Conversations of men of genius.--Their deficient agreeableness may result
from qualities which conduce to their greatness.--Slow-minded men not the
dullest.--The conversationists not the ablest writers.--Their true
excellence in conversation consists of associations with their pursuits.
In conversation the sublime DANTE was taciturn or satirical; BUTLER sullen
or caustic; GRAY and ALFIERI seldom talked or smiled; DESCARTES, whose
habits had formed him for solitude and meditation, was silent; ROUSSEAU
was remarkably trite in conversation, not an idea, not a word of fancy or
eloquence warmed him; ADDISON and MOLIERE in society were only observers;
and DRYDEN has very honestly told us, "My conversation is slow and dull,
my humour saturnine and reserved; in short, I am none of those who
endeavour to break jests in company, or make repartees." POPE had lived
among "the great," not only in rank but in intellect, the most delightful
conversationists; but the poet felt that he could not contribute to these
seductive pleasures, and at last confessed that he could amuse and
instruct himself much more by another means: "As much company as I have
kept, and as much as I love it, I love reading better, and would rather be
employed in reading, than in the most agreeable conversation." Pope's
conversation, as preserved by Spence, was sensible; and it would seem that
he had never said but one witty thing in his whole life, for only one has
been recorded. It was ingeniously said of VAUCANSON, that he was as much
an automaton as any which he made. HOGARTH and SWIFT, who looked on the
circles of society with eyes of inspiration, were absent in company; but
their grossness and asperity did not prevent the one from being the
greatest of comic painters, nor the other as much a creator of manners in
his way. Genius, even in society, is pursuing its own operations, and it
would cease to be itself were it always to act like others.
Men of genius who are habitually eloquent, who have practised conversation
as an art, for some, even sacrifice their higher pursuits to this
perishable art of acting, have indeed excelled, and in the most opposite
manner. HORNE TOOKE finely discriminates the wit in conversation of
SHERIDAN and CURRAN, after having passed an evening in their company.
"Sheridan's wit was like steel highly polished and sharpened for display
and use; Curran's was a mine of virgin gold, incessantly crumbling away
from its own richness." CHARLES BUTLER, whose reminiscences of his
illustrious contemporaries are derived from personal intercourse, has
correctly described the familiar conversations of PITT, FOX, and BURKE:
"The most intimate friends of Mr. Fox complained of his too frequent
ruminating silence. Mr. Pitt talked, and his talk was fascinating. Mr.
Burke's conversation was rambling, but splendid and instructive beyond
comparison." Let me add, that the finest genius of our times, is also the
most delightful man; he is that rarest among the rare of human beings,
whom to have known is nearly to adore; whom to have seen, to have heard,
forms an era in our life; whom youth remembers with enthusiasm, and whose
presence the men and women of "the world" feel like a dream from which
they would not awaken. His _bonhomie_ attaches our hearts to him by its
simplicity; his legendary conversation makes us, for a moment, poets like
himself.[A]
[Footnote A: This was written under the inspiration of a night's
conversation, or rather listening to Sir WALTER SCOTT.--I cannot bring
myself to erase what now, alas! has closed in the silence of a swift
termination of his glorious existence.]
But that deficient agreeableness in social life with which men of genius
have been often reproached, may really result from the nature of those
qualities which conduce to the greatness of their public character. A
thinker whose mind is saturated with knowledge on a particular subject,
will be apt to deliver himself authoritatively; but he will then pass for
a dogmatist: should he hesitate, that he may correct an equivocal
expression, or bring nearer a remote idea, he is in danger of sinking
into pedantry or rising into genius. Even the fulness of knowledge
has its tediousness. "It is rare," said MALEBRANCHE, "that those who
meditate profoundly can explain well the objects they have meditated on;
for they hesitate when they have to speak; they are scrupulous to convey
false ideas or use inaccurate terms. They do not choose to speak, like
others, merely for the sake of talking." A vivid and sudden perception of
truth, or a severe scrutiny after it, may elevate the voice, and burst
with an irruptive heat on the subdued tone of conversation. These men are
too much in earnest for the weak or the vain. Such seriousness kills their
feeble animal spirits. SMEATON, a creative genius of his class, had a
warmth of expression which seemed repulsive to many: it arose from an
intense application of mind, which impelled him to break out hastily when
anything was said that did not accord with his ideas. Persons who are
obstinate till they can give up their notions with a safe conscience, are
troublesome intimates. Often too the cold tardiness of decision is only
the strict balancing of scepticism or candour, while obscurity as
frequently may arise from the deficiency of previous knowledge in the
listener. It was said that NEWTON in conversation did not seem to
understand his own writings, and it was supposed that his memory had
decayed. The fact, however, was not so; and Pemberton makes a curious
distinction, which accounts for Newton _not always being ready to speak_
on subjects of which he was the sole master. "Inventors seem to treasure
up in their own minds what they have found out, after another manner than
those do the same things that have not this inventive faculty. The former,
when they have occasion to produce their knowledge, in some means are
obliged immediately to investigate part of what they want. For this they
are not equally fit at all times; and thus it has often happened, that
such as retain things chiefly by means of a very strong memory, have
appeared off-hand more expert than the discoverers themselves."
