The evening book, or, Fireside talk on morals
and manners with sketches of western life |
CONVERSATION. |
 | The evening book, or, Fireside talk on morals
and manners |  |
CONVERSATION.
Our best gifts are least praised, perhaps least prized. Whatever
outward good enters into the very texture of our life's life, has little
chance of being duly honored. Those pleasures, without which we
should be wretched, we treat as insignificant, because they are indispensable.
It is so with conversation, a pleasure for which all men
have a taste; one which is never relinquished except by compulsion,
or some motive almost as potent. Says Emerson, `Good as is
discourse, silence is better and shames it;' but the world is far from
understanding, or at least adopting this philosophy. The silence of
monastic life is the highest triumph of asceticism; that of prison
existence the utmost cruelty of the law. The sage loves conversation
better than the child, for the very desire of acquiring makes
him anxious to impart. Joy prattles; grief must talk or die; both
are eloquent, for passion is always so. A feeling too strong for
words is agony; if they be long withheld, it becomes madness.
The chattering of youth is the overflow of animal spirits by the
stimulus of new ideas; the garrulity of age seems an effort to excite
the fainting animal spirits, by recalling the ideas which once stimulated
them. Letter-writing is an effort at conversation; so indeed
is essay-writing. Let us then have a talk about talking. Our
or at least to inquire whether we do or not.
Goethe advises that we shall at least `speak every day a few good
words.' Do we concern ourselves about this when we are making
up the day's account? Did we begin the day with any resolves
about it, as if it were a thing of consequence, or have we maundered
on, dropping tinkling words about trifles, or evil words like firebrands,
or words of gloom and repining, insulting Providence, or
words of hatred, piercing hearts that love us? Each day's talk is
surely no trifle; we can hardly help sowing the germs of many
thoughts in a twelve hours' intercourse with our co-mates, in the
ordinary duties of life; and allowing our words only a negative
value, we rob our friends of all the good and pleasure that we might
bestow and do not. Young and old alike have claims upon us for
the cheap gift of our good thoughts; the young, because it is their
spring-time, and they must have good thoughts or bad ones, flowers
or weeds; the old, for that life's troubles have cast so many shadows
upon their minds, that it is cruel to let slip any chance of cheering
them by means of whatever advantage we possess. If they despond
habitually, a few rightly chosen words may present a new side of
affairs for their relief; if they are soured, words of affection are all-powerful
to neutralize such acids. Let us not dare to put them off
with silence; in such a case it is a confession of the weakness of our
virtue. Incommunicative households are only a step behind quarreling
households. Some people are taciturn only because they cannot
open their mouths without saying something disagreeable. They have
just goodness enough to be silent, not enough to reform the inward
sullenness of their temper.
There are those who have never even entertained the idea that
under certain circumstances it may become a duty to talk. They
mum, leaving the trouble to others. That it is sometimes a trouble
to talk is very true; the French have a proverbial saying which
expresses this; they say of a talker, that he `bore the expense'
of the conversation. It is true too, that we feel as if we made a
stupid figure in making an effort to talk. This is what the mum
people of whom we are speaking think, and pride and selfishness
prompt them to leave the disagreeable to others. O the misery of
being obliged to ask one of these spirits to `spend the day;' that
trial of the soul to both hostess and guest! There is no use in
offering books to such visiters; if reading were their habitual amusement,
they would have some ideas. An Annual might do indeed;
but the best resource is usually some new pattern in worsteds or
crochet, and, if this does not do, to follow Miss Patty Proud's example—take
the lady up stairs, and show her your finery. We are
speaking of course of feminine bores, for happily gentlemen are never
asked to spend the day; and if they were, they would probably
soon get sound asleep upon the sofa. When you in despair propose
a nap to your silent lady-friend, she is sure to tell you that she
cannot sleep in the day-time; it is evidently her forte to be the
cause of sleep in others.
Two young girls together are said to be like the side-bones of a
chicken, “because they always have a merry-thought between them.”
And truly the giggling which generally ensues when a few young ladies
get together would seem to justify the old riddle. It is hard to say
whether what is said on these occasions is conversation or not. To
settle the point it would be necessary to go into an analysis of their
talk, which were foreign to our present purpose, as well as difficult
for want of material, since no one has ever reported what is said
under cover of so much laugh. To count the bubbles on the surface
as useful. But every age has its pleasures, and we must not quarrel
with this. Sober days do not await our bidding.
Ball-room talk is equally beyond our pale. Its ineffable nothingness
defies us. Fortunately conversation is not the characteristic
pleasure of the ball-room. The West Indian lady understood this,
who exclaimed impatiently to a friend of ours who had wearied her
with trying to find a subject on which she would open her lips—
“Cha, cha! I no come here for chatter, I come here for dance!”
