Of indoor entertainments, the truest and most human is
conversation.--MARK PATTISON.
In an age when everybody is writing Reminiscences, and when nothing
is left untold, we hear a great deal about the wit and brilliancy of
former days and former conversations. Elderly gentlemen, conscious of
an ever increasing dulness in life, would fain have us believe that
its more vivacious characteristics vanished with their youth, and can
never be tempted to return. Mournful prophecies anent the gradual
decay of social gifts assail us on every side. Mr. Justin McCarthy,
recalling with a sigh the group of semi-distinguished men who were wont
to grace George Eliot’s Sunday afternoons, can “only hope that the art
of talking is not destined to die out with the art of letter-writing.”
Mr. George W. E. Russell entertains similar misgivings. He found
his ideal talker in Mr. Matthew Arnold, “a man of the world without
being frivolous, and a man of letters without being pedantic;” and
he considers this admirable combination as necessary as it is rare.
American chroniclers point back to a little gleaming band of Northern
lights, and assure us sadly that if we never heard these men in their
prime, we must live and die uncheered by wit or wisdom. We are born in
a barren day.
But conversation, the luxury of conversation, as De Quincey happily
phrases it, does not depend upon one or two able talkers. It is not,
and never has been, a question of stars, but of a good stock company.
Neither can it decay like the art--or the habit--of letter-writing. The
conditions are totally different. Letters form a by-path of literature,
a charming, but occasional, retreat for people of cultivated leisure.
Conversation in its happiest development is a link, equally exquisite
and adequate, between mind and mind, a system by which men approach one
another with sympathy and enjoyment, a field for the finest amenities
of civilization, for the keenest and most intelligent display of
social activity. It is also our solace, our inspiration, and our most
rational pleasure. It is a duty we owe to one another; it is our common
debt to humanity. “God has given us tongues,” writes Heine, “wherewith
we may say pleasant things to our neighbours.” To refuse a service so
light, so sweet, so fruitful, is to be unworthy of the inheritance of
the ages.
It is claimed again, by critics disposed to be pessimistic, that our
modern development of “specialism” is prejudicial to good conversation.
A man devoted to one subject can seldom talk well upon any other.
Unless his companions share his tastes and his knowledge, he must--a
sad alternative--either lecture or be still. There are people
endowed with such a laudable thirst for information that they relish
lectures,--professional and gratuitous. They enjoy themselves most
when they are being instructed. They are eager to form an audience.
Such were the men and women who experienced constant disappointment
because Mr. Browning, a specialist of high standing, declined to
discuss his specialty. No side-lights upon “Sordello” could be
extracted from him. We realize how far the spirit of the lecture
had intruded upon the spirit of conversation forty years ago, when
Mr. Bagehot admitted that, with good modern talkers, “the effect
seems to be produced by that which is stated, and not by the manner
in which it is stated,”--a reversal of ancient rules. We are aware
of its still further encroachment when we see a little book by M.
Charles Rozan, characteristically christened “Petites Ignorances de la
Conversation,” and find it full of odds and ends of information, of
phrases, allusions, quotations, facts,--all the minute details which
are presumably embodied in the talk of educated men. The world to-day
devoutly believes that everything can be taught and learned. When we
have been shown how a thing is done, we can of course do it. There
are even little manuals composed with serious simplicity, the object
of which is to enable us to meet specialists on their own grounds;
to discuss art with artists, literature with authors, politics with
politicians, science with scientists,--the last, surely, a dangerous
experiment. “Conversation,” I read in one of these enchanting primers,
“cannot be entirely learned from books,”--a generous admission in a day
given over to the worship of print.
But in good truth, the contagious ardour, the urbane freedom of the
spoken word lift it immeasurably from the regions of pen and ink.
Those “shy revelations of affinity,” which now and then open to the
reader sweet vistas of familiarity and friendship, are frequent,
alluring, persuasive, in well-ordered speech. It is not what we learn
in conversation that enriches us. It is the elation that comes of
swift contact with tingling currents of thought. It is the opening of
our mental pores, and the stimulus of marshaling our ideas in words,
of setting them forth as gallantly and as graciously as we can. “A
language long employed by a delicate and critical society,” says Mr.