A peculiar characteristic in the conversations of men of genius, which has
often injured them when the listeners were not intimately acquainted with
the men, are those sports of a vacant mind, those sudden impulses to throw
out paradoxical opinions, and to take unexpected views of things in some
humour of the moment. These fanciful and capricious ideas are the
grotesque images of a playful mind, and are at least as frequently
misrepresented as they are misunderstood. But thus the cunning Philistines
are enabled to triumph over the strong and gifted man, because in the hour
of confidence, and in the abandonment of the mind, he had laid his head in
the lap of wantonness, and taught them how he might be shorn of his
strength. Dr. JOHNSON appears often to have indulged this amusement, both
in good and ill humour. Even such a calm philosopher as ADAM SMITH, as
well as such a child of imagination as BURNS, were remarked for this
ordinary habit of men of genius; which, perhaps, as often originates in a
gentle feeling of contempt for their auditors, as from any other cause.
Many years after having written the above, I discovered two recent
confessions which confirm the principle. A literary character, the late
Dr. LEYDEN, acknowledged, that "in conversation I often verge so nearly on
absurdity, that I know it is perfectly easy to misconceive me, as well as
to misrepresent me." And Miss Edgeworth, in describing her father's
conversation, observes that, "his openness went too far, almost to
imprudence; exposing him not only to be misrepresented, but to be
misunderstood. Those who did not know him intimately, often took literally
what was either said in sport, or spoken with the intention of making a
strong impression for some good purpose." CUMBERLAND, whose conversation
was delightful, happily describes the species I have noticed. "Nonsense
talked by men of wit and understanding in the hour of relaxation is of the
very finest essence of conviviality, and a treat delicious to those who
have the sense to comprehend it; but it implies a trust in the company not
always to be risked." The truth is, that many, eminent for their genius,
have been remarkable in society for a simplicity and playfulness almost
infantine. Such was the gaiety of Hume, such the _bonhomie_ of Fox; and
one who had long lived in a circle of men of genius in the last age, was
disposed to consider this infantine simplicity as characteristic of
genius. It is a solitary grace, which can never lend its charm to a man of
the world, whose purity of mind has long been lost in a hacknied
intercourse with everything exterior to himself.
But above all, what most offends, is that freedom of opinion which a man
of genius can no more divest himself of, than of the features of his face.
But what if this intractable obstinacy be only resistance of character?
Burns never could account to himself why, "though when he had a mind he
was pretty generally beloved, he could never get the art of commanding
respect," and imagined it was owing to his deficiency in what Sterne calls
"that understrapping virtue of discretion;" "I am so apt to a _lapsus
linguæ_" says this honest sinner. Amidst the stupidity of a formal
circle, and the inanity of triflers, however such men may conceal their
impatience, one of them has forcibly described the reaction of this
suppressed feeling: "The force with which it burst out when the pressure
was taken off, gave the measure of the constraint which had been endured."
Erasmus, that learned and charming writer, who was blessed with the genius
which could enliven a folio, has well described himself, _sum naturâ
propensior ad jocos quam fortasse deceat_:--more constitutionally inclined
to pleasantry than, as he is pleased to add, perhaps became him. We know
in his intimacy with Sir Thomas More, that Erasmus was a most exhilarating
companion; yet in his intercourse with the great he was not fortunate. At
the first glance he saw through affectation and parade, his praise of
folly was too ironical, and his freedom carried with it no pleasantry for
those who knew not to prize a laughing sage.