Happy were it if her notion were generally adopted. The harp and
violin discourse more excellent music than can be expected from
unhappy beaux, who, not very well furnished with ideas at the outset,
must belabor their beseeching brains for something to say to ten
young ladies in succession, all of different disposition, character, and
education, and probably no better fitted for extempore conversation
than their partners. The swain too often takes refuge in a silly
strain of compliment, which makes the lady feel silly and look silly;
and which, if she be silly enough to believe it sincere, may, to say
the least, not add to her wisdom. What a perversion, to call this
conversation, where no one word on either side is the sincere expression
of the inward thought!
The dulness of our social visits is one of the commonest subjects
of complaint. It is an evil not only recognised but guarded against,
indirectly; for we often see a good deal of ingenuity exerted to elude
an invitation without absolute falsehood or the certainty of giving
offence. Unless some special inducement is offered, people feel that
they will have a far better chance for enjoyment at home, with their
ordinary pursuits, or among their books, than in a talking circle, who
will hardly, by any chance, say a word that will either please or
instruct. Dulness becomes thus a formidable ally of dissipation; the
affected coteries. “If your boasted morality,” say they, “can afford
nothing better than this, in the way of social enjoyment, you must
excuse us if we prefer a mode of life which affords pleasure, at least.
If excess is the bane of ours, inanity and hollowness are no less the
reproach of yours.” Can we reply to this taunt by an appeal to
matters of fact? Can we silence the scorner of our boasted sobriety
by assuring him that we enjoy the social intercourse he condemns?
Can we quote in refutation of his opinion passages of value from last
evening's conversation, or declare that our feelings of general benevolence
and charity are kept warm by our social habits?
We are always sensible of the pleasure of conversation when it is
what it should be; but we do not find it easy to prescribe rules for it.
There are, indeed, plenty of formal rules, but they are too formal.
We do not find that agreeable people talk by them, and we say such
as one has a gift for conversation, as if confessing that rules have
little to do with the matter. And indeed, how could we talk by
rule any more than we can breathe by rule? We never think of
counting or measuring the delicious inhalations of a rural walk, or
those which sustain the life of a year. Talking is quite as natural
and almost as necessary as breathing, for the few taciturn people we
meet are only enough to prove the universality of the impulse. Of
course we put out of the question those who are silent through sulkiness
or stupidity, or by design, and consider only people who
behave naturally. The deaf-mute, unprovided by nature with the
facility for it enjoyed by others, show by their strenuous efforts to
find a substitute, how dearly they prize the power of communicating
their sentiments to those about them. Even Laura Bridgman, says
Dr. Howe, to show the strength of the impulse to clothe our thoughts
in words, `often soliloquizes in the finger language, slow and tedious
speech who treat it with neglect, not so much indeed by disuse, as
by abuse.
The impulse to impart our thoughts is so strong that it is proverbially
necessary to keep a guard over our lips lest we tell what
should not be told. To what a pitch then must our sophistication
by false notions of society have arisen, when we become able to talk
for hours the very thing we do not think, pouring out empty words,
while the under-current of our thoughts set in a quite different direction.
The `bald, disjointed chat' thus produced, is what we call
`conversation in company,' and no wonder we dread `company!'
A diet of stale crumbs and tepid water would be quite as agreeable.
Listen to the conversation of a morning call.
First the health branch.
`How do you do—and how is your mother—and is your sister
quite well—and has your aunt recovered?'—an unexceptionable strain
of talk in itself, but usually a mere form, from the fact that we have
had daily opportunities of ascertaining the condition of these good
people, and know that nothing of consequence can have befallen
them without our knowledge. It wears the semblance of friendly
feeling and human sympathy, however, so we must not condemn it
when it includes one grain of sincerity. But we proceed. `My own
health has been miserable. I have had—' And here follows a
train of symptoms minutely given, even as to days and hours, with
the fears of friends and the judgment of physicians, until the listener
yawns so perceptibly that it is impossible to proceed. The children's
cases come next, and it is well if their afflictions do not occupy the
remainder of the visit.
Next comes the weather branch, if there be time enough.
`What dreadful weather we have had! It is enough to kill any
who has been all over the world, says that ours is the very worst
climate on the face of the globe. Nobody can be well in such a
climate,” &c., until it is made perfectly clear that Providence, either
through especial spite or general incapacity, is doing its worst for us
in the way of weather.
From this gracious topic we go perhaps to the last party.
`Were you there? Oh, certainly—don't you remember our talking
together for some time? Did you ever see any one look so
much like a fright as Mrs. A—? And what a fool Mr. G—
is! Oh, I do think going to parties such a bore! I never go when
I can decently refuse, but I have declined Mrs. B—'s invitations
so often that I thought I must go for once. The gentlemen have
the best of it; they are not obliged to appear before supper-time,'
&c. &c. If there be any more time, dress fills it to overflowing. The
fashions never fail to afford a multitude of remarks, criticisms, and
ecstasies, very advantageous to the milliners, but tiresome enough in
themselves to all but the initiated.
It may be remarked that the subjects here adverted to make up
the conversation of ladies only, but we were speaking of morning
calls, which gentlemen never make. The gentlemen have one staple
subject on all occasions—that of party politics; and this their chosen
theme doubtless appears to them far more dignified and worthy of
attention than those which occupy the thoughts of women.
