Conversation Part 1

Conversation.

by Mary Greer Conklin.

PREFACE

"The best book that was ever written upon good breeding," said Dr.

Johnson to Boswell, "the best book, I tell you, _Il Cortegiano_ by Castiglione, grew up at the little court of Urbino, and you should read it." _Il Cortegiano_ was first published by the Aldine Press at Venice, in 1528. Before the close of the century more than one hundred editions saw the light; French, Spanish, English, and German versions followed each other in rapid succession, and the _Cortegiano_ was universally acclaimed as the most popular prose work of the Italian Renaissance.

"Have you read Castiglione's _Cortegiano_?" asks the courtier Malpiglio, in Ta.s.so's dialog. "The beauty of the book is such that it deserves to be read in all ages; as long as courts endure, as long as princes reign and knights and ladies meet, as long as valor and courtesy hold a place in our hearts, the name of Castiglione will be held in honor."

In his _Book of the Courtier_, Castiglione said very little about perfection of speech; he discust only the standard of literary language and the prescribed limits of the "vulgar tongue," or the Italian in which Petrarch and Boccaccio had written. What he says about grace, however, applies also to conversation: "I say that in everything it is so hard to know the true perfection as to be well-nigh impossible; and this because of the variety of opinions. Thus there are many who will like a man who speaks much, and will call him pleasing; some will prefer modesty; some others an active and restless man; still others one who shows calmness and deliberation in everything; and so every man praises or decries according to his mind, always clothing vice with the name of its kindred virtue, or virtue with the name of its kindred vice; for example, calling an impudent man frank, a modest man dull, an ignorant man good, a knave discreet, and so in all things else. Yet I believe that there exists in everything its own perfection, altho concealed; and that this can be determined through rational discussion by any having knowledge of the thing in hand."

If this superb courtier could not reach decisions regarding perfection in matters of culture and polish, I could scarcely hope to have entirely reconciled the contending phases of conversation, even if I have succeeded in impressing positively the evident faults to be avoided, and the avowed graces of speech to be attained. With Castiglione as a model I can only say regarding conversation what he said about the perfect courtier: "I praise the kind of courtier that I most esteem, and approve him who seems to me nearest right, according to my poor judgment.... I only know that it is worse not to wish to do well than not to know how."

Those heretofore interested in agreeable speech will at once recognize my obligation to the few men and women who have written entertainingly on conversation, and from whom I have often quoted. My excuse for offering a new treatment is that I may perhaps have succeeded in bringing the subject more within the reach of the general public, and to have written more exhaustively. The deductions I have made are the result of an affectionate interest in my subject and of notes taken during a period of many years. If the book affords readers one-half the pleasure and stimulus it has brought to me, my labors will be happily rewarded.

Beyond my chief critics, to whom I dedicate this volume, I express my grat.i.tude to Mrs. Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler, the pianiste, and to Dr.

Henrietta Becker von Klenze, formerly of the University of Chicago, whose interest in all I have ever attempted to do has been an unfailing support, and whose suggestions have added value to this work; to Dr.

Gustavus Howard Maynadier, of Harvard College, for friendly a.s.sistance in many ways; and to Mr. George Benson Weston, of Harvard College, who has been kind enough to read the ma.n.u.script, and by whose knowledge of the literature of many languages I have greatly profited.

BOSTON, Ma.s.sACHUSETTS, August, 1912.

CHAPTER I

_INTRODUCTORY_

WHAT CONVERSATION IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT

Good conversation is more easily defined by what it is not than by what it is. To come to any conclusions on this subject, one should first determine: What is the aim of conversation? Should the intention be to make intercourse with our fellows a free school in which to acquire information; should it be to disseminate knowledge; or should the object be to divert and to amuse? It might seem that any person with a good subject must talk well and be interesting. Alas! highly cultivated people are sometimes the most silent. Or, if they talk well, they are likely to talk _too_ well to be good conversationalists, as did Coleridge and Macaulay, who talked long and hard about interesting subjects, but were nevertheless recorded as bores in conversation because they talked _at_ people instead of talking _with_ them. In society Browning was delightful in his talk. He would not discuss poetry, and was as communicative on the subject of a sandwich or the adventures of some woman's train at the last drawing-room as on more weighty subjects. Tho to some he may have seemed obscure in his art, all agreed that he was simple and natural in his discourse. Whatever he talked about, there could not be a moment's doubt as to his meaning.

