CONCLUSION
Conversation is reciprocal--Good conversationalists cannot talk to
the best advantage without confederates--As in whist it is the
combination which effects what a single whist-playing genius cannot
accomplish--Good conversation does not mark a distinction among
subjects; It denotes a difference in talkability--The different
degrees of talkability--Imperturbable glibness impedes good
conversation--Ease with which one may improve one's conversational
powers 175
CHAPTER I
_INTRODUCTORY_
WHAT CONVERSATION IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT
_What Is the Aim of Conversation?--The Talk of Coleridge and
Macaulay--Browning's Delightful Conversation--Why We Go into
Society--The Elements of Good Conversation--What It Is Not--Genius
and Scholarship Not Essential to Good Conversation._
CHAPTER I
_INTRODUCTORY_
WHAT CONVERSATION IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT
Good conversation is more easily defined by what it is not than by what
it is. To come to any conclusions on this subject, one should first
determine: What is the aim of conversation? Should the intention be to
make intercourse with our fellows a free school in which to acquire
information; should it be to disseminate knowledge; or should the object
be to divert and to amuse? It might seem that any person with a good
subject must talk well and be interesting. Alas! highly cultivated
people are sometimes the most silent. Or, if they talk well, they are
likely to talk _too_ well to be good conversationalists, as did
Coleridge and Macaulay, who talked long and hard about interesting
subjects, but were nevertheless recorded as bores in conversation
because they talked _at_ people instead of talking _with_ them. In
society Browning was delightful in his talk. He would not discuss
poetry, and was as communicative on the subject of a sandwich or the
adventures of some woman's train at the last drawing-room as on more
weighty subjects. Tho to some he may have seemed obscure in his art, all
agreed that he was simple and natural in his discourse. Whatever he
talked about, there could not be a moment's doubt as to his meaning.
From these facts concerning three men of genius, it can be inferred that
we do not go into society to get instruction gratis; that good
conversation is not necessarily a vehicle of information; that to be
natural, easy, gay, is the catechism of good talk. No matter how learned
a man is, he is often thrown with ordinary mortals; and the ordinary
mortals have as much right to talk as the extraordinary ones. One can
conceive, on the other hand, that when geniuses have leisure to mix in
society their desire is to escape from the questions which daily burden
their minds. If they prefer to confine themselves to an interchange of
ideas apart from their special work, they have a right to do so. In this
shrinking of people of genius from discussing the very subjects with
regard to which their opinion is most valuable, there is no doubt a
great loss to the world. But unless they themselves bring forth the
topic of their art, it must remain in abeyance. Society has no right to
force their mentioning it. This leads us, then, to the conclusion that
the aim of conversation is to distract, to interest, to amuse; not to
teach nor to be taught, unless incidentally. In good conversation people
give their charm, their gaiety, their humor, certainly--and their
wisdom, if they will. But conversation which essentially entertains is
not essentially nonsense. Some one has drawn this subtle distinction: "I
enter a room full of pleasant people as I go to see a picture, or listen
to a song, or as I dance--that I may amuse myself, and invigorate
myself, and raise my natural spirits, and laugh dull care away. True,
there must be ideas, as in all amusements worthy of the name there is a
certain seriousness impossible to define; only they must be kept in the
background."
The aim and design of conversation is, therefore, pleasure. This agreed,
we can determine its elements. Conversation, above all, is dialog, not
monolog. It is a partnership, not an individual affair. It is listening
as well as talking. Monopolizing tyrants of society who will allow no
dog to bark in their presence are not conversationalists; they are
lecturers. There are plenty of people who, as Mr. Benson says, "possess
every qualification for conversing except the power to converse." There
are plenty of people who deliver one monolog after another and call
their talk conversation. The good conversationalists are not the ones
who dominate the talk in any gathering. They are the people who have the
grace to contribute something of their own while generously drawing out
the best that is in others. They hazard topics for discussion and
endeavor each to give to the other the chance of enlarging upon them.
Conversation is the interchange of ideas; it is the willingness to
communicate thought on all subjects, personal and universal, and in
turn to listen to the sentiments of others regarding the ideas advanced.
Good conversation is the nimbleness of mind to take the chance word or
the accidental subject and play upon it, and make it pass from guest to
guest at dinner or in the drawing-room. It is the discussion of any
topic whatever, from religion to the fashions, and the avoidance of any
phase of any subject which might stir the irascible talker to
controversy. As exprest by Cowper in his essay, "Conversation":
"Ye powers who rule the tongue, if such there are,
And make colloquial happiness your care,
Preserve me from the thing I dread and hate--
A duel in the form of a debate."
Wearing one's heart on one's sleeve is good for one conversationally.
Ready conversers are people who give their thought to others in
abundance; who make others feel a familiar heartbeat. No one can
approach so near to us as the sincere talker, with his sympathy and his
willing utterances. Luther, who stands out as one of the giants of the
Renaissance, came into close human touch with his friends in talk; in
conversation with him they could always feel his fierce and steady
pulse.
Another element of successful conversation is good-humored tolerance,
the willingness to bear rubs unavoidably occasioned. The talker who
cavils at anything that is said stops conversation more than if he
answered only yes or no to all remarks addrest to him. Still another
element of good conversation is the right sort of gossip; gossip which
is contemporary and past history of people we know and of people we
don't know; gossip which is in no way a temptation to detract. Raillery
may also become a legitimate part of good conversation, if the ridicule
is like a good parody of good literature--in no way malignant or
commonplace. "Shop," if nicely adjusted to the conversational
conditions, may have its rightful share in interesting talk. Friends
often meet together just to talk things over, to get each other's point
of view, to hear each other tell of his own affairs, of his work and of
his progress. "Shop" talk was sometimes the essence of those famous
conversations of the seventeenth century coffee-house. Anecdotes are a
natural part of conversation, but they become the bane of talk unless
kept in strict restraint.
There are times when good conversation is momentary silence rather than
speech. It is only the haranguers who feel it their duty to break in
with idle and insincere chatter upon a pleasant and natural pause. A
part of the good fellowship of acceptable conversation is what one
might call "interest questions." "Interest questions" are just what the
words imply, and have about them no suspicion of the inquisitive and
impertinent catechizing which only fools, and not even knaves, indulge
in.
