§ 45. So far we have been considering the quality of the company as
determined by social position, which, if not an absolutely artificial
distinction, is at least frequently such, so that it may be even
reversed by circumstances. There are great distinctions made by nature
which are indelible, and which must therefore be reckoned with as
permanent factors in our theory—I mean those of age and sex.
There are, properly speaking, three grades of age worth
considering—youth, maturity, and old age; but from our point of view we
are justified in regarding mature life as the normal state, and shall
therefore consider the duties of the mature man and woman as they come
in contact with the extremes. It is not worth while writing any advices
for the old, as they are beyond the age of improvement, though by no
means always stripped of their social qualities; indeed, the position of
very old people, who have maintained their faculties, is quite
exceptional in modern society, and will require a few words of comment
in the present connection.
A collection of very old people is of course hardly to be found; so that
the practical case before us is the occurrence of one, or at most two,
very old people in a company, and the consequent modifications in
ordinary society likely to make this element effective and agreeable. It
may almost be assumed that however lively the old person is, he (or she)
will not be able to converse when many people are talking in the room,
and to assert himself in even a small crowd. There must be comparative
silence while he is speaking, and special attention should be paid him.
Under these circumstances it almost follows as a matter of course that
he should be discreetly drawn out to tell such experiences as are beyond
the memory of the rest, which from their pictures of bygone manners or
long dead celebrities are very interesting, and admirably suited for the
best social recreation. The many _Recollections_, _Diaries_,
_Autobiographies_, etc., now published from the papers of the mere
observers of their age, such as Greville, and which are generally too
trivial and minute to make good books, form the staple of excellent
conversation when told by the very actor or observer. Of course there is
a considerable chance of his becoming tedious; it is one of the most
frequent defects of age, but if a man’s hobby makes him tedious, it also
may make him very interesting; and the first and best receipt to make a
man agreeable is to make him talk about what he likes best.
The most successful conversations with old men are, however, not those
with the old _raconteur_, who is in the habit of narrating his
experiences and expects to be asked to do so, but with some modest and
apparently dull old person who is successfully probed by intelligent and
sympathetic questions, till he is actually reminded of long-forgotten
scenes, which have perhaps not been suggested to him for years, and then
he draws from his memory, with the help of further questions, some
passage of life and adventure of the highest interest. Many a time have
I seen an old person, at first regarded as an obstacle, prove the
highest advantage to the conversation, and it is for this reason that in
a book of theory the reader should be reminded of his duty to see that
so valuable an item does not escape him. It is generally easy enough to
gather from the old gentleman (or lady) where he has lived, what society
he has frequented, and what are his strongest impressions as to the
contrasts between his own early days and ours.
There is, moreover, in discussing the gossip and the scandal of a bygone
generation an amount of freedom—I had almost said licence—allowed which
would be intolerable as regards living society, and a very old person
may be allowed to say things which younger people should avoid. I do not
mention this as an advantage in itself—far from it—but as an additional
possibility in making conversation lively, and in avoiding that
stagnation in talk which, from our present point of view, is the
extremest crime known to society.
It is also obvious that as old people are unable to talk loudly and with
vivacity, the dialogue between two, or a couple of listeners added to
the questioner, will be the most likely way to attain the end in view.
To stop an old person who is becoming tedious is probably the most
difficult of all social duties, and requires the most delicate tact. The
respect due to age takes from our hands those weapons of sarcasm,
banter, or even blunt interruption which are our natural defences
against obtrusive youth; nor do I know of any general directions which
can help a host or hostess in this grave and not uncommon difficulty. It
is of course useless to lecture old people, either in this book or
elsewhere, on the dangers of tediousness.
§ 46. I turn now to conversation with people much younger than
ourselves, not of course with babies, or very young children, the art of
amusing whom can hardly be called the art of conversation. I mean rather
such ordinary cases as going in to dinner with a person much younger
than yourself, whose main interests must therefore be foreign to yours;
or else the entertaining of a party of young people who have met for
purposes of sport, but are also to be regarded as guests at a table
where conversation asserts its universal importance.
What modifications in our talk are here desirable?
In the first place it is but natural that the older person should lead
the discourse, and suggest the topics which will elicit sympathy from
the young. And of course the easiest way to begin is to make people talk
about themselves—this being a subject which interests most young people
exceedingly. But it is by no means an universal rule. The life of the
young, of schoolboys, and of young girls, is often very monotonous, and
really affords no scope for conversation beyond the first ordinary
inquiries into their tastes, habits, and what they read. If you find a
strong taste for any special thing, such as music or cricket, you may
work out that subject.
But if, as is too often the case, the youth has not thought seriously
about anything, it is surely best to draw from your own stores, and tell
experiences which will be new and interesting from their curiosity, such
as the ways and habits of the lower animals which you may have observed,
the manners of men, or of strange cities which you have visited, the
feats you have seen performed. These things are seldom suitable for
other kinds of society, when any display of your own experiences is
offensive; but in talking to young, fresh, and ingenuous people, the
novelty of the information you give them will generally obscure their
critical or fault-finding sense, and even if they are very sceptical as
to facts,—the young and inexperienced in our day are usually so,—they
will fully appreciate the effort to make them feel happy.