In conversation the operations of the intellect with some are habitually
slow, but there will be found no difference between the result of
their perceptions and those of a quicker nature; and hence it is that
slow-minded men are not, as men of the world imagine, always the dullest.
NICOLLE said of a scintillant wit, "He vanquishes me in the drawing-room,
but surrenders to me at discretion on the stairs." Many a great wit has
thought the wit it was too late to speak, and many a great reasoner has
only reasoned when his opponent has disappeared. Conversation with such
men is a losing game; and it is often lamentable to observe how men of
genius are reduced to a state of helplessness from not commanding their
attention, while inferior intellects habitually are found to possess what
is called "a ready mind." For this reason some, as it were in despair,
have shut themselves up in silence. A lively Frenchman, in describing the
distinct sorts of conversation of his literary friends, among whom was Dr.
Franklin, energetically hits off that close observer and thinker, wary,
even in society, by noting down "the silence of the celebrated Franklin."
We learn from Cumberland that Lord Mansfield did not promote that
conversation which gave him any pains to carry on. He resorted to
society for simple relaxation, and could even find a pleasure in dulness
when accompanied with placidity. "It was a kind of cushion to his
understanding," observes the wit. CHAUCER, like LA FONTAINE, was more
facetious in his tales than in his conversation; for the Countess of
Pembroke used to rally him, observing that his silence was more agreeable
to her than his talk. TASSO'S conversation, which his friend Manso has
attempted to preserve for us, was not agreeable. In company he sat
absorbed in thought, with a melancholy air; and it was on one of these
occasions that a person present observing that this conduct was indicative
of madness, that TASSO, who had heard him, looking on him without emotion,
asked whether he was ever acquainted with a madman who knew when to hold
his tongue! Malebranche tells us that one of these mere men of learning,
who can only venture to praise antiquity, once said, "I have seen
DESCARTES; I knew him, and frequently have conversed with him; he was a
good sort of man, and was not wanting in sense, but he had nothing
extraordinary in him." Had Aristotle spoken French instead of Greek, and
had this man frequently conversed with him, unquestionably he would not
have discovered, even in this idol of antiquity, anything extraordinary.
Two thousand years would have been wanting for our learned critic's
perceptions.
It is remarkable that the conversationists have rarely proved to be the
abler writers. He whose fancy is susceptible of excitement in the presence
of his auditors, making the minds of men run with his own, seizing on the
first impressions, and touching the shadows and outlines of things--with a
memory where all lies ready at hand, quickened by habitual associations,
and varying with all those extemporary changes and fugitive colours which
melt away in the rainbow of conversation; with that wit, which is only wit
in one place, and for a time; with that vivacity of animal spirits which
often exists separately from the more retired intellectual powers--this
man can strike out wit by habit, and pour forth a stream of phrase which
has sometimes been imagined to require only to be written down to be read
with the same delight with which it was heard; but he cannot print his
tone, nor his air and manner, nor the contagion of his hardihood. All the
while we were not sensible of the flutter of his ideas, the incoherence of
his transitions, his vague notions, his doubtful assertions, and his
meagre knowledge. A pen is the extinguisher of this luminary.
A curious contrast occurred between BUFFON and his friend MONTBELLIARD,
who was associated in his great work. The one possessed the reverse
qualities of the other: BUFFON, whose style in his composition is
elaborate and declamatory, was in conversation coarse and careless.
Pleading that conversation with him was only a relaxation, he rather
sought than avoided the idiom and slang of the mob, when these seemed
expressive and facetious; while MONTBELLIARD threw every charm of
animation over his delightful talk: but when he took his seat at the rival
desk of Buffon, an immense interval separated them; he whose tongue
dropped the honey and the music of the bee, handled a pen of iron; while
Buffon's was the soft pencil of the philosophical painter of nature.