Whether it be so in the manner in which it is ordinarily handled,
may admit of questions, but it is a question which we shall not
presume to touch here. If there be anything which is held sacred
in our country, it is the propensity of the men to talk politics. It is
difficult to obtain belief for the truth that one rarely hears anything
said of politics in good society abroad. “What other subjects can
topics of interest between this most earthy one and the `celestial
colloquy sublime,” once held in Paradise: but in considering
what is or what is not the conversation which makes social gathering
delightful, which wakes up the best powers of the mind, calls
forth the half-formed thoughts that had else slumbered in a sort of
chaos for want of the vivifying influence, arouses all the most
generous instincts of the heart, and furnishes the most soul-stirring
pleasure that we are capable of enjoying—we cannot conscientiously
assign to party politics a much more dignified place in our list of
subjects than to the weather, or our bodily condition, though we
confess it to rank above dress, which must be allowed to be below
everything else that it is permissible to talk of in society.
The faults and follies of our neighbors and friends afford, perhaps,
the most fertile of all subjects for conversation, when it is at all
spontaneous. The study of character is one of the pleasures of life,
but we are not particularly fond of exercising it upon ourselves, or at
least of divulging the results of our practice. As surgeons choose
the lifeless body for their demonstrations, so we try our skill upon
the absent, and, as he can neither resist nor reply, that is very
pleasant and advantageous—to the operator, who, not being forced
to defend his positions, may expatiate at will, and having set out with
a general theory or proposition, may easily, by the aid of a little
imagination, make out a consistent view of the whole case. One
inconvenience attending the use of this class of material for conversation,
is the danger that the person dissected may not relish our
view of his case as reported to him by some good-natured friend. His
vanity may hinder his appreciating our discernment; he may mistake
for spite or envy or unkindliness the keen perception on which we
pride ourselves; he may not be able to consider himself as an abstraction,
demonstrated upon him, and we may thus lose his friendship just as
we flattered ourselves we understood him thoroughly.
Then again the habit of discussing character in ordinary conversation
is apt to be a little chilling, all round. It is hardly possible
to feel quite at ease and to behave unconstrainedly, if we know that
as soon as we depart we shall be coolly analyzed for the benefit of
those who remain. We are not quite so confident of the impartiality
and discernment of others as of our own, and we would rather not
feel that every word and action of ours is being treasured up as
material for future sketches of character. So that this style of conversation,
while it exercises the intellect, is likely to harden the heart,
and instead of diffusing an affectionate confidence through social
intercourse, will probably end in putting each individual secretly on
the defensive. Some frigid soul devised the maxim, `Live always
with your friend as if he might one day be your enemy;” and those
must have kindred notions of the spirit of society, who consider the
peculiarities and shades of character of their friends matter for habitual
discussion.
There is indeed one way of avoiding the obvious danger of this
theme,—that of giving offence to the absent,—namely, by making
our discussion the vehicle of praise only. But is not this apt to become
a little tiresome? In some families most of the conversation
with visiters—we can judge of nothing further—consists in eulogies
upon absent members of the household or connexion. Unhappily
there is hardly enough disinterested sympathy in human nature to
make this agreeable to persons who have not the advantage of belonging
to those exemplary races. The perfections of those we love are
a most fascinating subject for private contemplation, but they are
hardly the topic for entertaining our guests withal. Nor are the individuals
of their excellences. Being human, they have probably still
some remains of human imperfection, and these will be very apt to
come up in full size before the memory or imagination of the listener,
who is driven to seek a refuge for his self-love from the painful contrast
suggested by so much virtue. On the whole then, we conclude
that personal discussion, even in this honied phase, is not very advantageous
to the main end of conversation, as a sweetener of the
soul and a cultivator of the social affections.
Egotism may be reckoned a kindred vice of conversation, equally
tiresome, but not so bad in itself, because it is truer. Egotism is
either the pouring forth of a vanity too egregious to be politic; or the
effort of a desire to please to bring up its claims to notice; or the
mere morbid and painful action of an unhealthy mind, attempting
to share its troubles and vexations with others, or to enforce the attention
which such minds are apt to think wrongfully withheld. In
either of these cases, tediousness is its worst effect. We fly an
egotist, but we do not fear or hate him. If vanity prompt his fault,
we smile secretly at the weakness; if a desire to make an impression,
we revenge ourselves on his tiresomeness by contrasting in our own
minds his real with his imaginary claims. It is of such as he that
the common people say `I would like to buy him at my price
and sell him at his own,' and the saying arose from the frequency of
the appearance of such characters in society. Our daily intercourse
must be select indeed if it include not more than one unwise talker
of this class. The ardor of our social competition brings them forth
in Egyptian abundance, but as their numbers increase their object is
more and more difficult of attainment; since society is forced to invent
expedients for avoiding them or cutting them short, while its
appreciation of their claims is in inverse proportion to the pertinacity
so obvious as to be offensive to the casual observer. It has a thousand
degrees and disguises; and in its more subtle and less suspected
shape, enters more or less into conversation generally. One cannot
analyze one's own talk very faithfully without perceiving traces of
this tendency to self-recommendation. In that case we console ourselves
by thinking either that we desire to be valued, in order that
we may be in a position to do good to others, or that we seek merely
to do ourselves justice in the eyes of those whose discernment is
not keen enough to form a correct opinion of us for themselves; or
at least that to love to be loved is at any rate no very reprehensible
source of action. Let us have candor and kindliness enough to
make the same apologies for other people.
