§ 1. THERE can be no doubt that of all the accomplishments prized in
modern society that of being agreeable in conversation is the very
first. It may be called the social result of Western civilisation,
beginning with the Greeks. Whatever contempt the North American Indian
or the Mohammedan Tartar may feel for talking as mere chatter, it is
agreed among us that people must meet frequently, both men and women,
and that not only is it agreeable to talk, but that it is a matter of
common courtesy to say something, even when there is hardly anything to
say. Every civilised man and woman feels, or ought to feel, this duty;
it is the universal accomplishment which all must practise, and as those
who fail signally to attain it are punished by the dislike or neglect of
society, so those who succeed beyond the average receive a just reward,
not only in the constant pleasure they reap from it, but in the esteem
which they gain from their fellows. Many men and many women owe the
whole of a great success in life to this and nothing else. An agreeable
young woman will always carry away the palm in the long run from the
most brilliant player or singer who has nothing to say. And though men
are supposed to succeed in life by dead knowledge, or by acquaintance
with business, it is often by their social qualities, by their agreeable
way of putting things, and not by their more ponderous merits that they
prevail. In the high profession of diplomacy, both home and foreign,
this is pre-eminently the case.
But quite apart from all these serious profits, and better than them
all, is the daily pleasure derived from good conversation by those who
can attain to it themselves or enjoy it in others. It is a perpetual
intellectual feast, it is an ever-ready recreation, a deep and lasting
comfort, costing no outlay but that of time, requiring no appointments
but a small company, limited neither to any age nor any sex, the delight
of prosperity, the solace of adversity, the eternal and essential
expression of that social instinct which is one of the strongest and
best features in human nature.
§ 2. If such be the universality and the necessity of conversation in
modern society, it seems an obvious inquiry whether it can be taught or
acquired by any fixed method; or rather, as everybody has to practise it
in some way, not as a mere ornament, but as a necessity of life, it may
be asked: Is there any method by which we can improve our conversation?
Is there any theory of it which we can apply in our own case and that of
others? If not, are there at least some practical rules which we ought
to know, and which we should follow in endeavouring to perform this
essential part of our social duties?
To assert that there is some such systematic analysis of conversation
possible is to assert that it is an _Art_—a practical science like the
art of reasoning called Logic, or the art of eloquence called Rhetoric.
Now this runs counter to one of the strongest convictions of all
intelligent men and women, that if anything in the world ought to be
spontaneous it is conversation. How can a thing be defined by rules
which consists in following the chances of the moment, drifting with the
temper of the company, suiting the discourse to whatever subject may
turn up? The instant any one is felt to be talking by rules all the
charm of his society vanishes, and he becomes the worst of social
culprits—a bore. For it is the natural easy flow of talk which is indeed
the perfection of what we seek. Didactic teaching, humorous anecdotes,
clever argument—these may take their part in social intercourse, but
they are not its perfection. To take up what others say in easy comment,
to give in return something which will please, to stimulate the silent
and the morose out of their vapours and surprise them into good humour,
to lead while one seems to follow—this is the real aim of good
conversation. How can such a Protean impalpable acquirement be in any
way an art depending on rules? Does it not altogether depend on natural
gifts, on a ready power of expression, on a sanguine temperament, on a
quick power of sympathy, on a placid temper? Is there not a risk, nay a
certainty, that in dissecting it we shall slay its life and destroy its
beauty?
§ 3. However natural and reasonable this objection, it is based on the
mistake that art is opposed to nature, that natural means _merely_ what
is spontaneous and unprepared, and artistic what is _manifestly_ studied
and artificial. This is one of the commonest and most widely-spread
popular errors. If such were the real meaning of _natural_, it might be
argued that nothing was natural in man above the condition of the lowest
savage—the _Naturmensch_, as the Germans call him. And if such were the
meaning of _artistic_ we must exclude from art the highest of all its
functions—that of reproducing, or perhaps even of producing, nature in
its most precious and perfect phases. It is a curious reflection that
conventionality and awkwardness seem the most universal inheritance, and
so far thoroughly natural to men, that they require either conscious art
or the unconsciousness attending some violent emotion to keep them clear
of it. The savage has it strongly marked in him; the most enlightened
societies are encumbered with it. Ask any child of five or six years
old, anywhere over Europe, to draw you the figure of a man, and it will
always produce very much the same kind of thing. You might, therefore,
assert that this was the _natural_ way for a child to draw a man, and
yet how remote from nature it is. If one or two out of a thousand made a
fair attempt and avoided the conventional treatment, you would attribute
this either to special genius or special training—and why? because the
child had really approached nature.