COWLEY and KILLEGREW furnish another instance. COWLEY was embarrassed in
conversation, and had no quickness in argument or reply: a mind pensive
and elegant could not be struck at to catch fire: while with KILLEGREW the
sparkling bubbles of his fancy rose and dropped.[A] When the delightful
conversationist wrote, the deception ceased. Denham, who knew them both,
hit off the difference between them:
Had Cowley ne'er spoke, Killegrew ne'er writ,
Combined in one they had made a matchless wit.
[Footnote A: Killegrew's eight plays, upon which his character as an
author rests, have not been republished with one exception--_the Parson's
Wedding_--which is given in Dodsley's collection; and which is sufficient
to satisfy curiosity. He was a favourite with Charles the Second, and had
great influence with him. Some of his witty court jests are preserved, but
are too much imbued with the spirit of the age to be quoted here. He was
sometimes useful by devoting his satiric sallies to urge the king to his
duties.--ED.]
Not, however, that a man of genius does not throw out many things in
conversation which have only been found admirable when the public
possessed them. The public often widely differ from the individual, and a
century's opinion may intervene between them. The fate of genius is
sometimes that of the Athenian sculptor, who submitted his colossal
Minerva to a private party for inspection. Before the artist they trembled
for his daring chisel, and the man of genius smiled; behind him they
calumniated, and the man of genius forgave. Once fixed in a public place,
in the eyes of the whole city, the statue was the Divinity! There is a
certain distance at which opinions, as well as statues, must be viewed.
But enough of those defects of men of genius which often attend their
conversations. Must we then bow to authorial dignity, and kiss hands,
because they are inked? Must we bend to the artist, who considers us as
nothing unless we are canvas or marble under his hands? Are there not men
of genius the grace of society and the charm of their circle? Fortunate
men! more blest than their brothers; but for this, they are not the more
men of genius, nor the others less. To how many of the ordinary intimates
of a superior genius who complain of his defects might one say, "Do his
productions not delight and sometimes surprise you?--You are silent! I beg
your pardon; the _public_ has informed you of a great name; you would not
otherwise have perceived the precious talent of your neighbour: you know
little of your friend but his _name_." The personal familiarity of
ordinary minds with a man of genius has often produced a ludicrous
prejudice. A Scotchman, to whom the name of _a_ Dr. Robertson had
travelled down, was curious to know who he was.--"Your neighbour!"--But he
could not persuade himself that the man whom he conversed with was the
great historian of his country. Even a good man could not believe in the
announcement of the Messiah, from the same sort of prejudice: "Can there
anything good come out of Nazareth?"
Suffer a man of genius to be such as nature and habit have formed him, and
he will then be the most interesting companion; then will you see nothing
but his character. AKENSIDE, in conversation with select friends, often
touched by a romantic enthusiasm, would pass in review those eminent
ancients whom he loved; he imbued with his poetic faculty even the details
of their lives; and seemed another Plato while he poured libations to
their memory in the language of Plato, among those whose studies and
feelings were congenial with his own. ROMNEY, with a fancy entirely his
own, would give vent to his effusions, uttered in a hurried accent and
elevated tone, and often accompanied by tears, to which by constitution he
was prone; thus Cumberland, from personal intimacy, describes the
conversation of this man of genius. Even the temperate sensibility
of HUME was touched by the bursts of feeling of ROUSSEAU; who, he says,
"in conversation kindles often to a degree of heat which looks like
inspiration." BARRY, that unhappy genius! was the most repulsive of men in
his exterior. The vehemence of his language, the wildness of his glance,
his habit of introducing vulgar oaths, which, by some unlucky association
of habit, served him as expletives and interjections, communicated even a
horror to some. A pious and a learned lady, who had felt intolerable
uneasiness in his presence, did not, however, leave this man of genius
that very evening without an impression that she had never heard so divine
a man in her life. The conversation happening to turn on that principle of
benevolence which pervades Christianity, and on the meekness of the
Founder, it gave BARRY an opportunity of opening on the character of Jesus
with that copiousness of heart and mind which, once heard, could never be
forgotten. That artist indeed had long in his meditations an ideal head of
Christ, which he was always talking of executing: "It is here!" he would
cry, striking his head. That which baffled the invention, as we are told,
of Leonardo da Vinci, who left his Christ headless, having exhausted his
creative faculty among the apostles, this imaginative picture of the
mysterious union of a divine and human nature, never ceased, even when
conversing, to haunt the reveries of BARRY.