A still less agreeable class of talkers are they who seem to listen
for no other purpose than to entrap the speaker. They lie in wait
for petty errors and apparent discrepancies; things whose consistency
might be vindicated after a world of words, but which we have a
right to expect will be taken for granted as correct by those who
know us to have a regard for truth. These are minute and matter-of
fact people, in whose minds the main idea is of no more importance
than the most insignificant accessory. They would stop you
in the midst of a recital of harrowing interest to say, `But I thought
you said it was four o'clock!' and if you should not stop and explain
that although one portion of the occurrence took place at four
o'clock, another was necessarily deferred until half-past four, would
secretly result in the conviction that you were a person who allowed
the imagination full play at the expense of truth, or perhaps set you
down an absolute story-steller. To talk with such people is subjecting
one's self to the labor of proving a continual negative. This
caviling habit is completly contradictory of the genial and confiding
whose flow of talk returns indignantly upon himself, to await listeners
who are too conscious of their own love of truth lightly to suspect
another of disregarding it. It is found generally either among
persons whose pursuits have led them into close investigation of
minute points; among hard and coarse business men or sharp lawyers;
among the self-righteous of either sex; among people who
being devoid of imagination, are habitually suspicious of those who
appear to possess any; and, finally, among those who, having very
little regard for truth, seek to bolster up a tottering reputation in
this respect by unusual keenness in sifting the words of others.
These last have naturally the advantage of all the rest, since there
is no pocket so hard to pick as a pickpocket's.
With these enemies of conversation we may rank such as frown
upon every little playful sally, snapping at each unconsidered word,
and pretending to be puzzled by every witticism, in the spirit of him
who asked, of a poem, `What does it prove? The truth is, folly is
almost as requisite to pleasant general conversation as wisdom.
Highly condensed aliment is healthful neither for mind nor body.
As a little bran left in our bread makes it more wholesome, so does
a little harmless folly in our talk. Those who despise it are very
apt to suffer and look glum under a mental dyspepsia, and they
deserve it. Until philosophers become predominant in society, wisdom
will not be best commended to popularity by showing it as the
antagonist of mirth; and when they are so, they will show how
cheerful wise men can be. Were our laughing muscles given us for
nothing? When Solomon compared the laughter of fools to `the
crackling of thorns under a pot,' he was thinking of wicked fools,
undoubtedly; there are many such, and their laughter is anything
but cheerful. But some gloomy people say, `There is too much
sad.' To this we would assent with all our hearts, if habitual sadness
were in itself likely to better the state of things. It is true
that, by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better,
viz., that unmingled prosperity and happiness is apt to make our
poor humanity cold and unfeeling, leaving dormant those tender
sympathies with all human woe, which any heart-touching sorrow is
sure to awaken; but if this be construed into a disparagement of
innocent mirth at proper times, we must rebut it by another proverb
of the same teacher of wisdom—`A merry heart is a continual feast,'
a feast, we venture to add, quite as much to those about it as to
itself. We have no patience with those who despise mirth as mirth;
who fix a cold glance upon the vivacious talker of pleasant nothings,
as who should say, `Behold a zany!' One might almost be tempted
to remind these unhappy wise men that the most immovably grave
of all creatures is the ass. The best wisdom is humane and humble,
not stilted and self-glorifying. We would not recommend to a man
of sense to be `the fiddle of the company,' but there is at least
equal and less amiable folly in gathering one's self up solicitously,
lest any one in the melée of conversation should tread upon the
corns of our dignity. Wisdom that is rich and ample can afford
some derogation.
The French have furnished us—in return for the words Home,
Comfort, and others expressive of simple, tender, and healthy ideas
—with several words whose origin refers rather to the genius or
spirit of their own social life. Among these are Badinage and Persiflage;
the former meaning simply light, frivolous talk, the latter as
much and more, viz: the trick of making another say that which
renders himself ridiculous. From the former is derived our word
Banter, which Dr. Johnson calls `a barbarous word, without etymology,'
`satirical merriment,' and To Rally, as `to treat with slight contempt.'
There is not one of these words which, closely defined, conveys an
agreeable idea; yet they are the only words by which to express a
certain style of conversation which seems to find favor with some
people. It is sometimes called `sharp shooting'—perhaps because it
occasions wincing, if not wounds; sometimes `sparring,' a term
which smacks of the noble science of which Hyer and Sullivan are
the prominent professors just now. `Sparring for love,' however,
requires the gloves, but this is apt to be forgotten in conversational
pugilistics.
