and to conceive of it as such seems to me to misunderstand the whole
situation. I think that a man loses a great deal by being unsociable,
and that for his own happiness he had better make an effort to see
something of his fellows. All kinds of grumpinesses and morbidities
arise from solitude; and a shy man ought to take occasional dips into
society from a medicinal point of view, as a man should take a cold
bath; even if he confers no pleasure on others by so doing, the mere
sense, to a timid man, of having steered a moderately straight course
through a social entertainment is in itself enlivening and
invigorating, and gives the pleasing feeling of having escaped from a
great peril. But the accusation of unsociability does not apply to
Perry, whose doors are open day and night, and whose welcome is always
perfectly sincere. Moreover, the frame of mind in which a man goes to a
party, determined to confer pleasure and exercise influence, is a
dangerously self-satisfied one. Society is, after all, a recreation and
a delight, and ought to be sought for with pleasurable motives, not
with a consciousness of rectitude and justice.
My own belief is that every one has a perfect right to choose his own
circle, and to make it large or small as he desires. It is a monstrous
thing to hold that, if an agreeable or desirable person comes to a
place, one has but to leave a piece of pasteboard at his door to entail
upon him the duty of coming round till he finds one at home, and of
disporting himself gingerly, like a dancing bear among the teacups. A
card ought to be a species of charity, left on solitary strangers, to
give them the chance of coming, if they like, to see the leaver of it,
or as a preliminary to a real invitation. It ought to be a ticket of
admission, which a man may use or not as he likes, not a legal summons.
That any one should return a call should be a compliment and an honour,
not regarded as the mere discharging of a compulsory duty.
I have heard fair ladies complain of the boredom they endured at
tea-parties; they speak of themselves as the martyrs and victims of a
sense of duty. If such people talked of the duty of visiting the sick
and afflicted as a thing which their conception of Christian love
entailed upon them, which they performed, reluctantly and unwillingly,
from a sense of obligation, I should respect them deeply and
profoundly. But I have not often found that the people who complain
most of their social duties, and who discharge them most sedulously,
complain because such duties interrupt a course of Christian
beneficence. It is, indeed, rather the other way; it is generally true
that those who see a good deal of society (from a sense of duty) and
find it dull, are the people who have no particular interests or
pursuits of their own.
There is less excuse in a University town than in any other for
adopting this pompous and formal view of the duties of society, because
there are very few unoccupied people in such a place. My own
occupations, such as they are, fill the hours from breakfast to
luncheon and from tea to dinner; men of sedentary lives, who do a good
deal of brainwork, find an hour or two of exercise and fresh air a
necessity in the afternoon. Indeed, a man who cares about his work, and
who regards it as a primary duty, finds no occupation more dispiriting,
more apt to unfit him for serious work, than pacing from house to house
in the early afternoon, delivering a pack of visiting-cards, varied by
a perfunctory conversation, seated at the edge of an easy-chair, on
subjects of inconceivable triviality. Of course there are men so
constituted that they find this pastime a relief and a pleasure; but
their felicity of temperament ought not to be made into a rule for
serious-minded men. The only social institution which might really
prove beneficial in a University is an informal evening salon. If
people might drop in uninvited, in evening dress or not, as was
convenient, from nine to ten in the evening, at a pleasant house, it
would be a rational practice; but few such experiments seem ever to be
tried.
Moreover, the one thing that is fatal to all spontaneous social
enjoyment is that the guests should, like the maimed and blind in the
parable, be compelled to come in. The frame of mind of an eminent
Cabinet Minister whom I once accompanied to an evening party rises
before my mind. He was in deep depression at having to go; and when I
ventured to ask his motive in going, he said, with an air of
unutterable self-sacrifice, "I suppose that we ought sometimes to be
ready to submit to the tortures we inflict on others." Imagine a circle
of guests assembled in such a frame of mind, and it would seem that one
had all the materials for a thoroughly pleasant party.