Bagehot, “is a treasure of dexterous felicities;” and the recognition
of these felicities, the grading of terms, the enlarging of a narrow
and stupid vocabulary make the charm of civilized social contact.
Discussion without asperity, sympathy without fusion, gayety unracked
by too abundant jests, mental ease in approaching one another,--these
are the things which give a pleasant smoothness to the rough edge of
life.
So much has been said about good talkers,--brilliant soloists for the
most part,--and so little about good talk! So much has been said about
good listeners, and so little about the interchange of thought! “Silent
people never spoil company,” remarked Lord Chesterfield; but even this
negative praise was probably due to the type of silence with which
he was best acquainted,--a habit of sparing speech, not the muffled
stillness of genuine and hopeless incapacity. A man who listens because
he has nothing to say can hardly be a source of inspiration. The only
listening that counts is that of the talker who alternately absorbs
and expresses ideas. Sainte-Beuve says of Fontenelle that, while he
had neither tears nor laughter, he smiled at wit, never interrupted,
was never excited, nor ever in a hurry to speak. These are endearing
traits. They embody much of the art of conversation. But they are as
remote from unadorned silence as from unconsidered loquacity.
The same distinction may be drawn between the amenity which forbids
bickering, and the flabbiness which has neither principles to uphold,
nor arguments with which to uphold them. Hazlitt’s counsel, “You should
prefer the opinion of the company to your own,” is good in the main,
but it can easily be pushed too far. Proffered by a man who bristled
with opinions which he never wearied of defending, it is perhaps more
interesting than persuasive. If everybody floated with the tide of
talk, placidity would soon end in stagnation. It is the strong backward
stroke which stirs the ripples, and gives animation and variety.
“Unison is a quality altogether obnoxious in conversation,” said
Montaigne, who was at least as tolerant as Hazlitt was combative, but
who dearly loved stout words from honest men. Dr. Johnson, we know,
was of a similar way of thinking. He scorned polite tepidity; he hated
chatter; he loved that unfeeling logic which drives mercilessly to its
goal. No man knew better than he the unconvincing nature of argument.
He had too often thrust his friends from the fortress of sound reason
which they were not strong enough to hold. But his talk, for all its
aggressiveness, and for all its tendency to negation, was real talk;
not--as with Coleridge--a monologue, nor--as with Macaulay--a lecture.
He did not infringe upon other people’s conversational freeholds, and
he was not, be it always remembered, anecdotal. The man who lived upon
“potted stories” inspired him with righteous antipathy.
Perhaps the saddest proof of intellectual inertia, of our failure
to meet one another with ease and understanding, is the tendency to
replace conversation by story-telling. It is no uncommon thing to hear
a man praised as a good talker, when he is really a good _raconteur_.
People will speak complacently of a “brilliant dinner,” at which
strings of anecdotes, disconnected and illegitimate, have usurped
the field, to the total exclusion of ideas. After an entertainment
of this order--like a feast of buns and barley sugar--we retire with
mental indigestion for a fortnight. That it should be relished betrays
the crudeness of social conditions. “Of all the bores,” writes De
Quincey with unwonted ill-temper, “whom man in his folly hesitates
to hang, and Heaven in its mysterious wisdom suffers to propagate
his species, the most insufferable is the teller of good stories.”
This is a hard saying. The story, like its second cousin the lie, has
a sphere of usefulness. It is a help in moments of emergency, and
it serves admirably to illustrate a text. But it is not, and never
can be, a substitute for conversation. People equipped with reason,
sentiment, and a vocabulary should have something to talk about, some
common ground on which they can meet, and penetrate into one another’s
minds. The exquisite pleasure of interchanging ideas, of awakening to
suggestions, of finding sympathy and companionship, is as remote from
the languid amusement yielded by story-telling as a good play is remote
from the bald diversion of the music hall.