We have sometimes wished we could discover—perhaps by some
Asmodean power of peering into the recesses of people's minds—
how large a proportion of the world really relish this amusement.
We speak not of those who have the advantage in the contest, for
they seem to enjoy it; but of the far greater class—those who simply
suffer it, or who are induced to retort, in self-defence. There is
seldom an equal match on these occasions; and when it does happen,
the game is up directly—showing pretty plainly what is at least one
of the elements of the pleasure it gives.
To express an opinion counter to this tone of conversation, is to
subject one's self to a charge of moroseness, touchiness, or want of
sympathy, so nearly has a habit of joking come to be confounded
with cheerfulness and good humor. This suppositious character it
owes to the fact that nobody likes to own he is hit; and thus pride
prevents the party who secretly feels personal joking to be any thing
but pleasant, from seeming to disapprove it. The victor, flushed
with his little triumph, is quite sure of his own good humor, and so
the thing goes on, unchallenged.
We must not omit to say that it is the habit of jesting, rather
accounts. Conversation would lose as much, if an occasional joke
were made contraband, as it does by the ceaseless effort at sharpshooting
which sometimes spoils it. As well paralyze the laughing
muscles at once, as forbid all use of them not justifiable by sober
argument. On the other hand, as nothing makes a man seem so
much like a fool as to be always laughing, so nothing takes away so
completely the zest of all jokes as a continual or sustained fire of
them. In truth, a hearty relish for pleasantry is the very ground for
a remonstrance against being crammed with it.
Equally does the power of enjoying wit find itself aggrieved by
the amount of failures involved in a multitude of attempts. Where
the desire of saying what are called “good” things is become
chronic, these failures are usually at least as ten to one, while the
tolerable hits are in general of a grade no higher than punning, or
word-catching. Even in that line they are mostly inferior to the
manufactured jokes of the Sunday papers, and far below the smart
things in Burton's play-bills. “Rien ne fait dire—rien ne fait faire,
autant de sottises, que le desir de montrer de l'esprit,” says the
Abbé Du Bois. While an occasional scintillation, or, what is better,
a subdued infusion of wit, enlivens the social circle, gives life to the
heaviest subject, or may turn the edge of the most impracticable
temper, the sole effect of habitual joking, even putting aside the
personality into which it almost always runs, is to lower the tone of
conversation, and to throw away every advantage which belongs to
cultivation, taste, information, and judgment.
So completely is the ordinary play of this kind of smartness independent
of all cultivation and mental resources, that it seems
strange it can possess any fascination for superior people. Yet men
love contest, even where they are sure to come off losers—in cases
through mud and mire in pursuit of game so small that his shot will
blow it to atoms.
Thus far we have spoken of raillery as a matter of taste; we must
go a little farther.
Raillery implies personality, of course, and as such is certainly
contrary to the canons of good society. But the canons of good
society are intended as a substitute for the exercise of Christian love.
We may ask, then, in pursuance of the subject under a more serious
aspect, whether the habit of exercising our wit at the expense of
others does not imply, when severely tested, a certain hardness, and
lack of that tender sympathy which pervades a heart penetrated and
subdued by religion? Religion, it is true, asks no mawkish insipidity
of talk, in which wit shall be forbidden, and humor disallowed, and
folly unsatirized, and wrong undenounced. But it does demand the
greatest and the minutest attention to the law of love; a resolute
forbearance of aught that can give an unnecessary pang, or even uneasiness,
to any human creature. The old saying “He would rather
lose his friend than his jest,” recognizes the wounding power of
raillery. It is true that “one ought to be able to take a joke,” but
it is equally true that the responsibility of the case rests with the
joker. It would perhaps be too severe to apply here the text which
has sometimes been brought to our mind by things which we have
heard said in conversation—“The fool scattereth about firebrands,
arrows and death, and saith, am I not in sport?” but since we know
not where our neighbor's quivering nerve may lie—and still more if
we do know—how shall we clear ourselves of the imputation of unfeeling
vanity, if we exercise our wit at his cost? Besides, as jests
are notoriously used to cover up reproofs, how can any one be
expected to know whether the “true word” lie at the bottom or not?
This reminds us that some persons justify raillery on the ground
that one can say things in jest that it would not do to say in earnest,
so that one may wield a moral engine with the air of play. It cannot
be denied that truths sometimes flash upon us amid the keen glancings
of our friend's wit, but is it commended to us, under such circumstances?
We may use it, but are we made better by it? The
qualities which fit a man for telling unwelcome truths are, first, a deep
sense of duty, secondly, the truest love and sympathy, and thirdly,
the tender and watchful delicacy which these inspire. When we
feel disposed to tell a friend trying truths without these preparatives,
we may be pretty sure that we are not in a condition to do him
good. How many a friendship is cooled, how many an enmity
nourished, by mistakes on this point, none but the Searcher of hearts
can know, for pride forbids all confession of this description of
wounds.