I was lately taken by a friend, with whom I was staying in the country,
to a garden party. I confess that I think it would be hard to conceive
circumstances less favourable to personal enjoyment. The day was hot,
and I was uncomfortably dressed. I found myself first in a hot room,
where the host and hostess were engaged in what is called receiving. A
stream of pale, perspiring people moved slowly through, some of them
frankly miserable, some with an air of false geniality, which deceived
no one, written upon their faces. "So pleasant to see so many friends!"
"What a delightful day you have got for your party!" Such ineptitudes
were the current coin of the market. I passed on into another room
where refreshment, of a nature that I did not want, was sadly accepted.
And I then passed out into the open air; the garden was disagreeably
crowded; there was "a din of doubtful talk," as Rossetti says. The sun
beat down dizzily on my streaming brow. I joined group after group,
where the conversation was all of the same easy and stimulating
character, until I felt sick and faint (though of robust constitution)
with the "mazes of heat and sound" in which my life seemed "turning,
turning," like the life of the heroine of "Requiescat." I declare that
such a performance is the sort of thing that I should expect to find in
hell, even down to the burning marl, as Milton says. I got away dizzy,
unstrung, unfit for life, with that terrible sense of fatigue
unaccompanied by wholesome tiredness, that comes of standing in hot
buzzing places. I had heard not a single word that amused or interested
me; and yet there were plenty of people present with whom I should have
enjoyed a leisurely talk, to whom I felt inclined to say, in the words
of Prince Henry to Poins, "Prithee, Ned, come out of this fat room, and
lend me thy hand to laugh a little!" But as I went away, I pondered
sadly upon the almost inconceivable nature of the motive which could
lead people to behave as I had seen them behaving, and resolutely to
label it pleasure. I suppose that, as a matter of fact, many persons
find stir, and movement, and the presence of a crowd an agreeable
stimulus. I imagine that people are divided into those who, if they see
a crowd of human beings in a field, have a desire to join them, and
those who, at the same sight, long to fly swiftly to the uttermost ends
of the earth. I am of the latter temperament; and I cannot believe that
there is any duty which should lead me to resist the impulse as a
temptation to evil. But the truth is that sociable people, like
liturgical people, require, for the full satisfaction of their
instincts, that a certain number of other persons should be present at
the ceremonies which they affect, and that all should be occupied in
the same way. It is of little moment to the originators of the ceremony
whether those present are there willingly or unwillingly; and thus the
only resource of their victims is to go out on strike; so far from
thinking it a duty to be present at social or religious functions, in
order that my sociable or liturgical friends should have a suitable
background for their pleasures, I think it a solemn duty to resist to
the uttermost this false and vexatious theory of society and religion!
I suppose, too, that inveterate talkers and discoursers require an
audience who should listen meekly and admiringly, and not interrupt. I
have friends who are afflicted with this taste to such an extent, who
are so determined to hold the talk in their own hands, that I declare
they might as well have a company of stuffed seals to sit down to
dinner with, as a circle of living and breathing men. But I do not
think it right, or at all events necessary, in the interests of human
kindliness, that I should victimize myself so for a man's pleasure.
Neither do I think it necessary that I should attend a ceremony where I
neither get nor give anything of the nature of pleasure, simply in
order to conform to a social rule, invented and propagated by those who
happen to enjoy such gatherings.
I remember being much struck by an artless reminiscence of an
undergraduate, quoted in the Memoirs of a certain distinguished
academical personage, who was fond of inviting young men to share his
hospitality for experimental reasons. I cannot recollect the exact
words, but the undergraduate wrote of his celebrated entertainer
somewhat to the following effect: "He asked me to sit down, so I sate
down; he asked me to eat an apple, so I ate it. He asked me to take a
glass of wine, so I poured one out, and drank it. I am told that he
tries to get you to talk so that he may see the kind of fellow you are;
but I didn't want him to know the kind of fellow I was, so I didn't
talk; and presently I went away." I think that this species of
retaliation is perfectly fair in the case of experimental
entertainments. Social gatherings must be conducted on a basis of
perfect equality, and the idea of duty in connection with them is a
bugbear invented in the interests of those who are greedy of society,
and not in a position to contribute any pleasure to a social gathering.