The negative phase of conversation may largely grow out of a discussion
of the positive. By discovering what conversation is, we find, in a
measure, what it is not. It is not monolog nor monopolizing; it is not
lecturing nor haranguing; it is not detracting gossip; it is not
ill-timed "shop" talk; it is not controversy nor debate; it is not
stringing anecdotes together; it is not inquisitive nor impertinent
questioning. There are still other things which conversation is not: It
is not cross-examining nor bullying; it is not over-emphatic, nor is it
too insistent, nor doggedly domineering, talk. Nor is good conversation
grumbling talk. No one can play to advantage the conversational game of
toss and catch with a partner who is continually pelting him with
grievances. It is out of the question to expect everybody, whether
stranger or intimate, to choke in congenial sympathy with petty woes.
The trivial and perverse annoyances of one's own life are compensating
subjects for conversation only when they lead to a discussion of the
phase of character or the fling of fate on which such-and-such incidents
throw light, because the trend of the thought then encourages a tossing
back of ideas.
Perhaps the most important thing which good conversation is not, is
this: It is not talking for effect, or hedging. There are two kinds of
hedging in conversation: one which comes from failing to follow the
trend of the discussion; another which is the result of talking at
random merely to make bulk. The first is tolerable; the last is
contemptible. The moment one begins to talk for effect, or to hedge
flippantly, he is talking insincerely. And when a good converser runs
against this sort of talker, his heart calls out, with Carlyle, for an
empty room, his tobacco, and his pipe. It is maintained by some one that
there are three kinds of a bore: the person who tells the plot of a
play, the one who tells the story of a novel, and the one who tells his
dreams. This may be going too far with regard to dreams; for dreams, if
handled in the right way, are easily made a part of interesting talk.
But in sophisticated society books and plays are discust only by talking
about the prevailing idea round which the story centers. They are
criticized, not outlined. The most learned and cultivated talkers do not
attempt the difficult and unrewarded feat of giving a concise summary
of plots.
Good conversation, then, is the give and take of talk. A person who
converses well also listens well. The one is inseparable from the other.
Anything can be talked about in cultivated society provided the subjects
are handled with humanity and discrimination. Even the weather and the
three dreadful D's of conversation, Dress, Disease, and Domestics, may
be made an acceptable part of talk if suited to the time, the place, and
the situation. Nor is genius or scholarship essential to good
conversation. The qualities most needed are tact, a sincere desire to
please, and an appreciation of the truth that the man who never says a
foolish thing in conversation will never say a wise one.
CHAPTER II
DISCUSSION _VERSUS_ CONTROVERSY
_Dr. Johnson's and Robert Louis Stevenson's Opinion of
Discussion--Politeness and Discussion--The Hostess in
Discussion--Flat Contradiction in Discussion--Polemical
Squabbles--Brilliant Discussion in France--The Secret of Delightful
Conversation in France--Leading the Talk--Topics for
Discussion--Gladstone's Conversation._
CHAPTER II
DISCUSSION _VERSUS_ CONTROVERSY
Many people object to discussion, but they are invariably those on the
midway rounds of the conversational ladder; people to whom the joy of
the amicable intellectual tussle is unknown, and to whom the highest
standards of the art of talking do not appeal. Where there is much
intellectual activity discussion is sure to arise, for the simple reason
that people will not think alike. Polite discussion is the most
difficult and the most happy attainment of society as it is of
literature; and why should oral discussion be less attractive than
written? Dr. Johnson used to express unbounded contempt for all talk
that was not discussion; and Robert Louis Stevenson has given us frankly
his view: "There is a certain attitude, combative at once and
deferential, eager to fight yet most averse to quarrel, which marks out
at once the talkable man. It is not eloquence, nor fairness, nor
obstinacy, but a certain proportion of all these that I love to
encounter in my amicable adversaries. They must not be pontiffs holding
doctrine, but huntsmen questing after elements of truth. Neither must
they be boys to be instructed, but fellow-students with whom I may argue
on equal terms." From Mr. John B. Yeats, one of the many Irishmen who
have written tellingly on this interesting subject of human intercourse,
we have: "Conversation is an art, as literature is, as painting is, as
poetry is, and subject to the same laws from which nothing human is
excluded, not even argument. There is literature which argues, and
painting which argues, and poetry which argues, so why not conversation
which argues? Only argument is the most difficult to mold into the most
blessed shape of art."
Some people conceive an everlasting opposition between politeness and
earnest discussion. Politeness consists, they think, in always saying,
"yes, yes," or at most a non-committal "indeed?" to every word addrest
to them. This is apt to be our American vice of conversation, where, for
lack of courage in taking up discussion, talk often falls into a series
of anecdotes. In Germany the tendency is to be swept away in discussion
to the point of a verbal dispute.
There is no greater bore in society than the person who agrees with
everybody. Discussion is the arena in which we measure the strength of
one another's minds and run a friendly tilt in pleasing
self-assertiveness; it is the common meeting-ground where it is
understood that Barnabas will take gentle reproof from Paul, and Paul
take gentle reproof from Barnabas. Those who look upon any dissent from
their views as a personal affront to be visited with signs of resentment
are no more fit for brilliant talk than they are fit for life and its
vicissitudes. "Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul
in peace," it is true; but he also keeps himself dead to all human
intercourse and as colorless in the world as an oyster. "Too great a
desire to please," says Stevenson, "banishes from conversation all that
is sterling.... It is better to emit a scream in the shape of a theory
than to be entirely insensible to the jars and incongruities of life and
take everything as it comes in a forlorn stupidity." This is equivalent
to telling the individual who treads too nicely and fears a shock that
he had pleased us better had he pleased us less, which is the subtle
observation of Mr. Price Collier writing in the _North American Review_:
"It is perhaps more often true of women than of men that they conceive
affability as a concession. At any rate, it is not unusual to find a
hostess busying herself with attempts to agree with all that is said,
with the idea that she is thereby doing homage to the effeminate
categorical imperative of etiquette, when in reality nothing becomes
more quickly tiresome than incessant affirmatives, no matter how
pleasantly they are modulated. Nor can one avoid one of two conclusions
when one's talk is thus negligently agreed to: either the speaker is
confining herself entirely to incontradictable platitudes, or the
listener has no mind of her own; and in either case silence were
golden. In this connection it were well to recall the really brilliant
epigram of the Abbe de Saint-Real, that '_On s'ennuie presque toujours
avec ceux que l'on ennuie._' For not even a lover can fail to be bored
at last by the constant lassitude of assent expressing itself in twin
sentiments to his own. 'Coquetting with an echo,' Carlyle called it.
For, tho it may make a man feel mentally masterful at first, it makes
him feel mentally maudlin at last; and, as the Abbe says, to be bored
one's self is a sure sign that one's companion is also weary."