From these facts concerning three men of genius, it can be inferred that we do not go into society to get instruction gratis; that good conversation is not necessarily a vehicle of information; that to be natural, easy, gay, is the catechism of good talk. No matter how learned a man is, he is often thrown with ordinary mortals; and the ordinary mortals have as much right to talk as the extraordinary ones. One can conceive, on the other hand, that when geniuses have leisure to mix in society their desire is to escape from the questions which daily burden their minds. If they prefer to confine themselves to an interchange of ideas apart from their special work, they have a right to do so. In this shrinking of people of genius from discussing the very subjects with regard to which their opinion is most valuable, there is no doubt a great loss to the world. But unless they themselves bring forth the topic of their art, it must remain in abeyance. Society has no right to force their mentioning it. This leads us, then, to the conclusion that the aim of conversation is to distract, to interest, to amuse; not to teach nor to be taught, unless incidentally. In good conversation people give their charm, their gaiety, their humor, certainly--and their wisdom, if they will. But conversation which essentially entertains is not essentially nonsense. Some one has drawn this subtle distinction: "I enter a room full of pleasant people as I go to see a picture, or listen to a song, or as I dance--that I may amuse myself, and invigorate myself, and raise my natural spirits, and laugh dull care away. True, there must be ideas, as in all amus.e.m.e.nts worthy of the name there is a certain seriousness impossible to define; only they must be kept in the background."

The aim and design of conversation is, therefore, pleasure. This agreed, we can determine its elements. Conversation, above all, is dialog, not monolog. It is a partners.h.i.+p, not an individual affair. It is listening as well as talking. Monopolizing tyrants of society who will allow no dog to bark in their presence are not conversationalists; they are lecturers. There are plenty of people who, as Mr. Benson says, "possess every qualification for conversing except the power to converse." There are plenty of people who deliver one monolog after another and call their talk conversation. The good conversationalists are not the ones who dominate the talk in any gathering. They are the people who have the grace to contribute something of their own while generously drawing out the best that is in others. They hazard topics for discussion and endeavor each to give to the other the chance of enlarging upon them.

Conversation is the interchange of ideas; it is the willingness to communicate thought on all subjects, personal and universal, and in turn to listen to the sentiments of others regarding the ideas advanced.

Good conversation is the nimbleness of mind to take the chance word or the accidental subject and play upon it, and make it pa.s.s from guest to guest at dinner or in the drawing-room. It is the discussion of any topic whatever, from religion to the fas.h.i.+ons, and the avoidance of any phase of any subject which might stir the irascible talker to controversy. As exprest by Cowper in his essay, "Conversation":

"Ye powers who rule the tongue, if such there are, And make colloquial happiness your care, Preserve me from the thing I dread and hate-- A duel in the form of a debate."

Wearing one's heart on one's sleeve is good for one conversationally.

Ready conversers are people who give their thought to others in abundance; who make others feel a familiar heartbeat. No one can approach so near to us as the sincere talker, with his sympathy and his willing utterances. Luther, who stands out as one of the giants of the Renaissance, came into close human touch with his friends in talk; in conversation with him they could always feel his fierce and steady pulse.

Another element of successful conversation is good-humored tolerance, the willingness to bear rubs unavoidably occasioned. The talker who cavils at anything that is said stops conversation more than if he answered only yes or no to all remarks addrest to him. Still another element of good conversation is the right sort of gossip; gossip which is contemporary and past history of people we know and of people we don't know; gossip which is in no way a temptation to detract. Raillery may also become a legitimate part of good conversation, if the ridicule is like a good parody of good literature--in no way malignant or commonplace. "Shop," if nicely adjusted to the conversational conditions, may have its rightful share in interesting talk. Friends often meet together just to talk things over, to get each other's point of view, to hear each other tell of his own affairs, of his work and of his progress. "Shop" talk was sometimes the essence of those famous conversations of the seventeenth century coffee-house. Anecdotes are a natural part of conversation, but they become the bane of talk unless kept in strict restraint.