It might be inferred from the above considerations that I am an
inveterately unsociable person; but such is not the case. I am
extremely gregarious at the right time and place. I love to spend a
large part of the day alone; I think that a perfect day consists in a
solitary breakfast and a solitary morning; a single companion for
luncheon and exercise; again some solitary hours; but then I love to
dine in company and, if possible, to spend the rest of the evening with
two or three congenial persons. But more and more, as life goes on, do
I find the mixed company tiresome, and the tete-a-tete delightful. The
only amusement of society is the getting to know what other people
really think and feel: what amuses them, what pleases them, what shocks
them; what they like and what they loathe; what they tolerate and what
they condemn. A dinner-party is agreeable, principally because one is
absolutely tied down to make the best of two people. Very few English
people have the art of conversing unaffectedly and sincerely before a
circle; when one does come across it, it is a rare and beautiful art,
like singing, or oratory. But the presence of such an improvisatore is
the only thing that makes a circle tolerable. On the other hand, a
great many English people have the art of tete-a-tete talking; and I
can honestly say that I have very seldom been brought into close
relations with an individual without finding an unsuspected depth and
width of interest in the companionship.
But in any case the whole thing is a mere question of pleasure; and I
return to my thesis, which is that the only possible theory is for
every one to find and create the kind of society that he or she may
like. Depend upon it, congenial society is the only kind of society to,
and in which, any one will give his best. If people like the society of
the restaurant, the club, the drawing-room, the dining-room, the open
air, the cricket-field, the moor, the golf-course, in the name of
pleasure and common sense let them have it; but to condemn people, by
brandishing the fiery sword of duty over their heads, to attend
uncongenial gatherings seems to me to be both absurd and unjust.
The case of my friend Perry is, I must admit, complicated by the fact
that he does add greatly to the happiness of any circle of which he is
a member; he is an admirable listener and a sympathetic talker. But if
Egeria desires to make a Numa of him, and to inspire him with her own
gentle wisdom, let her convince him quietly that he does owe a duty to
society, and not censure him before his friends. If Egeria, in her own
inimitable way, would say to him that the lives of academical ladies
were apt to be dull, and that it was a matter of graceful chivalry for
him to brighten the horizon, why, Perry could not resist her. But
chivalry is a thing which must be courteously and generously conceded,
and must never be pettishly claimed; and indeed I do not want Perry
interfered with in this matter: he fills a very peculiar niche, he is a
lodestar to enthusiastic undergraduates; he is the joy of sober
common-rooms. I wish with all my heart that the convenances of life
permitted Egeria herself to stray into those book-lined rooms, dim with
tobacco-smoke, to warble and sing to the accompaniment of Perry's
cracked piano, to take her place among the casual company. But as
Egeria cannot go to Perry, and as Perry will not go to Egeria, they
must respect each other from a distance, and do their best alone.
And, after all, simple, sincere, and kindly persons are apt to find, as
Stevenson wisely said, their circle ready-made. The only people who
cannot get the friends and companions they want are those who
petulantly claim attention; and the worst error of all consists in
mistaking the gentle pleasures of life, such as society and
intercourse, for the duties of life, and of codifying and formalizing
them. For myself, I wish with all my heart that I had Perry's power; I
wish that those throngs of young men would feel impelled to come in and
talk to me, easily and simply. I have, it is true, several faithful
friends, but very few of them will come except in response to a
definite invitation; and really, if they do not want to come, I do not
at all wish to force them to do so. It might amuse me; but if it amused
them, they would come: as they do not come, I am quite ready to
conclude that it does not amuse them. I am as conscious as every one
else of the exquisitely stimulating and entertaining character of my
own talk; it constantly pains me that so few people take advantage of
their opportunities of visiting the healing fount. But the fact is
incontestable that my talents are not appreciated at their right value;
and I must be content with such slender encouragement as I receive. In
vain do I purchase choice brands of cigars and cigarettes, and load my
side-table with the best Scotch whisky. Not eyen with that solace will
the vagrant undergraduate consent to be douched under the stream of my
suggestive conversation.