Tho polite dissent is desirable in discussion, flat contradiction is
contemptible. Dean Swift affirms that a person given to contradiction is
more fit for Bedlam than for conversation. In discussion, far more than
in lighter talk, decency as well as honor commands that each partner to
the conversational game conform to the niceties and fairness of it. "I
don't think so," "It isn't so," "I don't agree with you at all," are too
flat and positive for true delicacy and refinement in conversation. "I
have been inclined to think otherwise," "I should be pleased to hear
your reasons," "Aren't you mistaken?" are more acceptable phrases with
which to introduce dissent. In French society a discrepancy of views is
always manifested by some courtesy-phrase, such as "_Mais, ne
pensez-vous pas_" or "_Je vous demande pardon_"--the urbane substitutes
for "No, you are wrong," "No, it isn't." Our own Benjamin Franklin,
whose appreciation of the conversational art in France won completely
the hearts of the French people, tells us in his autobiography that in
later life he found it necessary to throw off habits acquired in youth:
"I continued this positive method for some years, but gradually left
it, retaining only the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest
diffidence: never using when I advanced anything that might possibly be
disputed, the words 'certainly,' 'undoubtedly,' or any others that give
the air of positiveness to an opinion, but rather say, 'it appears to
me,' or 'I should think it so-and-so, for such-and-such a reason,' or 'I
imagine it to be so,' or it is so 'if I am not mistaken.'"
Unyielding obstinacy in discussion is deadening to conversation, and yet
the extreme contrary is crippling. Open resentment of any attempt at
warmth of speech is paralysis and torpor to talk. When one meets a
hostess, or a conversational partner, "whose only pleasure is to be
displeased," one is reminded of the railway superintendent who kept the
wires hot with fault-finding messages bearing his initials "H. F. C."
until he came to be known along the road as "Hell For Certain." People
of a resentful turn of mind, whose every sentence is a wager, and who
convert every word into a missile, are fit for polemical squabbles, but
not for polite discussion. Those raucous persons who, when their
opponents attempt to speak, cry out against it as a monstrous
unfairness, are very well adapted to association with Kilkenny cats, but
not with human beings. It is in order to vanquish by this means one who
might otherwise outmatch them entirely that they thus seek to reduce
their opponent to a mere interjection. "A man of culture," says Mr.
Robert Waters, "is not intolerant of opposition. He frankly states his
views on any given subject, without hesitating to say wherein he is
ignorant or doubtful, and he is ready for correction and enlightenment
wherever he finds it." Such a man never presses his hearers to accept
his views; he not only tolerates but considers opposed opinions and
listens attentively and respectfully to them. Hazlitt said of the
charming discussion of Northcote, the painter: "He lends an ear to an
observation as if you had brought him a piece of news, and enters into
it with as much avidity and earnestness as if it interested only himself
personally."
Of all the tenets of good conversation to which the French give heed,
their devotion to listening is the most notable. From this judiciously
receptive attitude springs their uninterrupting shrug of assent or
disapproval. But listening is only one of their many established
conversational dicta: "The conversation of Parisians is neither
dissertation nor epigram; they have pleasantry without buffoonery; they
associate with skill, with genius, and with reason, maxims and flashes
of wit, sharp satire, and severe ethics. They run through all subjects
that each may have something to say; they exhaust no subject for fear of
tiring their hearer; they propose their themes casually and they treat
them rapidly; each succeeding subject grows naturally out of the
preceding one; each talker delivers his opinion and supports it briefly;
no one attacks with undue heat the supposition of another, nor defends
obstinately his own; they examine in order to enlighten, and stop before
the discussion becomes a dispute." Such was Rousseau's description of
Parisian conversation; and some one else has declared that the French
are the only nation in the world who understand a _salon_ whether in
upholstery or talk. "Every Britisher," said Novalis more than a hundred
years ago, "is an island"; and Heine once defined silence as "a
conversation with Englishmen." We Americans, tho not so reserved in
talk as our English brothers, are less respectful to conversational
amenities; and both of us are far behind the French in the gracious art
of verbal expression. Not only is the spoken English of the cultured
Irish the most cosmopolitan and best modulated of any English in the
world, but the conversation of cultivated Irishmen more adequately
approaches the perfection of the French.
It is as illuminating to study the best models in human intercourse as
to study the best models in literature, or painting, or any other art.
One of the distinct elements in French conversation is that it is
invariably kept general; and by general I mean including in the talk all
the conversational group as opposed to _tete-a-tete_ dialog. Many people
disagree with the French in this. Addison declared that there is no such
thing as conversation except between two persons; and Ralph Waldo
Emerson and Walter Savage Landor said something of the same sort.
Shelley was distinctly a _tete-a-tete_ talker, as Mr. Benson, the
present-day essayist, in some of his intimate discourses, proclaims
himself to be. But Burke and Browning, the best conversationalists in
the history of the Anglo-Saxon race, like all the famous women of the
French _salon_, from Mme. Roland to Mme. de Stael, kept pace with any
number of interlocutors on any number of subjects, from the most
abstruse science to the lightest _jeu d'esprit_. Good talk between two
is no doubt a duet of exquisite sympathy; but true conversation is more
like a fugue in four or eight parts than like a duet. Furthermore,
general and _tete-a-tete_ conversation have both their place and
occasion. At a dinner-table in France private chats are very quickly
dispelled by some thoughtful moderator. Dinner guests who devote
themselves to each other alone are not tolerated by the French hostess
as by the English and American. Because _tete-a-tete_ conversation is
considered good form so generally among English-speaking peoples, I have
in other essays adapted my comments on this subject to our customs; but
talk which is distributed among several who conform to the courtesies
and laws of good conversation is the best kind of talk. In general talk
every one ought to have a voice. It is the undue humility of some and
the arrogance and polemical tendency of others that prevent good general
conversation. People have only to begin with three axioms: the first,
that everybody is entitled, and often bound, to form his own opinion;
second, that everybody is equally entitled to express that opinion; and
third, that everybody's opinion is entitled to a hearing and to
consideration, not only on the ground of courtesy, but because any
opinion honestly and independently formed is worth something and
contributes to the discussion.
Another principle of French conversation is that it is kept personal, in
the sense, I mean, that the personality of the speakers suffuses it.
"The theme being taken," as Stevenson says, "each talker plays on
himself as on an instrument, affirming and justifying himself." This
counter-assertion of personality, to all appearances, is combat, but at
bottom is amicable. An issue which is essentially general and impersonal
is lost in the accidental conflicts of personalities, because the
quality which plays the most important part is presence of mind, not
correct reasoning. A conversationalist whose argument is wholly
fallacious will often, by exercise of verbal adroitness, dispose of an
objection which is really fatal. The full swing of the personalities of
the speakers in a conversation is what makes the flint strike fire. It
is only from heated minds that the true essence of conversation springs;
and it is in talk which glances from one to another of a group, more
than in dialog, that this personality is reflected. "It is curious to
note," says an editorial in _The Spectator_, "how very much dialog there
is in the world, and how little true conversation; how very little, that
is, of the genuine attempt to compare the different bearing of the same
subject on the minds of different people. It is the rarest thing in the
world to come, even in the best authors, on a successful picture of the
different views taken by different minds on the same subject, and the
grounds of the difference."