There are times when good conversation is momentary silence rather than speech. It is only the haranguers who feel it their duty to break in with idle and insincere chatter upon a pleasant and natural pause. A part of the good fellows.h.i.+p of acceptable conversation is what one might call "interest questions." "Interest questions" are just what the words imply, and have about them no suspicion of the inquisitive and impertinent catechizing which only fools, and not even knaves, indulge in.

The negative phase of conversation may largely grow out of a discussion of the positive. By discovering what conversation is, we find, in a measure, what it is not. It is not monolog nor monopolizing; it is not lecturing nor haranguing; it is not detracting gossip; it is not ill-timed "shop" talk; it is not controversy nor debate; it is not stringing anecdotes together; it is not inquisitive nor impertinent questioning. There are still other things which conversation is not: It is not cross-examining nor bullying; it is not over-emphatic, nor is it too insistent, nor doggedly domineering, talk. Nor is good conversation grumbling talk. No one can play to advantage the conversational game of toss and catch with a partner who is continually pelting him with grievances. It is out of the question to expect everybody, whether stranger or intimate, to choke in congenial sympathy with petty woes.

The trivial and perverse annoyances of one's own life are compensating subjects for conversation only when they lead to a discussion of the phase of character or the fling of fate on which such-and-such incidents throw light, because the trend of the thought then encourages a tossing back of ideas.

Perhaps the most important thing which good conversation is not, is this: It is not talking for effect, or hedging. There are two kinds of hedging in conversation: one which comes from failing to follow the trend of the discussion; another which is the result of talking at random merely to make bulk. The first is tolerable; the last is contemptible. The moment one begins to talk for effect, or to hedge flippantly, he is talking insincerely. And when a good converser runs against this sort of talker, his heart calls out, with Carlyle, for an empty room, his tobacco, and his pipe. It is maintained by some one that there are three kinds of a bore: the person who tells the plot of a play, the one who tells the story of a novel, and the one who tells his dreams. This may be going too far with regard to dreams; for dreams, if handled in the right way, are easily made a part of interesting talk.

But in sophisticated society books and plays are discust only by talking about the prevailing idea round which the story centers. They are criticized, not outlined. The most learned and cultivated talkers do not attempt the difficult and unrewarded feat of giving a concise summary of plots.

Good conversation, then, is the give and take of talk. A person who converses well also listens well. The one is inseparable from the other.

Anything can be talked about in cultivated society provided the subjects are handled with humanity and discrimination. Even the weather and the three dreadful D's of conversation, Dress, Disease, and Domestics, may be made an acceptable part of talk if suited to the time, the place, and the situation. Nor is genius or scholars.h.i.+p essential to good conversation. The qualities most needed are tact, a sincere desire to please, and an appreciation of the truth that the man who never says a foolish thing in conversation will never say a wise one.

CHAPTER II

DISCUSSION _VERSUS_ CONTROVERSY

_Dr. Johnson's and Robert Louis Stevenson's Opinion of Discussion--Politeness and Discussion--The Hostess in Discussion--Flat Contradiction in Discussion--Polemical Squabbles--Brilliant Discussion in France--The Secret of Delightful Conversation in France--Leading the Talk--Topics for Discussion--Gladstone's Conversation._

CHAPTER II

DISCUSSION _VERSUS_ CONTROVERSY

Many people object to discussion, but they are invariably those on the midway rounds of the conversational ladder; people to whom the joy of the amicable intellectual tussle is unknown, and to whom the highest standards of the art of talking do not appeal. Where there is much intellectual activity discussion is sure to arise, for the simple reason that people will not think alike. Polite discussion is the most difficult and the most happy attainment of society as it is of literature; and why should oral discussion be less attractive than written? Dr. Johnson used to express unbounded contempt for all talk that was not discussion; and Robert Louis Stevenson has given us frankly his view: "There is a certain att.i.tude, combative at once and deferential, eager to fight yet most averse to quarrel, which marks out at once the talkable man. It is not eloquence, nor fairness, nor obstinacy, but a certain proportion of all these that I love to encounter in my amicable adversaries. They must not be pontiffs holding doctrine, but huntsmen questing after elements of truth. Neither must they be boys to be instructed, but fellow-students with whom I may argue on equal terms." From Mr. John B. Yeats, one of the many Irishmen who have written tellingly on this interesting subject of human intercourse, we have: "Conversation is an art, as literature is, as painting is, as poetry is, and subject to the same laws from which nothing human is excluded, not even argument. There is literature which argues, and painting which argues, and poetry which argues, so why not conversation which argues? Only argument is the most difficult to mold into the most blessed shape of art."