§ 4. Let us leave generalities and consider practical sciences, which
have a closer analogy to the subject under discussion. The science of
Logic or analysis of reasoning professes to show us how men ought to
reason, and to discover the precise nature of their mistakes when they
reason falsely. Yet the best reasoner is not the man who parades his
logic and thrusts syllogisms upon his opponents, but he who states his
arguments as if they came spontaneously and followed one another by
natural suggestion. In fact, the man who parades his logic is one of
those poor and narrow thinkers whose over-attention to form mars his
comprehension of the matter, and so leads him astray. The logically
formal reasoner is generally a bad persuader. And yet logic is not to be
blamed for this man’s stupidity. The fact that he goes wrong on every
practical question is not due to logic, but to the man’s narrowness of
vision or his vanity in parading an art that does not admit of parade in
its proper use.
The case is still clearer with Rhetoric, or the science of speaking
persuasively in public. Here we have a science so akin to that of which
we are in search, that the points of importance may serve as direct
clues to discover what we want. The most obvious points about rhetoric
as a practical science are these: it pre-supposes some natural gifts in
the pupil, and though we have notable instances of men overcoming great
congenital obstacles by study, the fact of this very conquest shows that
a fund of power or of passion lay concealed beneath these hindrances. No
stupid or idle person, no person without any flow of ideas ever was, or
could be made, an effective speaker by studying rhetoric.
On the other hand, every speaker, bad or good, is greatly improved by a
study of this science, and by reflecting on the suggestions it gives
him. There is no orator, however naturally ready and fluent, who will
not profit immensely by such a study. Nay, even those who have formed
themselves as speakers by long practice, have generally constructed for
themselves some such science or body of rules which they consciously
obey, and which gives them most of their efficiency and power; so that
even if they have succeeded without studying the science of rhetoric,
they are not therefore devoid of rhetorical study.
But it is of the last importance, as was already observed in the case of
logic, that a man’s theory of speaking should not be paraded to his
hearers. The moment they are made aware that he has drawn up
premeditated engines of persuasion, as it were, in position, they
fortify themselves against them, and what the orator gains in display,
he loses in power. For here, as in all art, the real perfection is to
reproduce nature—not nature in its halting, and stammering, and
repetition, but nature in its most perfect and purified form. Here, too,
the untutored speaker is always conventional and consciously awkward; it
is the trained orator who is easy and graceful; he is in fact at home
not only with his audience, but, if I may say so, with himself.
In public speaking, however, studied effects and evident preparation,
though not agreeable, though not showing the highest art, are still
excusable, owing to the acknowledged difficulties with which that art is
beset. It is not so with conversation. Here, if anywhere, the first
thing to be aimed at is to appear perfectly natural. Hence the fact that
no “theory of conversation” has yet been attempted. But hence also the
fact that such an analysis is very much needed, and that conversation
generally is at a far lower level than it might be. The many analogies
already pointed out, and many others which will suggest themselves to
any intelligent reader, indicate that the line to be followed in this
discussion must be determined by the sister art of rhetoric, if indeed
conversation can be called a sister art, and not a mere pendant to the
art of rhetoric. In general, good public speakers are also agreeable in
conversation; the art of persuading people from a platform is nearly
akin to that of pleasing them in social discourse, though there are of
course some men only fit for the greater and more serious mission, and
some who are perfect enough in the lesser yet who cannot rise to the
importance of the greater task.[1]
Footnote 1:
So it was said of Phæax, the contemporary of Alcibiades and Cleon,
λαλεῑν ἄριστος, ἀδυνατὠτατος λἐγειν—a capital talker, but the worst of
speakers.
§ 5. The analogy, therefore, being established, we may feel tolerably
certain of the following results, which should be stated at the outset
in order to allay any vain or excessive expectations: (1) no teaching of
the art of conversation by specimens is possible. Even in rhetoric this
is very difficult, and yet rhetoric is busied about weighty topics which
must often recur in the same form. But in the case of conversation,
except to point out some notable examples in great authors, any teaching
by special cases is quite illusory. It would at once tempt the learner
to force the train of the discourse into the vein he had practised, and
to force conversation is in other words to spoil it. (2) As in logic and
in rhetoric, we may be certain that all the general rules, when stated,
will be perfectly obvious. The notion of any of these sciences being
mysteries, whereby a secret or magic power is to be acquired, is only
fit for the dark ages. The broad foundations of logic are nothing but
truisms; the rules of rhetoric are founded on these truisms, combined
with psychological observations neither subtle nor deep. So we may be
certain that the laws of good conversation, being such as can be
practised by all, are no witchery, but something simple and commonplace,
perhaps neglected on account of their very plainness. (3) But simple as
these rules may be, it requires a certain special faculty to apply
them—a faculty which may be called common sense, or judgment, or
genius—a something which some men and women have not at all and can
never acquire, but which the great majority have in some degree, and
this determines their success more than all the rules in the world. So
it is with eloquence of the higher kind. What are called natural gifts
start one man far ahead of another. And yet these external qualities may
be outrun by a larger mental gift, which overcomes weakness of voice,
and poverty of frame, and makes a man whose presence is mean, and whose
speech at first contemptible, fascinate great audiences with his genius.
We will not define what this peculiar quality is in the case of
conversation, but it is necessary to feel its presence from the very
outset.
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