Quite as noticeable an element in French conversation is the attitude of
the conversers to their subject. They never try to settle matters as if
their decisions were the last court of appeal, and as if they must make
frantic effort to carry their side of the question to victory. They
discuss for the pleasure of discussing; not for the pleasure of
vanquishing, nor even of convincing. They discuss, merely; they do not
debate, nor do they enter into controversy.
One of the greatest conversational charms of the French is their amenity
in leading talk. This grows out of a universal eagerness in France to
take pains in conversation and to learn its unwritten behests. The
uninitiated suspect little of the insight and care which matures even
the natural conversational ability of a Madame de Stael or a Francisque
Sarcey. The initiated know that the same principles which make the
French prodigious conversationalists make them capable and charming
hosts and hostesses. The talker who can follow in conversation knows
how to lead, and vice versa. Without a leader or "moderator," as the
admirable Scotch word has it, conversation is apt to become either tepid
or demoralized; and often, for the want of proper and sophisticated
leading, discussion that would otherwise be brilliant deteriorates into
pandemonium. As paradoxical as it sounds on first thought, it is
nevertheless true that thoroughly good conversation is impossible where
there is too much talk. Some sort of order must be imperceptibly if not
unconsciously maintained, or the sentences clash in general
conversation. Leading conversation is the adroit speech which checks the
refractory conversationalist and changes imperceptibly the subject when
it is sufficiently threshed or grows over-heated; it is guiding the talk
without palpable break into fresh fields of thought; it is the tact
with which, unperceived, the too slow narration of a guest is hurried by
such courteous interpolations as "So you got to the inn, and what then?"
or, "Did the marriage take place after all?"; it is the art with which
the skilful host or hostess sees that all are drawn into the
conversational group; it is the watchfulness that sends the shuttle of
talk in all directions instead of allowing it to rebound between a few;
it is the interest with which a host or hostess solicits the opinions of
guests, and develops whatever their answers may vaguely suggest; it is
the care with which an accidentally interrupted speech of a guest is
resuscitated; it is the consideration which puts one who arrives late in
touch with the subject which was being discust just before his
appearance. It is this concern for conversational cues which gives any
host or hostess an almost unbounded power in social intercourse; for he
is the best talker who can lead others to talk well.
It goes without saying that a people who have assimilated all the
foregoing tenets of good conversation are never disjointed in their
talk. Their consummate art of listening is responsible for their skill
in following the logical trend of the discourse. This may be considered
a national trait. In decent French society there are no abrupt
transitions of thought in the different speeches. The speech of each
speaker grows naturally out of what some one of his conversational
partners has just been saying, or it is duly prefaced by an introductory
sentence connecting it with a certain preceding speech. They know that,
once embarked, no converser can tell where the give and take of talk
will carry him; but they also know that this does not necessitate
awkward and direct changes of subject. The weakness of inattention and
of unconscious shunting in conversation is virtually unknown in good
society in France.
Is it any wonder that in a country where conversation is considered an
art capable of cultivation and having certain fixt principles, so many
French women of humble birth, like Sophie Arnould and Julie Lespinasse,
have earned their way to fame by their conversational powers? Is it any
wonder that in France polite discussion is made the most exhilarating
and delightful exercise in the world?
One reason there is so little acceptable conversational discussion is
the indisposition of people in society to say what they think; their
unwillingness to express their whole minds on any one subject. It is
this element of unfettered expression or revelation which makes
literature entertaining; why then withhold thought too cautiously from
conversation? The habit of evasion is cowardly as well as unsocial; and
nothing so augments conversation as being pleasantly downright; letting
people know where to find you. The most preposterous views get respect
if uttered intrepidly. Sincere speech is necessary to good conversation
of any kind, and especially is it essential to discussion. One of the
stupidest of conversational sins is quibbling--talking insincerely, just
for the sake of using words, and shifting the point at issue to some
incidental, subordinate argument on which the decision does not at all
depend. It is the intellectually honest person who sparkles in
discussion.
Another reason why discussion is waning is the disrespect we feel for
great subjects. We only mention them, or hint at them; and this cannot
lead to very brilliant talk. Tho prattle and persiflage have their place
in conversation, talkers of the highest order tire of continually
encouraging chit-chat. "What a piece of business; monstrous! I have not
read it; impossible to get a box at the opera for another fortnight; how
do you like my dress? It was immensely admired yesterday at the B----s;
how badly your cravat is tied! Did you know that ---- lost heavily by
the crash of Thursday? That dear man's death gave me a good fit of
crying; do you travel this summer? Is Blank really a man of genius? It
is incomprehensible; they married only two years ago." This sort of
nimble talk is all very well; but because one likes sillibub
occasionally is no proof that one is willing to discard meat entirely.
Conversational topics can be too trivial for recreation as well as too
serious; and even important subjects can be handled in a light way if
necessary. "Clever people are the best encyclopedias," said Goethe; and
the great premier Gladstone was a charming man in society, though he
never talked on any but serious subjects. He was noted for his ability
to pump people dry without seeming in the least to probe. "True
conversation is not content with thrust and parry, with mere sword-play
of any kind, but should lay mind to mind and show the real lines of
agreement and the real lines of divergence. Yet this is the very kind of
conversation which seems to me so very rare." In order that a great
subject shall be a good topic of conversation, it must provoke an
enthusiasm of belief or disbelief; people must have decided opinions one
way or the other. I believe with Stevenson that theology, of all
subjects, is a suitable topic for conversational discussion, and for the
reason he gives: that religion is the medium through which all the world
considers life, and the dialect in which people express their
judgments. Try to talk for any length of time with people to whom you
must not mention creeds, morals, politics, or any other vital interest
in life, and see how inane and fettered talk becomes.