A humorous friend of mine, Tipton by name, an official of a
neighbouring college, told me that he held receptions of undergraduates
on Sunday evenings. I believe that he is in reality a model host, full
of resource and sprightliness, and that admission to his entertainments
is eagerly coveted. But it pleases him to depreciate his own success.
"Oh, yes," he said, in answer to my questions as to the art he
practised, "a few of them come; one or two because they like me; some
because they, think there is going to be a row about attendance at
chapel, and hope to mend matters; one or two because they like to stand
well with the dons, when there is a chance of a fellowship; but the
lowest motive of all," he went on, "was the motive which I heard from
the lips of one on a summer evening, when my windows were all open, and
I was just prepared to receive boarders; an ingenuous friend of mine
beneath said to another unoccupied youth, 'What do you think about
doing a Tipper tonight?' To which the other replied, 'Well, yes, one
ought to do one a term; let's go in at once and get it over.'"
V
CONVERSATION
I cannot help wishing sometimes that English people had more theories
about conversation. Really good talk is one of the greatest pleasures
there is, and yet how rarely one comes across it! There are a good many
people among my acquaintance who on occasions are capable of talking
well. But what they seem to lack is initiative, and deliberate purpose.
If people would only look upon conversation in a more serious light,
much would be gained. I do not of course mean, Heaven forbid! that
people should try to converse seriously; that results in the worst kind
of dreariness, in feeling, as Stevenson said, that one has the brain of
a sheep and the eyes of a boiled codfish. But I mean that the more
seriously one takes an amusement, the more amusing it becomes. What I
wish is that people would apply the same sort of seriousness to talk
that they apply to golf and bridge; that they should desire to improve
their game, brood over their mistakes, try to do better. Why is it that
so many people would think it priggish and effeminate to try to improve
their talk, and yet think it manly and rational to try to shoot better?
Of course it must be done with a natural zest and enjoyment, or it is
useless. What a ghastly picture one gets of the old-fashioned talkers
and wits, committing a number of subjects to memory, turning over a
commonplace book for apposite anecdotes and jests, adding dates to
those selected that they may not tell the same story again too soon,
learning up a list of epigrams, stuck in a shaving-glass, when they are
dressing for dinner, and then sallying forth primed to bursting with
conversation! It is all very well to know beforehand the kind of line
you would wish to take, but spontaneity is a necessary ingredient of
talk, and to make up one's mind to get certain stories in, is to
deprive talk of its fortuitous charm. When two celebrated talkers of
the kind that I have described used to meet, the talk was nothing but a
smart interchange of anecdotes. There is a story of Macaulay and some
other great conversationalist getting into the swing at breakfast when
staying, I think, with Lord Lansdowne. They drew their chairs to the
fire, the rest of the company formed a circle round them, and listened
meekly to the dialogue until luncheon. What an appalling picture! One
sympathizes with Carlyle on the occasion when he was asked to dinner to
meet a great talker, who poured forth a continuous flow of jest and
anecdote until the meal was far advanced. Then came a lull; Carlyle
laid down his knife and fork, and looking round with the famous
"crucified" expression on his face, said in a voice of agonized
entreaty, "For God's sake take me away, and put me in a room by myself,
and give me a pipe of tobacco!" He felt, as I have felt on such
occasions, an imperative need of silence and recollection and repose.
Indeed, as he said on another occasion, of one of Coleridge's
harangues, "to sit still and be pumped into is never an exhilarating
process."
That species of talker is, however, practically extinct; though indeed
I have met men whose idea of talk was a string of anecdotes, and who
employed the reluctant intervals of silence imposed upon them by the
desperate attempt of fellow-guests to join in the fun, in arranging the
points of their next anecdote.
What seems to me so odd about a talker of that kind is the lack of any
sense of justice about his talk. He presumably enjoys the exercise of
speech, and it seems to me strange that it should not occur to him that
others may like it too, and that he should not concede a certain
opportunity to others to have their say, if only in the interests of
fair play. It is as though a gourmet's satisfaction in a good dinner
were not complete unless he could prevent every one else from partaking
of the food before them.