The simple truth, too—that precious jewel of all conversation—is
often the sacrifice of this keen encounter of wits. Many an apology,
many a retraction, testifies to this. Rather than miss the opportunity
of the sharp repartee, we go on to say what we never thought, and,
induced by pride, maintain the wrong, till we surprise others into
expressions equally unjustifiable. Truth is hard to manage, after we
are once fairly within the gale of raillery.
We are far from believing that a shade of malicious intention belongs
to badinage, as ordinarily practised. It suggests itself as the
most innocent thing in the world, and only shows its real nature in
certain emergencies. Children often play at tapping one another—
love-taps, we call them—in great good humor, which lasts until one
unlucky tap smarts a little. The return to this is a little harder,
and—every parent can finish the story. This is precisely the course
with half the raillery of conversation. It begins in sport and ends in
as the worsted party. This as sport is about as rational and pleasant
as it would be to play at pulling hair—beginning with single hairs,
producing rather an agreeable titillation—and ending in whole handfulls.
Those who insist that to proscribe raillery is to legislate against fun
betray a sad paucity of resource. Surely the wide range of subjects
of harmless drollery will suffice, without calling in the aid of personality.
Even if satire be essential, folly is multiform; anomalies—
laughable blunders, matter of every day observation. But above
all, there is the boundless field of literary allusion, to give elegance
to wit and delicacy to satire. Conversation need never resort to
bitterness for the sake of piquancy, while such materials exist that
only the unfurnished mind can lack opportunity to be innocently
brilliant. Indeed a recourse to what is not innocent is a confession
of poverty.
When we consider the immense usefulness, as well as the inexhaustible
pleasure of conversation, perhaps the most serious objection
to a habit of badinage lies in its tendency to lower the
conversational tone and to deprive our talk of any possibility of
seriousness. Who has not felt the vexation of an interloping joke,
which sent all solid and sweet thoughts flying at once, and substituted
in their place a forced brood of puns, literally “tedious as a twice-told
tale,' since a new one has hardly been heard since Hook's and
Hood's days! Shakspeare knew the feeling right well, and
expresed it roundly—`Answer not to me with a fool-born jest!'
though, like other sinners, he knew the right in this respect better
than he did it. Who has courage to attempt the starting of a
serious thought after a feu d'artifice of popping wit? or if one had
courage, who has the power? Tone is everything in conversation;
others?
There is talk which sweetens the soul; there are conversations
which leave an odor in the memory as if an angel had been there.
Truths are elicited in the free and quiet interchange of thought,
which we would not part with for all the small wit ever struck out
of mercurial brains. The pleasure of conversation is one which
belongs to all circumstances, and lasts when all other pleasures have
lost their zest. It seems to us a thing too sacred to be wantonly
spoiled. Nobody loves `foolish talking and jesting' when his heart
is in its best state; the badin—the persifleur, who puts snuff into our
dish of chat, or sets all our moral teeth on edge with his saw-filing
smartness, is the last man to relish such things when he himself is
in another humor. He takes the liberty of breaking the chain of
your ideas, but he allows you no corresponding license. He is both
ways imperious.
Touchy people are to be dreaded in conversation. Their propensity
is to find out, in the discourse of those about them, points of
offence wholly impalpable to all but themselves, by a power like
that of the magnet, which will cover itself with particles of steel
where no other affinity could detect their presence. Woe to the
good-natured, unsuspicious sayer of nothings, in such company! It
will be hard to convince him that terrible insinuations have been
discovered by unwrapping his gentlest meanings. Does he speak
of somebody's kindness to the poor? Mrs. Sensitive is suddenly
beclouded, for she remembers (what he does not) that she has
just been inveighing against indiscriminate charity. Does he wish
for rain? It is because he knows Mrs. Sensitive is depending upon
fair weather for a party of pleasure. Does he express indignation
at some instance of dishonesty? Why need he go out of his way
years ago? If he venture upon any subject of interest, he is sure
to touch upon a tender spot; if he carefully adhere to generalities,
he is reserving his better things until he has more agreeable society.
It is astonishing to hear with what bitterness some people will dwell
upon these constructive offences—crimes made by the law as it
were. A disposition of this sort is a fatal bar to the flow of conversation.
Our ordinary ideas will not endure such sifting and weighing.
By the time we have turned a thought round and round, to
be sure that it has no ridge or corner of offence, whatever point it had
is sure to have been worn off. We must leave the touchy person
out of our select conversational circle, and we do it with the less regret,
because he is almost sure to be found deficient in other requisites for
companionship besides good-humor. Intelligence, cultivation, and
acquaintance with society are sure antidotes of touchiness, which is
only one phase of egotism.