The tranquil and yet spirited discussion of great subjects is the most
stimulating of all talk. The thing to be desired is not the avoidance of
discussion but the encouragement of it according to its unwritten codes
and precepts. "The first condition of any conversation at all," says
Professor Mahaffy of Dublin, "is that people should have their minds so
far in sympathy that they are willing to talk upon the same subject, and
to hear what each member of the company thinks about it. The higher
condition which now comes before us is, that the speaker, apart from the
matter of the conversation, feels an interest in his hearers as distinct
persons, whose opinions and feelings he desires to know.... Sympathy,
however, should not be excessive in quality, which makes it
demonstrative. We have an excellent word which describes the
over-sympathetic person, and marks the judgment of society, when we say
that he or she is _gushing_. To be too sympathetic makes discussion,
which implies difference of opinion, impossible." Those who try to
discover how far conversation is advanced by sympathy and hindered by
over-sympathy; those who attempt to detect to what extent wholesome
discussion is degraded by acrid controversy, need not be afraid of
vigorous intellectual buffeting. Discussion springs from human nature
when it is under the influence of strong feeling, and is as much an
ingredient of conversation as the vocalizing of sounds is a part of the
effort of expressing thought.
CHAPTER III
GOSSIP
_Gossip in Literature--Gossip Comes from Being of One Kindred Under
God--Gossip and the Misanthrope--Personal History of People We Know
and People We Don't Know--Gossip of Books of Biography--Interest in
Others Gives Fellowship and Warmth to Life--Essential Difference
Between Slander and Innocent Gossip--The Psychology of the
Slanderer--The Apocryphal Slanderer--"Talking Behind Another's
Back"--Personal Chat the Current Coin of Conversation._
CHAPTER III
GOSSIP
It seems strange that, in all the long list of brilliant dissertations
on every subject under the sun, no English essayist should have yielded
a word under the seductive title of "Gossip." Even Leigh Hunt, who wrote
vivaciously and exquisitely on so many light topics, was not attracted
by the enticing possibilities of this subject to which both the learned
and the unlearned are ready at all times to bestow a willing ear or eye.
One usually conceives gossip as something to which one lends only one's
ear, and never one's eye; but what are "Plutarch's Lives" but the right
sort of gossip? That so many literary men and women have vaguely
suspected the alluring tone-color of the word "gossip" is proved by: _A
Gossip in Romance_, Robert Louis Stevenson; _Gossip in a Library_,
Edmund William Gosse; _Gossip of the Caribbees_, William R. H.
Trowbridge, Jr.; _Gossip from Paris During the Second Empire_, Anthony
North Peet; _Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign_, Jane West;
_Gossip of the Century_, Julia Clara Byrne; _Gossiping Guide to Wales_,
Askew Roberts and Edward Woodall; _Gossip with Girls and Maidens
Betrothed and Free_, Blanche St. John Bellairs. Yet no one has ever
thought of writing about gossip for its own sweet sake.
Among every-day words perhaps the word "gossip" is more to be reckoned
with than any other in our language. The child who runs confidingly to
mother to report his grievance is a gossip; he is also an historian.
Certainly gossip is in its tone familiar and personal; it is the
familiar and personal touch which makes _Plutarch's Lives_ interesting.
At the root of the word "gossip," say etymologists, there lies an honest
Saxon meaning, "God's sib"--"of one kindred under God."
It would be only a misanthrope who would assert that he has no interest
in his fellows. He is invariably a selfish person who shuns personality
in talk and refuses to know anything about people; who says: "What is it
to me whether this person has heard Slezak in _Tannhaeuser_; what do I
care whether Mrs. So-and-So has visited the French play; what concern is
it of mine if Mr. Millions of eighty marries Miss Beautiful of eighteen;
what is it to me whether you have watched the agonies of a furnishing
party at Marshall Field's and have observed the bridegroom of tender
years victimized by his wife and mother-in-law with their appeals to his
excellent taste; of what interest to me are the accounts of the
dissolute excesses which interspersed the wild outbreaks of religious
fanaticism of Henry the Third of France?" This selfish person is also
very stupid, for nothing so augments conversation as a normal interest
in other people.
"I shook him well from side to side
Until his face was blue.
Come, tell me how you live, I cried,
And what it is you do."
This plan of Alice's _Through the Looking Glass_ ballad singer for
shaking conversation out of people, tho somewhat too strenuous, is less
fatiguing than Sherlock Holmes's inductive methods. Like Sherlock
without his excuse, the kind and generous must confess to a colossal
interest in the affairs of others. Gossip is the dialog of the drama of
mankind; and we have a right to introduce any innocent and graceful
means of thawing their stories from the actors, and of unraveling
dramatic knots. People with keen judgment of men and things gather the
harvest of a quiet eye; they see in the little world of private life
histories as wonderful and issues as great as those that get our
attention in literature, or in the theater, or in public life. Personal
gossip in its intellectual form has a charm not unhealthy; and it gives
new lights on character more often favorable than unfavorable.
There is no difference, between enjoying this personal talk and enjoying
_The Mill on the Floss_ or books of biography. Boswell, in his _Life of
Johnson_, and Mrs. Thrale, in her _Letters_, were inveterate gossips
about the great man. And what an incomparable little tattler was Fanny
Burney--Madame d'Arblay! Lord William Lennox, in his _Drafts on My
Memory_, is full of irrepressible and fascinating _memorabilia_, from
the story of General Bullard's salad-dressing to important dramatic
history connected with the theater of his time. The _Spectator_ was the
quintessence of gossip in an age of gossip and good conversation. We
could go a great deal further back to the gossips of Theocritus, who are
as living and life-like as if we had just met them in the park. All
biography is a putting together of trifles which in the aggregate make
up the engrossing life-stories of men and women of former and
contemporary preeminence. It is to the gossips of all ages that we owe
much of value in literary history.
Without the personal interest in the affairs of others which makes
gossip possible, there would be no fellowship or warmth in life; social
intercourse and conversation would be inhuman and lifeless. Mr. Benson
in his essay "Conversation" tells us that an impersonal talker is likely
to be a dull dog. Mr. Henry van Dyke says that the quality of
talkability does not mark a distinction among things; that it denotes a
difference among people. And Chateaubriand, in his _Memoirs
d'Outre-tombe_, confides to us that he has heard some very pleasant
reports become irksome and malicious in the mouths of ill-disposed
verbal historians.
One can interest one's self in the dramatic incidents in the lives of
one's acquaintances without ventilating or vilifying their character.
Gossip is capable of a more genial purpose than traducing people. It is
the malignity which turns gossip into scandal against which temperate
conversationalists revolt; the sort of thing which Sheridan gibbeted in
his celebrated play, _The School for Scandal_:
"Give me the papers, (lisp)--how bold and free!
Last night Lord L. was caught with Lady D.!
. . . . . . . .
"So strong, so swift, the monster there's no gagging:
Cut scandal's head off, still the tongue is wagging."