What is really most needed in social gatherings is a kind of moderator
of the talk, an informal president. Many people, as I have said, are
quite capable of talking interestingly, if they get a lead. The perfect
moderator should have a large stock of subjects of general interest. He
should, so to speak, kick-off. And then he should either feel, or at
least artfully simulate, an interest in other people's point of view.
He should ask questions, reply to arguments, encourage, elicit
expressions of opinion. He should not desire to steer his own course,
but follow the line that the talk happens to take. If he aims at the
reputation of being a good talker, he will win a far higher fame by
pursuing this course; for it is a lamentable fact that, after a lively
talk, one is apt to remember far better what one has oneself
contributed to the discussion than what other people have said; and if
you can send guests away from a gathering feeling that they have talked
well, they will be disposed in that genial mood to concede
conversational merit to the other participators. A naive and
simple-minded friend of my own once cast an extraordinary light on the
subject, by saying to me, the day after an agreeable symposium at my
own house, "We had a very pleasant evening with you yesterday. I was in
great form"!
The only two kinds of talker that I find tiresome are the talker of
paradoxes and the egotist. A few paradoxes are all very well; they are
stimulating and gently provocative. But one gets tired of a string of
them; they become little more than a sort of fence erected round a
man's mind; one despairs of ever knowing what a paradoxical talker
really thinks. Half the charm of good talk consists in the glimpses and
peeps one gets into the stuff of a man's thoughts; and it is wearisome
to feel that a talker is for ever tossing subjects on his horns,
perpetually trying to say the unexpected, the startling thing. In the
best talk of all, a glade suddenly opens up, like the glades in the
Alpine forests through which they bring the timber down to the valley;
one sees a long green vista, all bathed in shimmering sunshine, with
the dark head of a mountain at the top. So in the best talk one has a
sudden sight of something high, sweet, serious, austere.
The other kind of talk that I find very disagreeable is the talk of a
full-fledged egotist, who converses without reference to his hearers,
and brings out what is in his mind. One gets interesting things in this
way from time to time; but the essence, as I have said, of good talk is
that one should have provoking and stimulating peeps into other minds,
not that one should be compelled to gaze and stare into them. I have a
friend, or rather an acquaintance, whose talk is just as if he opened a
trap-door into his mind: you look into a dark place where something
flows, stream or sewer; sometimes it runs clear and brisk, but at other
times it seems to be charged with dirt and debris; and yet there is no
escape; you have to stand and look, to breathe the very odours of the
mind, until he chooses to close the door.
The mistake that many earnest and persevering talkers make is to
suppose that to be engrossed is the same thing as being engrossing. It
is true of conversation as of many other things, that the half is
better than the whole. People who are fond of talking ought to beware
of being lengthy. How one knows the despair of conversing with a man
who is determined to make a clear and complete statement of everything,
and not to let his hearer off anything! Arguments, questions, views,
rise in the mind in the course of the harangue, and are swept away by
the moving stream. Such talkers suffer from a complacent feeling that
their information is correct and complete, and that their deductions
are necessarily sound. But it is quite possible to form and hold a
strong opinion, and yet to realize that it is after all only one point
of view, and that there is probably much to be said on the other side.
The unhappiest feature of drifting into a habit of positive and
continuous talk is that one has few friends faithful enough to
criticise such a habit and tell one the unvarnished truth; if the habit
is once confirmed, it becomes almost impossible to break it off. I know
of a family conclave that was once summoned, in order, if possible, to
communicate the fact to one of the circle that he was in danger of
becoming a bore; the head of the family was finally deputed to convey
the fact as delicately as possible to the erring brother. He did so,
with much tender circumlocution. The offender was deeply mortified, but
endeavoured to thank his elderly relative for discharging so painful a
task. He promised amendment. He sate glum and tongue-tied for several
weeks in the midst of cheerful gatherings. Very gradually the old habit
prevailed. Within six months he was as tedious as ever; but what is the
saddest part of the whole business is that he has never quite forgiven
the teller of the unwelcome news, while at the same time he labours
under the impression that he has cured himself of the habit.