There are few authors and artists who are not eloquently instructive on
that class of knowledge or that department of art which reveals the
mastery of their life. Their conversations of this nature affect the mind
to a distant period of life. Who, having listened to such, has forgotten
what a man of genius has said at such moments? Who dwells not on the
single thought or the glowing expression, stamped in the heat of the
moment, which came from its source? Then the mind of genius rises as the
melody of the Æolian harp, when the winds suddenly sweep over the strings
--it comes and goes--and leaves a sweetness beyond the harmonies of art.
The _Miscellanea_ of POLITIAN are not only the result of his studies in
the rich library of Lorenzo de' Medici, but of conversations which had
passed in those rides which Lorenzo, accompanied by Politian, preferred to
the pomp of cavalcades. When the Cardinal de Cabassolle strayed with
PETRARCH about his valley in many a wandering discourse, they sometimes
extended their walks to such a distance, that the servant sought them in
vain to announce the dinner-hour, and found them returning in the evening.
When HELVETIUS enjoyed the social conversation of a literary friend, he
described it as "a chase of ideas." Such are the literary conversations
which HORNE TOOKE alluded to, when he said "I assure you, we find more
difficulty to finish than to begin our conversations."
The natural and congenial conversations of men of letters and of artists
must then be those which are associated with their pursuits, and these are
of a different complexion with the talk of men of the world, the objects
of which are drawn from the temporary passions of party-men, or the
variable _on dits_ of triflers--topics studiously rejected from these more
tranquillising conversations. Diamonds can only be polished by their own
dust, and are only shaped by the friction of other diamonds; and so it
happens with literary men and artists.
A meeting of this nature has been recorded by CICERO, which himself and
ATTICUS had with VARRO in the country. Varro arriving from Rome in their
neighbourhood somewhat fatigued, had sent a messenger to his friends. "As
soon as we had heard these tidings," says Cicero, "we could not delay
hastening to see one who was attached to us by the same pursuits and by
former friendship." They set off, but found Varro half way, urged by the
same eager desire to join them. They conducted him to Cicero's villa.
Here, while Cicero was inquiring after the news of Rome, Atticus
interrupted the political rival of Cæsar, observing, "Let us leave off
inquiring after things which cannot be heard without pain. Rather ask
about what we know, for Varro's muses are longer silent than they used to
be, yet surely he has not forsaken them, but rather conceals what he
writes."--"By no means!" replied Varro, "for I deem him to be a whimsical
man to write what he wishes to suppress. I have indeed a great work in
hand (on the Latin language), long designed for Cicero." The conversation
then took its natural turn by Atticus having got rid of the political
anxiety of Cicero. Such, too, were the conversations which passed at the
literary residence of the Medici family, which was described, with as
much truth as fancy, as "the Lyceum of philosophy, the Arcadia of poets,
and the Academy of painters." We have a pleasing instance of such a
meeting of literary friends in those conversations which passed in POPE'S
garden, where there was often a remarkable union of nobility and literary
men. There Thomson, Mallet, Gay, Hooke, and Glover met Cobham, Bathurst,
Chesterfield, Lyttleton, and other lords; there some of these poets found
patrons, and POPE himself discovered critics. The contracted views of
Spence have unfortunately not preserved these literary conversations, but
a curious passage has dropped from the pen of Lord BOLINGBROKE, in what
his lordship calls "a letter to Pope," often probably passed over among
his political tracts. It breathes the spirit of those delightful
conversations. "My thoughts," writes his lordship, "in what order soever
they flow, shall be communicated to you just _as they pass through my
mind_--just as they used to be when _we conversed together_ on these or
any other subject; when _we sauntered alone_, or as we have often done
with good Arbuthnot, and the jocose Dean of St. Patrick, among the
_multiplied scenes of your little garden._ The theatre is large enough for
my ambition." Such a scene opens a beautiful subject for a curious
portrait-painter. These literary groups in the garden of Pope, sauntering,
or divided in confidential intercourse, would furnish a scene of literary
repose and enjoyment among some of the most illustrious names in our
literature.