But this is scandal, not gossip, and scandal comes from people incapable
of anything better either in mind or conversation. Among those who
understand the art of conversation, libelous talk is rarely heard; with
those who cultivate it to perfection, never. It is the first commandment
of the slanderer to repeat promptly all the vitriolic talk he hears, but
to keep strictly to himself all pleasant words or kindly gossip. Those
who draw no distinction between scandal and gossip should reflect that
gossip may be good-natured and commendatory as well as hostile and
adverse. In the published letters of the late James Russell Lowell is an
account of his meeting Professor Mahaffy of Trinity College, Dublin, who
is known to be one of the most agreeable of men. They met at the house
of a friend in Birmingham, England, and when Lowell took leave of Mr.
Mahaffy he said to his host: "Well, that's one of the most delightful
fellows I ever met, and I don't mind if you tell him so!" When Lowell's
remark was repeated to Mr. Mahaffy, he exclaimed, "Poor Lowell! to think
that he can never have met an Irishman before!" And this was gossip as
surely as the inimical prattle about Lord and Lady Byron was gossip. No,
indeed, slander and libelous talk are not necessary ingredients of
gossip. People who take malicious pleasure in using speech for malign
purposes suffer from a mental disorder which does not come under the
scope of conversation.
Regarding the mental deficiencies of those who love to wallow in the
mire of salacious news about others, the psychologists have come to some
interesting conclusions. To them it seems that there is an essential
identity between the gossip and the genius. In both, the mental
processes work with the same tendency to reproduce every fragment of
past experience, because both think by what is known as "total recall."
From the thought of one thing their minds pass to all sorts of remote
connections, sane and silly, rational and grotesque, relevant and
irrelevant. The essential difference between the gossip mind and the
genius mind is the power of genius to distinguish between the worthy and
the unworthy, the trivial and the relevant, the true and the false. The
thoughts of the gossip, so the psychologists tell us, have connection
but not coherence; the thoughts of the genius have coherence and
likewise connection and unity. Thus we discover that scandal-mongers are
at fault in the mind more than in the heart; and that it behooves people
who do not wish to have themselves voted mentally defective to draw a
distinction between scandal and innocent gossip. As I have already said,
there is nothing so interesting as the dramatic incidents in the lives
of human beings. Despite the nature-study enthusiasts who seem to refuse
mankind a place in nature, "the proper study of mankind is man" and will
forever remain so. But this does not mean that mental weaklings should
be allowed to discover and talk about only salacious episodes in the
history of their acquaintances. The vicious scandal-monger who defames
another, or hears him defamed or scandalized, and then runs to him with
enlarged and considerably colored tales of what was said about him, is
the poison of the serpent and should not be tolerated in society. A
sanitarium for mental delinquents is the only proper place for such a
person.
And let me add that the apocryphal slanderer, the person who never says
but hints all sorts of malicious things, is the worst sort of
scandal-monger. The cultivated conversationalist who talks gossip in its
intellectual form does not indulge in oblique hints and insinuations. He
says what he has to say intrepidly because he says it discriminatingly.
Keen judgment which discovers the fundamental distinction between
scandal and suitable personality in talk raises gossip to the perfection
of an art and the dignity of a science. Undiscriminating people,
therefore, had better leave personalities alone and stick to the more
general and less resilient topics of conversation. Good gossip is
attainable only by minds that are capable of much higher talk than
gossip. Cultivated, well-poised, well-disposed persons need never be
afraid of indulging their conversation to a certain extent with gossip,
because they indulge it in the right way. And provided their personal
and familiar talk is listened to by equally cultivated, well-poised, and
well-disposed people, their gossip need not necessarily be limited to
the mention of only pleasant and complimentary history; no more, indeed,
than Plutarch found it necessary to tell of the glory of Demosthenes
without mention that there were those who whispered graft and bribery in
connection with his name. There are a few very good and very dull people
who try to stop all adverse criticism. All raillery strikes them as
cruel. They would like to see every parody murdered by the common
hangman. Even the best of comedy is constitutionally repellent to them.
They want only highly colored characters from which every mellow shade
of fault has been obliterated. One cannot say that they have a real love
of human nature, because they do not know what human nature is. They are
ready to take up arms with it at every turn. Such people cannot see that
ridicule, or gossip, can be either innocent or malignant; that history
can be either prejudiced or unbiased.
With many, refusing to hear adverse criticism is a mere pose, while with
others it is cynicism. In intercourse with the uneducated, any well-bred
person is properly shocked by their pleasure in detraction and in bad
news of all sorts. But the detestable people who seek every occasion to
vilify, and who wish to hear only harm of the world, are so exceptional
as to be negligible. These rare villains are eliminated when one speaks
of inability to distinguish between detraction and adverse criticism.
Those who can praise well are always adepts at criticizing adversely.
They never carry their criticism too far, nor give purposely an acrid
touch to it.
There is a grim tradition that a person should never say anything behind
another's back which he would not say before his face. This is all very
well so far as it relates to venomous tales repeated purposely to
injure; but how colorless are the people who never have critical
opinions on anything or anybody; or people who, having them, never
express them! Criticism and cavil are two very different things. Absence
of criticism is absence of the power of distinction. This age of science
has taught people to look truth straight in the face and learn to
discriminate. That person to whom everything is sweet does not know what
sweet is. The sophisticated world, unlike the unsophisticated, is not
afraid of "passing remarks." There is no doubt that criticism, whether
it comes directly or roundabout, adds a terror to life as soon as one
goes below a certain level of cultivation. The uneducated are frightened
at the mere thought of criticism; the cultivated are not. Perhaps the
reason for this difference is that ordinary people have a brutal and
entirely uncritical criticism to fear. In that society sensitiveness is
not very common. They are not dishonorable; they are merely hardy and
can see no distinctions. It is not given to these people to praise
rationally and to censure discriminatingly. Vilifying remarks are made
and repeated among them which clever people would be incapable of
uttering. The educated not only use a softened mode of speech, but they
avoid repeating remarks, unless with a discerning wish to be helpful to
others. The cultivated who have brought life to a far higher point than
the uncultivated have protected their liberty by a social rule. They say
what they like, and it does not get to the ears of the person about whom
they have said it. And if it did it wouldn't much matter. Criticism
which is critically given is usually critically received. The
maliciousness of adverse criticism seldom lies in the person who voices
it, but in the person who carries a tale. The moment sophisticated
people learn that one among them has venomously repeated an adversely
critical remark, they immediately know that that person is not to the
manner born. There is no surer proof.