An overbearing manner is hard to describe, yet it is one
of the most intolerable in society, and so common a one that we
learn almost to dread meeting a person of any pretension, until we
have ascertained whether he is in the habit of allowing anybody to
have an opinion besides himself—that is to say, whether he is a
quack or a savant, for thoroughness is always modest. Overbearing
people are often unobserving enough to be gratified at the silence
in which, after a few efforts, we listen to their conversation; but if
vanity and insolence did not blind them, they would perceive that
the fool who walks through a garden, cutting off flowers with a
switch, that were far better applied to his own shoulders, has exactly
the same reason to be proud. Conscious merit will not condescend
to struggle against this species of arrogance; it rather waits quietly
until the nuisance be overpast.
Your incessant talker is a migratory headache, possessing few
claims to our regard, unless it be as the discoverer of perpetual
motion. There is somewhere in his mind an invisible and endless
thread, about which all sorts of subjects crystalize—facts, theories,
opinions; sentiments, prognostics, and fancies—without the slightest
arrangement that the hearer can discover; yet, possessing as a whole
so wonderful a continuity, that although it might break in any given
spot just as well as in any other, it is impossible to break it anywhere
without force. Sometimes the thread may be loaded only
with “an infinite deal of nothing,” but we often find it rich with gems
of all hues, but so ill-assorted, so tastelessly huddled together, and
so rapidly flashed before our eyes, that we have no leisure to admire
or discriminate, and experience fatigue instead of delight. These are
the most provoking talkers in the world. They make us hate what
we love, and run away from what ought to delight us. The intellect
might bear the flood, but the nerves sink under it. The incessant
talker is in fact a mere talking machine, for if he had the tact, and
sympathy, and spiritual discernment that belongs to enlightened
humanity, he could not but perceive the weariness of his hearers.
And his foible is not usually nothing more than an incontinence of
words; it is more frequently an effect of self-conceit. He has a
secret opinion, not only that he has matter of more interest to communicate,
but that he can impart it better than anybody else, and
he never suspects why his audience drop away as fast as they can.
The more we love conversation, the sooner we tire of an unmerciful
talker; for he would substitute monologue, dramatic—it may be,
or instructive, but still monologue—for the free exchange of
thought.
These remarks apply only to the habitual talker—him who talks
only for his own pleasure, and not that of the company. There
presence we are involuntarily hushed, because we fear to lose a
word. These are not the men to overwhelm us unawares. The
flood gates of their minds ask some trouble in lifting, but fall back
easily into their place. Their discourse is only a better kind of conversation,
suggesting in the listeners' minds thoughts that bud,
blossom, and bear fruit in silence; thoughts for which our common
words would be but lumbering vehicles. The vanity must be resistless
indeed that finds such listening tiresome.
Blessing and bane are so closely coupled in all matters pertaining
to the good things of life, that we need not wonder that many ills
flow out of every abuse of the great gift of speech. Talk is spontaneous
as breathing, as we have said, but it is far from being always
as inoffensive. White-handed Brinvilliers poisoned a few people
who were soon out of their misery, and she has been for ages held
up to execration. Have we never seen a woman who has poisoned
twice as many, for life and death, and who yet passes for a good
sort of person? `apt to speak her mind, but meaning no harm,'—
with so little appearance of premeditation or evil intent do her
cruellest stabs come. She does but report what she has heard—or
she had it from good authority—or she did not say more than
other said! In the course of a morning visit she will skewer you
a whole street of her `friends' like a lunch of kibaubs, and all
peppered for the most fastidious palate. And it must not be thought
that women are the only sinners in this regard. There are men,
too, who, without the excuse of vacuity or idleness, take a dreadful
pleasure in stripping from their compeers the garb in which they
appear to the world, and this under a pretence of love of truth and
justice! These disinterested champions of truth and justice are the
last men to lay bare their own conscious secret faults to the public
value ourselves most may never be mentioned in their hearing! Be
it wit or wealth, beauty or good humor, humanity, steadfastness,
sincerity, or delicacy; pre-eminence in fashion or in learning, success
in literature, patience in sorrow, honest effort in adversity, or
what not—though it be the immediate jewel of our souls, no cardhouse
was ever demolished with greater coolness than will this
favorite wing or turret of our character be by the cool breath of the
habitual detractor. He `speaks daggers, and every word stabs.'
But our present purpose is to deal rather with the æsthetics of this
subject. To treat adequately the morals of conversation would
require more space than we can give to the present paper. Its
importance as a moral engine can hardly be overrated, while it may
be, and too often is, a caterer for the seven deadly sins. Let those
who are disposed to think conversation a matter of indifference, go
carefully through the Book of Proverbs alone, and see what place
the wise king assigns to it among the elements of social life, morals,
and religion. Good words, evil words, many words, few words,
words of cheer, of contention, of anger, of boasting, of deceit, of
impiety—these form almost the burden of his song. `A wholesome
tongue is a tree of life!' What language can be stronger? What
more encouraging to boldness of speech in the cause of goodness?
And the denunciations of those who dare profane the sacred gift are
equally powerful.
Among the minor morals of conversation we must not omit to
notice that much talking in mixed company is seldom safe. We
mean that excited strain of talking in which some people indulge,
without much reflection or any decided intention for good or ill.
