A beautiful description of the young Isaiah Berlin's style of debate, in Michael Bonavia's (1990) London Before I Forget:

... The rapid, even flow of his ideas, the succession of confident references to authors [of] whom most of his contemporaries had never heard, left them mildly stupefied. Yet there was no backlash, no resentment at these breathless marathons, because Berlin's essential modesty and good manners eliminated jealousy and disarmed hostility. ...

_{(as cited in Wikipedia's current biographical article about Sir Isaiah Berlin; cf Isaiah Berlin (2005-11-24), Systematic Overestimate (2009-01-30), Good Manners and Taiji (2014-04-03), Inimitable Sir Isaiah Berlin (2019-04-11), ...) - ^z - 2024-02-06}