Something to talk about appears to be the first consideration. The
choice of a topic, or rather the possession of a topic which will bear
analysis and support enthusiasm, is essential to the enjoyment of
conversation. We cannot go far along a stony track. Diderot observed
that whenever he was in the company of men and women who were reading
Richardson’s books, either privately or aloud, the talk was sure to be
animated and interesting. Some secret springs of emotion were let loose
by this great master of sentiment. Our ancestors allowed themselves a
wider field of discussion than we are now in the habit of conceding;
but after all, as Stevenson reminds us, “it is not over the virtues
of a curate-and-tea-party novel that people are abashed into high
resolutions.” We may not covet Socratic discourses at the dinner table,
but neither can we long sustain what has been sadly and significantly
called “the burden of conversation” on the lines adopted by William the
Fourth, who, when he felt the absolute necessity of saying something,
asked the Duke of Devonshire where he meant to be buried.
The most perfect and pitiful pictures of intercourse stripped bare of
interest have been given us in Miss Austen’s novels. Reading them, we
grow sick at heart to think what depths of experience they reflect,
what hours of ennui lie back of every page. The conversation of
the ladies after Mrs. John Dashwood’s dinner must stand forever as
a perfect example of sustained stupidity, of that almost miraculous
dulness which can be achieved only by “want of sense, want of elegance,
want of spirits, and want of temper.” Equal to it in its way is the
brief description of Lady Middleton’s first call upon the Dashwoods.
“Conversation was not lacking, for Sir John was very chatty, and Lady
Middleton had taken the wise precaution of bringing with her their
eldest child, a fine little boy about six years old. By this means
there was one subject always to be recurred to by the ladies in case
of extremity, for they had to enquire his name and age, admire his
beauty, and ask him questions which his mother answered for him, while
he hung about her and held down his head, to the great surprise of her
ladyship, who wondered at his being so shy before company, as he could
make noise enough at home. On every formal visit a child ought to be of
the party, by way of provision for discourse. In the present case, it
took up ten minutes to determine whether the boy were most like his
father or mother, and in what particular he resembled either, for of
course everybody differed, and everybody was astonished at the opinion
of the others.”
How real it is! How many of us have lived through similar half-hours,
veiling with decent melancholy the impetuous protest of our souls!
Charles Greville is responsible for the rather unusual statement that
a dinner at which all the guests are fools is apt to be as agreeable
as a dinner at which all the guests are clever men. The fools, he
says, are tolerably sure to be gay, and the clever men are perfectly
sure to be heavy. How far the gayety of fools is an engaging trait it
might be difficult to decide (there is a text which throws some doubt
upon the subject), but Greville appears to have suffered a good deal
from the ponderous society of the learned. We are struck in the first
place by the very serious topics which made the table-talk of his day.
Do people now discuss primogeniture in ancient Rome over their fish
and game? It sounds almost as onerous as the Socratic discourses. Then
again it was his special hardship to listen to the dissertations of
Macaulay, and he resented this infliction with all the ardour of a
vain and accomplished man. “Macaulay’s astonishing knowledge is every
moment exhibited,” he writes in his Memoirs, “but he is not agreeable.
He has none of the graces of conversation, none of the exquisite tact
and refinement which are the result of a felicitous intuition, or of a
long acquaintance with good society.... _His information is more than
society requires._”
The last line is a master-stroke of criticism. It embodies all that
goes before and all that follows,--for Greville airs his grievance at
length,--and it is admirably illustrated in his account of that famous
evening at Holland House, when Lady Holland, in captious mood, rebelled
against a course of instruction. Somebody having chanced to mention
Sir Thomas Munro, the hostess rashly admitted that she had never
heard of him, whereupon Macaulay “explained all he had said, done,
written, or thought, and vindicated his claim to the title of a great
man, till Lady Holland, getting bored, said she had had enough of Sir
Thomas, and would hear no more. This might have dashed and silenced
an ordinary talker; but to Macaulay it was no more than replacing a
book upon the shelf, and he was just as ready as ever to open on any
other topic.” The Fathers of the Church were next discussed (it was not
a frivolous company), and Macaulay at once called to mind a sermon of
Saint Chrysostom’s in praise of the Bishop of Antioch. “He proceeded
to give us the substance of this sermon till Lady Holland got tired
of the Fathers, and put her extinguisher on Chrysostom as she had
done on Munro. Then with a sort of derision, and as if to have the
pleasure of puzzling Macaulay, she turned to him and said: ‘Pray what
was the origin of a doll? When were dolls first mentioned in history?’
