By MARGARET MEREDITH.
I wonder if men could not be persuaded to alter their style of
conversation with girls, to talk to us as they talk to men?
We have a feeling that learned young men are the dullest of talkers; not
because they talk weightily; Oh, no! because they talk so lightly, and
lightness is not their forte.
A diligent student, a very cormorant, perhaps, of knowledge, dons a white
necktie and sallies forth, and resolutely leaves behind for the evening
every material he has wherewith to make himself agreeable. He is not
witty, he is too busy to be a gossip, he is too little in company to
learn an easy jog of commonplace or compliment. So he sits on a sofa,
and the girl makes some opening remark, to which he replies with studied
interest; and at the pause she magnetically feels that it is best to make
a longer remark this time. If she were talking to a lad, she might drift
into expressing some of her real ideas, and find profit and pleasure in
airing them; but for the amusement of this young savant, by no means.
Still, at his next turn to speak, or the next, she has come suggestively
near some subject worth talking of; if he were with a man he would
instantly plunge in, and in five minutes they would be deep in discussion
or description, sharpening their wits by every sentence, fixing what they
have read, shaping their crude opinions, thoroughly enjoying each other;
and for this they need not be equals in cultivation, nor altogether
equals in mind.
Why should it be so different when talking with a woman? There is no
reason, but habit. One says, “People dislike to talk shop; the busy
scholar wants a rest.” On the contrary, most people, I think, would
rather talk shop than anything else. If it is their life interest and
their strong point, they have so much more to say. The truth is, they
fear that the listener will object, and so “in company” they avoid it. I
wager the listener would be delighted.
I do not write so much to those who can get up at will a brilliant flow
of mere scintillation. That is a scarce enough article to be valuable.
Yet they might use it occasionally on sense as well as on nonsense, and
make themselves all the more notably entertaining.
I once knew a grave professional man who was said to be both clever
and cultivated, but for me there seemed no possible way to enjoy him.
His visits were the most empty occasions. He was “a desirable person
to be visited by,” but he was unendurable; though he did not fail to
be politely attentive in more ways than one. I was glad he was going
away. Just then a mutual friend came on the scene, who had views on this
matter. I know she gave him the benefit of them, as well as if she had
told me; for such an amazing change I never saw. The passive sitter waked
up, the bore became a charming talker, and all because he had taken his
own permission to be agreeable in his natural way. I was so sorry when he
left town!
That instance of transformation is what inspires my appeal. The thing
would seem grounded and settled, incapable of cure, but what one
exhortation can accomplish has been proved.
And it is a case in which the butterfly may well spring full-colored
from the chrysalis, for the stuff that talk is made of is all there; not
repartee, of course, or always brilliant expression for one’s thoughts
and facts; but thoughts and facts very simply used make an evening
world-wide different from a succession of laboriously-framed sentences
carefully intended to be about something in which the man does not take
any interest, and the woman sees he does not. Can we wonder that the
sand-man has to be struggled with many a time by both parties? Young boys
do not blink with sleep under your very eyes; but full-grown men often
do, and largely because they insist on pursuing at thirty-five about the
same topics of conversation that they used at eighteen.
Don’t you, Mr. Dry-as-dust, want to turn over a new leaf? My
opportunities of learning are limited, perhaps, while yours are constant.
If I am to spend an hour, or two or three, with you, will not you give me
some advantage from your well-furnished store-house? If I do not respond
then possibly you may stand excused, and never again run the risk of
talking over my head.
But give me one fair trial, and see if we are not “better company” and
better friends ever afterward.