has purified the space; the space where, as they talk, it seems as though there’s one who listens.. They are explorers in an unknown land, a new world where they listen to their own speech as a new thing explained, yet spoken as if always known; nor is the air around them, private: they could be that couple over there in the tea-shop’s gentle buzz, so elevated, that at other tables, teacup poised, politely covert glance brings all the teashop’s visitors into that place where love and knowledge meet. The conversation reaches its appointed end, which both recognise; some sublime honour has been bestowed; and from within themselves; rapt and yet surrendering, they walk away through crowded streets, the air around them, should you notice, breathes humility and dignity. As if, accosted by any stranger, they would continue that same conversation on mountain, woodland, beach, or busy street; in that place where love and knowledge meet.