If the born advocate is not always a saint, the born critic is not
always a sinner. Robert Louis Stevenson understood the importance of
the personal touch in conversation when he wrote: "So far as
conversational subjects are truly talkable, more than half of them may
be reduced to three: that I am I, that you are you, and that there are
other people dimly understood to be not quite the same as either." So,
also, did Mr. J. M. Barrie, when he told us that his beloved Margaret
Ogilvy, in spite of no personal interest in Gladstone, "had a profound
faith in him as an aid to conversation. If there were silent men in the
company, she would give him to them to talk about precisely as she would
divide a cake among children."
It is often hinted by men that women are made good conversationalists by
a sense of irresponsibility. But I am inclined to think that a little
gossip now and then is relished by the best of men as well as women.
The tendency to gossip with which men constantly credit women, and in
which tendency the men themselves keep pace, helps both men and women
very effectually to good conversation. "It is more important," says
Stevenson again, "that a person should be a good gossip and talk
pleasantly and smartly of common friends and the thousand and one
nothings of the day and hour, than speak with the tongues of men and
angels.... Talk is the creature of the street and market-place, feeding
on gossip; and its last resort is still in a discussion on morals. That
is the heroic form of gossip; heroic in virtue of its high pretensions;
but still gossip because it turns on personalities."
Gossip, we must admit, has a perennial interest for all of us. Personal
chat is the current coin of conversational capital. Society lives by
gossip as it lives by bread. The most absurd rule in the world is to
avoid personalities in conversation. To annihilate gossip would be to
cut conversational topics in half. There is musical gossip, art gossip,
theatrical gossip, literary gossip, and court gossip; there is political
gossip, and fashionable gossip, and military gossip; there is mercantile
gossip and commercial gossip of all kinds; there is physicians' gossip
and professional gossip of every sort; there is scientists' gossip; and
there is the gossip of the schools indulged in by masters and students
all over the educational world. Of all the gossip in the world the most
prodigious and prolific is religious gossip. Archbishops, bishops,
deans, rectors, and curates are discussed unreservedly; and the
questions put and answered are not whether they are apostolic teachers,
but whether they are high, low, broad, or no church; whether they wear
scarlet or black, intone or read, say "shibboleth" or "sibboleth."
The roots of gossip are deep in human interest; and, despite the nearly
universal opinion of moralists, great reputations are more often built
out of gossip than destroyed by it. Discriminating people do not create
enemies by personalities, nor separate friends, because they gossip with
a heart full of love, with charity for all, and with malice toward none.
Gossip as a legitimate part of conversation is defended by one of the
greatest of present-day scholars; and I cannot do better than to quote,
in closing, what Mr. Mahaffy has said about it: "The topic which ought
to be always interesting is the discussion of human character and human
motives. If the novel be so popular a form of literature, how can the
novel in real life fail to interest an intelligent company? People of
serious temper and philosophic habit will be able to confine themselves
to large ethical views and the general dealings of men; but to average
people, both men and women, and perhaps most of all to busy men who
desire to find in society relaxation from their toil, that lighter and
more personal kind of criticism on human affairs will prevail which is
known as gossip. It is idle to deny that there is no kind of
conversation more fascinating than this. But its immorality may easily
become such as to shock honest minds, and the man who indulges in it too
freely at the expense of others will probably have to pay the cost of it
himself in the long run; for those who hear him will fear him, and will
retire into themselves in his presence. On the other hand, nothing is
more honorable than to stand forth as the defender or the palliator of
the faults imputed to others, and nothing is easier than to expand such
a defense into general considerations as to the purity of human motives,
which will raise the conversation from its unwholesome grounds into the
upper air."
CHAPTER IV
WHAT SHOULD GUESTS TALK ABOUT AT DINNER?
_Guests' Talk During the Quarter of an Hour before Dinner--What
Guests May Talk About--Talking to One's Dinner-Companion--Guests'
Duty to Host and Hostess--The Dominant Note in Table-Talk--General
and_ Tete-a-Tete _Conversation between Guests--The Raconteur at
Dinner._
CHAPTER IV
WHAT SHOULD GUESTS TALK ABOUT AT DINNER?
"Good talk is not to be had for the asking. Humors must first be
accorded in a kind of overture for prolog; hour, company, and
circumstances be suited; and then at a fit juncture, the subject, the
quarry of two heated minds, spring up like a deer out of the wood."
Stevenson knew as well as Alice in Wonderland that something has to open
the conversation. "You can't even drink a bottle of wine without opening
it," argued Alice; and every dinner guest, during the quarter of an hour
before dinner, has felt the sententiousness of her remark. Someone in
writing about this critical period so conversationally difficult has
contended that no person in his senses would think of wasting good talk
in the drawing-room before dinner, but Professor Mahaffy thinks
otherwise: "In the very forefront there stares us in the face that
awkward period which even the gentle Menander notes as the worst
possible for conversation, the short time during which people are
assembling, and waiting for the announcement of dinner. If the witty man
were not usually a selfish person, who will not exhibit his talent
without the reward of full and leisurely appreciation, this is the real
moment to show his powers. A brilliant thing said at the very start
which sets people laughing, and makes them forget that they are waiting,
may alter the whole complexion of the party, may make the silent and
distant people feel themselves drawn into the sympathy of common
merriment, and thaw the iciness which so often fetters Anglo-Saxon
society. But as this faculty is not given to many, so the average man
may content himself with having something ready to tell, and this, if
possible, in answer to the usual question exprest or implied: Is there
any news this afternoon? There are few days that the daily paper will
not afford to the intelligent critic something ridiculous either in
style or matter which has escaped the ordinary public; some local event,
nay, even some local tragedy, may suggest a topic not worth more than a
few moments of attention, which will secure the interest of minds
vacant, and perhaps more hungry to be fed than their bodies. Here then,
if anywhere in the whole range of conversation, the man or woman who
desires to be agreeable may venture to think beforehand, and bring with
them something ready, merely as the first kick or starting point to make
the evening run smoothly." However this may be, it is only with that
communicative feeling which comes after eating and drinking that talkers
warm up to discriminating discussion; and in the drawing-room just
before dinner, one can scarcely expect the conversation to turn on
anything but trifles.
At the moment a man presents his arm to the woman he is to take in to
dinner, he must have something ready in the way of a remark, for if he
goes in in silence, he is lost. There are a thousand and one nothings he
may say at this time. I know a clever man who talks interestingly for
fifteen minutes about the old-fashioned practice of offering a woman the
hand to lead her in to dinner, and whether or not that custom was more
courteous and graceful than our modern way of proceeding.