§ 47. It is perhaps not till then that you will succeed in probing out
some interesting nook in their short experience. They have been in
accidental contact with some great or notorious person, and have seen
him in his leisure moments; they may have lived in a peculiar country,
where either the sport or the natural features are very interesting, and
upon which they can have the distinction of instructing older and wiser
people.
I have met quiet country gentlemen, who in their youth had seen active
service in the army, and fought in remarkable campaigns, who never spoke
of these things among their neighbours, so that when some intelligent
stranger drew from them their experiences, it came like a revelation to
those who for years had voted them stupid and dull members of their
county society.
So important and so neglected is this duty of probing for the strong
point of others, which is naturally brought forward, in connection with
the effort to talk with the young and inexperienced, that I am disposed
to lay this down as a practical rule: _if you find the company dull,
blame yourself_. With more skill and more patience on your part it is
almost certain you would have found it agreeable. If even two or three
people in a company acted on this rule, how seldom would our social
meetings prove a failure!
§ 48. We come now to a still more indelible contrast than that of age,
and ask what effects, advantageous or otherwise, has the contrast of sex
upon conversation? It is a problem very difficult indeed to solve, for
while it is a great law of nature that the very instincts of each sex
urge it to please the other, it is on the contrary a great law of
society that (perhaps for this very reason) a large number of topics are
not to be discussed by the sexes in common. It is then a case where
nature stimulates and tradition restrains: which shall we declare to be
stronger? That depends altogether upon the character of the society in
which we live. If it be perfectly free—let us say the society of the
Navigator Islands—there the natural attraction of opposite sexes must
make their conversation far more agreeable than that of men or women
separately.
So it is too among those exceptional sets of people in civilised
countries, who brave public opinion so far as to speak their minds to
the other sex, and whose conversation is accordingly considered too free
by the average of people around them. In this it is natural that the
more restrained sex should take the initiative; but if any woman makes
bold to speak with perfect freedom among men, and if she be gifted with
the ordinary talents for conversation, she will be more agreeable than
an intelligent man who says the same things—or rather she will say
things in a fresher way; the very situation is somewhat piquant, and so
she will certainly gain by the contrast of sex. A small party of men and
women of this sort ought to produce the most amusing conversation
possible. But I need only hint how easily such a society may transgress
the due limits, and degenerate into what the later Athenians thought
brilliant, and collected in a special book. Nor will freedom, far less
audacity, in conversation redeem ignorance, rudeness, or graver vices.
Take another kind of society, either one of Puritanical strictness—I
remember when the word _girl_ was thought rather improper in religious
Dublin society, you should say _young person_—or else that sort of
foreign society which, from suspicion and fear, prohibits any intimacy
between young men and women, or brands such intimacy as foreign to good
society. There can be no doubt that here contrast of sex is fatal to
conversation, which must needs be constrained, conventional, and
occupied with topics either too trivial or too serious for proper
recreation. Women living under these conditions find no interest in
studying the subjects that interest men—especially politics; and so it
comes to pass that in the greater part of orderly modern English
society, a company of men only is thought more agreeable than a mixed
one—even though the ladies be not so strict as in the extreme cases
mentioned, but merely confined to domestic and moral topics, to the
exclusion of public affairs.
§ 49. This being the general aspect of the problem, it only remains to
apply the principles already attained in the case of a dialogue with one
of the other sex. In old times, that extreme form of courtesy called
gallantry was thought the proper way to please a woman. It is now almost
vulgar, and the man who desires to flatter an intelligent woman most
keenly, and interest her, will take care to treat her as an intellectual
equal, not as a plaything or a pet. A man who seizes the opportunity of
a conversation to consult a lady on some social difficulty, or makes her
for the moment his confidante in some matter not to be divulged, will be
almost sure to find her agreeable and sympathetic.
Men, especially elderly men, are far more easily flattered by women, and
more easily carried away by such flattery. For this reason I think it
unnecessary, nay, perhaps mischievous, to give any advices to ladies how
to use this powerful engine in society. The real difficulty under which
they labour as to conversation is to hit off the right mean between
prudery and its opposite, to know how far to speak out frankly, and when
to put a bridle on the talker who threatens to overstep the bounds of
the reverence due to ourselves and to one another.
This reverence is, of course, due most especially to youth, and elderly
people who discuss before young boys and girls any topics not perfectly
pure, are guilty of such a crime in conversation as can hardly be
punished too severely. Before other elderly people the case is somewhat
different, and things may then be said or implied which should not be
selected for discussion in the presence of the young. But above all, let
us be strict in checking this kind of licence, which is so apt to take
possession of the baser minds among us, and degrade conversation—the
recreation of intellect and the mirror of social goodness—into a serious
mischief.
§ 50. What I have said above concerning the duty of treating the other
sex as strict equals in conversation, is but another instance of the
principle already laid down (§ 40), that no really bright social
intercourse is possible without equality. There is, in fact, nothing so
democratic as good conversation, nothing so Protestant, for we must seem
to assert our private judgment, even where we assent. And as a man does
best to seek a woman’s opinion, and ask her advice, so as to make her
feel on the same plane, a woman who desires to be agreeable should
differ without hesitation from the opinions expressed by men, and assert
her independence of judgment, and her consequent right to take part in a
real conversation. A woman who does this, even stupidly, and without
good reasons, is better than those who sit down and acquiesce in
whatever is said by men; this latter is the acknowledgment of
inferiority which is subversive of all pleasant talk.
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