One of the two should be a good listener, sympathetic, but not silent, giving confidence in order to attract it--and of this art a woman is the best master. But its finest secrets do not come to her until she has passed beyond the uncertain season of compliments and conquests, and entered into the serenity of a tranquil age.
What is this foolish thing that men say about the impossibility of true intimacy and converse between the young and the old?
Hamerton, for example, in his book on Human Intercourse, would have us believe that a difference in years is a barrier between hearts.
For my part, I have more often found it an open door, and a security of generous and tolerant welcome for the young soldier, who comes in tired and dusty from the battle-field, to tell his story of defeat or victory in the garden of still thoughts where old age is resting in the peace of honourable discharge. I like what Robert Louis Stevenson says about it in his essay on Talk and Talkers.