The judgment is too often asleep at such times; we say things
under excitement which we would gladly disclaim afterwards,
aspect foreign to reality, and while we are under its influence, we
are very liable to be mistaken in our company, and so commit
imprudences for which we suffer more severely than we deserve.
Vanity, too, takes advantage of these overflowing moments to
make us ridiculous. Mankind must become kinder and more
candidly indulgent before it will be safe to talk much in mixed
company, where humors and biases differ as much as complexions.
Idle people will hardly ever be found to converse tolerably.
They have no `hived honey of the soul' to bring out for the common
good. Give us rather `men of one idea,' though we confes
them to be often tiresome. They at least say something, which idlers
seldom do. Earnestness may not always be graceful, but it is inspiring.
Putting aside all charlatanry, the man whose whole soul is
in his subject will interest if he cannot convince us. Faith is more
potent than savoir faire. In conversation as in the pulpit, the man
who softly utters sleek and perfumed nothings would be gladly
exchanged, by all healthy-minded listeners, for a backwoodsman
without a coat, who has something to say and says it boldly.
Jemmy Jessamys are out of fashion, in every department.
How rich is the discourse of those who, after having taken an
active share in life, are inspired by sympathy and love to give forth
the result of store and fusion! We linger over their words as over
precious wine, or as before the gorgeous pomp of sunset, when
though masses of cloud be gathering, they have a given glory from
above, all the grander for the coming darkness. How we thank
them in our inmost souls for their wisdom, which we feel to have
been gathered `through much tribulation.' They have lived for us,
not for themselves; they are giving us gratuitously what cost them—
life! We do well to prize their great and good words,—heart-drops
them, that they may learn to aspire to old age and not dread it.
The extinguished torch in the hand of weeping love is indeed fitting
emblem for the tombs of such!
Travellers may be good talkers, if they have carried with them
or brought home a genial philosophy, and tact enough to know
when particulars become tedious. But the satires called forth by
travelled parrots—
Returning from his finished tour,
Grown ten times perter than before,
degree. It is a point of pride, now, for those who have landed on
every shore and weathered every climate, to be conspicuously taciturn:
`nobody's a bit the wiser' for all their journeyings. This is
a sort of fraud, doubtless. We have a right to expect that those
who have seen what we shall never see will give us of their abundance,
without asking pride's leave on all occasions. Unfortunately
the knowledge of human nature acquired in travel leads us to be
very careful how we seem to fancy we can instruct, or even that we
possess any peculiar material for conversation. In order to talk
agreeably, it is necessary first that we should acquire knowledge,
secondly, that we should carefully conceal it—i. e., give only the
results of it. There must be economy in the dispensation of our
best things.
A habit of studying character and of classifying the specimens
we encounter, affords a good foundation for conversation. It is on
this account that clergymen are generally good talkers, perhaps in
general the best, at least in this country. They have commonly a
essentials of an agreeable style of conversation; they pass a good
deal of time in private study, and are usually conversant with
literary subjects to a certain extent; their professional avocations
lead their thoughts among high things; and still more, as we have
said, the necessity for studying human life and character, fits them
in a peculiar degree for the quiet exercise of those faculties which
must act freely when we talk well. There must be patience for
pauses as well as fervor in speech; self-control under opposition as
well as earnestness in advocacy; indulgence for ignorance, indulgence
even for stolidity. And in this enumeration we are still adhering
to the æsthetics of the subject, for mere good breeding requires all
these. The best discourse (as to substance) is nullified or worse, if
all that goes to make up that undefinable, comprehensive, lovely,
indefinite word, good-humor, be not present.
The mention of a knowledge of human nature, as a requisite for
conversational power, might suggest the fitness of the law as a
school for talkers, but the very accuracy which ought to be an advantage,
is sometimes found inconvenient. The off-hand expression of
sentiment must necessarily be partial and imperfect. What we say
on the spur of the moment must be received in the spirit rather
than in the letter, and a habit of cross-examining or sifting, of special
pleading, or even of sarcastic comment, is anything but favorable
to the tone of equal conversation. Freedom of expression,
without which conversation becomes unworthy of its name, soon
leads to recrimination, unless a generous toleration give it room and
kindly atmosphere. Opposition gives life, for there is something in
perpetual assent that soon wearies us; yet the spirit arising from
the support of opposing sentiments must not betray us into acridity
or personality, as it is too apt to do. If our arrows be feathered
argument grow strenuous it must all the more be guarded against
venom, or we offend against all the social amenities.
Our appreciation of the pleasure of conversation is so high; it
forms so important an item in our list of the most desirable pleasures
of life; we are so impressed with its momentous value as a
moral engine, and so grieved to see it profaned every day by emptiness,
ignorance, and ill-nature, that we could find it in our hearts to
bestow all our tediousness upon our readers on this theme. But if
we should say much more, we should be transgressing one of our own
rules of talk, viz., that patience for pauses is as necessary as fervor
of speech.
| The evening book, or, Fireside talk on morals
and manners | |