Macaulay, however, was just as much up in dolls as in the Fathers, and
instantly replied that the Roman children had their dolls, which they
offered to Venus when they grew older. He quoted Persius,--
‘Veneri donatae a virgine puppae,’
and I have not the least doubt that if he had been allowed to proceed,
he would have told us who was the Chenevix of ancient Rome, and the
name of the first baby that ever handled a doll.”
This was indeed more information than society required. It is not
surprising that Sydney Smith, perhaps the most charming talker of his
day, was quickly silenced by such an avalanche of words, and sat mute
and limp in the historian’s company. Upon one occasion Greville went
to visit the Marquis of Lansdowne at Bowood, and found Macaulay among
the guests. “It was wonderful how quiet the house seemed after he had
gone,” comments the diarist grimly, “and it was not less agreeable.”
That a rude invasion of the field is fatal to the enjoyment of
intercourse we know from the sentiment of revolt expressed on every
side. How little the people who heard Mme. de Staël’s brilliant
conversation appear to have relished the privilege! Mackintosh admitted
that she was agreeable in a tête-à-tête, but too much for a general
assembly. Heine hated her, as a hurricane in petticoats. “She hears but
little, and never the truth, because she is always talking.” Byron,
who felt a genuine admiration for her cleverness, and was grateful for
her steadfast friendship, confessed ruefully that she overwhelmed him
with words, buried him beneath glittering snow and nonsense. The art of
being amusing in a lovable way was not hers; yet this is essentially
the art which lifted French conversation to its highest level, which
made it famous three hundred years ago, and which has preserved it ever
since as a rational and engaging occupation. A page of history lies
revealed and elucidated in Saint-Simon’s little sentence anent Mme. de
Maintenon’s fashion of speech. “Her language was gentle, exact, well
chosen, and naturally eloquent and brief.”
No wonder she reigned long. Eloquent and brief! What a magnificent
“blend”! How persuasive the “well-chosen” words, immaculately free
from harsh emphasis and the feminine fault of iteration! Who would not
be influenced by a woman who talked always well, and never too much;
who, knowing the value of flattery, administered it with tact and
moderation; and who shrank instinctively from the exaggerated terms
which destroy balance and invite defeat? From the reign of Louis the
Fourteenth to the Revolution, conversation was cultivated in France
with intelligent assiduity. Its place in the fabric of civilization was
clearly understood. No time was begrudged to its development, no labour
was spared to its perfecting. Mr. Henry James is of the opinion that
it flowered brilliantly in the middle of the eighteenth century. “This
was surely,” he says, “in France at least, the age of good society, the
period when the right people made haste to be born in time. The sixty
years that preceded the Revolution were the golden age of fireside
talk, and of those amenities that are due to the presence of women in
whom the social art is both instinctive and acquired. The women of
that period were, above all, good company. The fact is attested in
a thousand documents. Chenonceaux offered a perfect setting to free
conversation; and infinite joyous discourse must have mingled with the
liquid murmur of the Cher.”
“Joyous discourse” is a beguiling phrase. It carries with it the echo
of laughter long since silenced,--light laughter following the light
words, so swiftly spoken, yet so surely placed. The time was coming
fast when this smooth graciousness of speech would inspire singular
mistrust, and when Rousseau--ardently embracing nature--would write of
the “fine and delicate irony called politeness, which gives so much
ease and pliability to the intercourse of civilized man, enabling
him to assume the appearance of every virtue without the reality of
one.” Later on, illusions being dispelled, the painful discovery was
made that the absence of politeness does not necessarily imply the
presence of virtue, and that taciturnity may be wholly disassociated
with the truth. We owe to one another all the wit and good humour we
can command; and nothing so clears our mental vistas as sympathetic
and intelligent conversation. It can never languish in an age like
ours, teeming with new interests widely shared, and with new wonders
widely known. We must talk, because we have so much to talk about; and
we ought to talk well, because our inspirations are of a noble order.
Each new discovery made by science, each fresh emotion awakened by
contemporaneous history, each successive pleasure yielded by literature
or by art is a spur to rational speech. These things are our common
heritage, and we share them in common, through the medium of the aptly
spoken word.