The question is often asked, "What should guests talk about at a
dinner?" I restrict my interrogation to guests, because there is a
distinction between the directing of a dinner-guest's conversation and
the guiding of the talk by host or hostess into necessary or interesting
channels. Dinners, especially in diplomatic circles, are as often given
to bring about dexterously certain ends in view as they are given for
mere pleasure; and when this is the case it is necessary as well as
gracious to steer conversation along the paths that it should go. A
guest's first duty is to his dinner-companion, the person with whom,
according to the prearranged plan of the hostess, he enters the
dining-room and by whom he finds himself seated at table. His next duty
is to his hosts. He has also an abstract conversational duty to his
next nearest neighbor at table. It is every guest's duty, too, to keep
his ears open and be ready to join in general talk should the host or
hostess attempt to draw all their guests into any general discussion.
The best answer to the question, "What should guests at dinner talk
about?" is, anything and everything, provided the talk is tinctured with
tact, discretion, and discrimination. To one's dinner-companion, if he
happens to be a familiar acquaintance, one can even forget to taboo
dress, disease, and domestics. One might likewise, with discretion, set
at liberty the usually forbidden talk of "shop," on condition that such
intimate conversation is to one's dinner-companion alone and is not
dragged into the general flights of the table-talk. While one talks to
one's dinner-companion in a low voice, however, it needs nice
discrimination not to seem to talk under one's breath, or to say
anything to a left-hand neighbor which would not be appropriate for a
right-hand neighbor to hear. When in general talk, the habit some
supposedly well-bred persons have of glancing furtively at any one guest
to interrogate telepathically another's opinion of some remark is bad
taste beyond the power of censure or the possibility of forgiveness.
At large, formal dinners, on the order of banquets, it would be
impossible for all guests to include a host or hostess in their
conversational groups from any and every part of the table; only those
guests seated near them can do this. But at small, informal dinners all
guests should, whenever possible, consider it their duty to direct much
of their conversation to their host and hostess. I have seen guests at
small dinners of no more than six or eight covers go through the
various courses of a three hours' dining, ignoring their host and
hostess in the entire table-talk, while conversing volubly with others.
There is something more due a host and hostess than mere greetings on
entering and leave-takings on departing. If the dinner-party is so large
that all guests cannot show them at the table the attention due them,
the delinquent ones can at least seek an opportunity in the
drawing-room, after guests have left the dining-room, to pay their host
and hostess the proper courtesy. Hosts should never be made to feel that
it is to their cook they owe their distinction, and to their table alone
that guests pay visits.
To say that the dominant note in table-talk should be light and humorous
is going too far; but conversation between dinner-companions should tend
strongly to the humorous, to the light, to the small change of ideas.
There should be an adroit intermixing of light and serious talk. I noted
once with keen interest a shrewd mingling of serious talk and small talk
at a dinner given to a distinguished German scientist.
A clever woman of my acquaintance found herself the one selected to
entertain at table this foreigner and scholar. When she was presented in
the drawing-room to the eminent man who was to take her in to dinner,
her hostess opened the conversation by informing the noted guest that
his new acquaintance, just that morning, had had conferred upon her the
degree of doctor of philosophy, which was the reason she had been
assigned as dinner-companion to so profound a man. The foreigner
followed the conversational cue, recounting to his companion his
observations on the number of American women seeking higher education,
_et cetera_. Such a conversational situation was little conducive to
small talk; but on the way from the drawing-room to the dining-table,
this clever woman directed the talk into light vein by assuring the
scholar and diplomat that there was nothing dangerous about her even if
she did possess a university degree; that she would neither bite nor
philosophize on all occasions; that she was quite as full of life and
frolic as if she had never seen a university. You can imagine the effect
of this vivacity upon the profoundest of men, and you can see how this
clever woman's ability at small talk made a comrade of a notable
academician. As the dinner progressed the talk between these two wavered
from jest to earnest in a most charming manner. Apropos of a late book
on some serious subject not expurgated for babes and sucklings, but
written for thinking men and women, the German scientist asked if he
might present his companion with a copy, provided he promised to glue
carefully together the pages unfit for frolicking feminine minds. Two
days later she received the book with some of the margins pasted--which
pages, of course, were the first ones she read.
When making an attempt to sparkle in small talk, dinner-guests should
remember that the line of demarcation between light talk and buffoonery
may become dangerously delicate. One can talk lightly, but nicely; while
buffoonery is just what the lexicographers define it to be: "Amusing
others by clownish tricks and by commonplace pleasantries." Gentle
dulness ever loved a joke; and the fact that very often humorists, paid
so highly in literature to perform, will not play a single
conversational trick, is the best proof that they have the good sense
to vote their hosts and companions capable of being entertained by
something nobler than mere pleasantry. "When wit," says Sydney Smith,
"is combined with sense and information; when it is in the hands of one
who can use it and not abuse it (and one who can despise it); who can be
witty and something more than witty; who loves decency and good nature
ten thousand times better than wit,--wit is then a beautiful and
delightful part of conversation."
Opinions as to what good nature is would perhaps vary. "You may be
good-natured, sir," said Boswell to Doctor Johnson, "but you are not
good-humored." The speech of men and women is diverse and variously
characteristic. All people say "good morning," but no two of God's
creatures say it alike. Their words range from a grunt to gushing
exuberance; and one is as objectionable as the other. Even weighty
subjects can be talked about in tones of badinage and good breeding.
Plato in his wonderful conversations always gave his subject a fringe of
graceful wit, but beneath the delicate shell there was invariably a hard
nut to be cracked. If good nature above all is sincere, it will escape
being gushing. The hypocrisy which says, "My dear Mrs. So-and-so, I'm
perfectly delighted to see you; do sit right down on this bent pin!" is
not good nature; it is pure balderdash.
Thoughtful dinner-guests take pains not to monopolize the conversation.
They bring others of the company into their talk, giving them
opportunities of talking in their turn, and listening themselves while
they do so: "You, Mr. Brown, will agree with me in this"; or, "Mr.
Black, you have had more experience in such cases than I have; what is
your opinion?" The perfection of this quality of conversational charm
consists in that rare gift, the art of drawing others out, and is as
valuable and graceful in guests as in hosts.
The French have some dinner-table conventions which to us seem strange.
At any small dining of eight or ten people the talk is always supposed
to be general. The person who would try to begin a _tete-a-tete_
conversation with the guest sitting next to him at table would soon find
out his mistake. General conversation is as much a part of the repast as
the viands; and wo to the unwary mortals who, tempted by short
distances, start to chatter among themselves. A diner-out must be able
to hold his own in a conversation in which all sorts of distant, as well
as near, contributors take part. Of course, this implies small dinners;
but English-speaking people, even in small gatherings, do not attempt
general conversation to such an extent. They consider it a difficult
matter to accomplish the diagonal feat of addressing guests at too great
a distance.