Some people conceive an everlasting opposition between politeness and earnest discussion. Politeness consists, they think, in always saying, "yes, yes," or at most a non-committal "indeed?" to every word addrest to them. This is apt to be our American vice of conversation, where, for lack of courage in taking up discussion, talk often falls into a series of anecdotes. In Germany the tendency is to be swept away in discussion to the point of a verbal dispute.

There is no greater bore in society than the person who agrees with everybody. Discussion is the arena in which we measure the strength of one another's minds and run a friendly tilt in pleasing self-a.s.sertiveness; it is the common meeting-ground where it is understood that Barnabas will take gentle reproof from Paul, and Paul take gentle reproof from Barnabas. Those who look upon any dissent from their views as a personal affront to be visited with signs of resentment are no more fit for brilliant talk than they are fit for life and its vicissitudes. "Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul in peace," it is true; but he also keeps himself dead to all human intercourse and as colorless in the world as an oyster. "Too great a desire to please," says Stevenson, "banishes from conversation all that is sterling.... It is better to emit a scream in the shape of a theory than to be entirely insensible to the jars and incongruities of life and take everything as it comes in a forlorn stupidity." This is equivalent to telling the individual who treads too nicely and fears a shock that he had pleased us better had he pleased us less, which is the subtle observation of Mr. Price Collier writing in the _North American Review_: "It is perhaps more often true of women than of men that they conceive affability as a concession. At any rate, it is not unusual to find a hostess busying herself with attempts to agree with all that is said, with the idea that she is thereby doing homage to the effeminate categorical imperative of etiquette, when in reality nothing becomes more quickly tiresome than incessant affirmatives, no matter how pleasantly they are modulated. Nor can one avoid one of two conclusions when one's talk is thus negligently agreed to: either the speaker is confining herself entirely to incontradictable plat.i.tudes, or the listener has no mind of her own; and in either case silence were golden. In this connection it were well to recall the really brilliant epigram of the Abbe de Saint-Real, that '_On s'ennuie presque toujours avec ceux que l'on ennuie._' For not even a lover can fail to be bored at last by the constant la.s.situde of a.s.sent expressing itself in twin sentiments to his own. 'Coquetting with an echo,' Carlyle called it.

For, tho it may make a man feel mentally masterful at first, it makes him feel mentally maudlin at last; and, as the Abbe says, to be bored one's self is a sure sign that one's companion is also weary."

Tho polite dissent is desirable in discussion, flat contradiction is contemptible. Dean Swift affirms that a person given to contradiction is more fit for Bedlam than for conversation. In discussion, far more than in lighter talk, decency as well as honor commands that each partner to the conversational game conform to the niceties and fairness of it. "I don't think so," "It isn't so," "I don't agree with you at all," are too flat and positive for true delicacy and refinement in conversation. "I have been inclined to think otherwise," "I should be pleased to hear your reasons," "Aren't you mistaken?" are more acceptable phrases with which to introduce dissent. In French society a discrepancy of views is always manifested by some courtesy-phrase, such as "_Mais, ne pensez-vous pas_" or "_Je vous demande pardon_"--the urbane subst.i.tutes for "No, you are wrong," "No, it isn't." Our own Benjamin Franklin, whose appreciation of the conversational art in France won completely the hearts of the French people, tells us in his autobiography that in later life he found it necessary to throw off habits acquired in youth: "I continued this positive method for some years, but gradually left it, retaining only the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest diffidence: never using when I advanced anything that might possibly be disputed, the words 'certainly,' 'undoubtedly,' or any others that give the air of positiveness to an opinion, but rather say, 'it appears to me,' or 'I should think it so-and-so, for such-and-such a reason,' or 'I imagine it to be so,' or it is so 'if I am not mistaken.'"

Unyielding obstinacy in discussion is deadening to conversation, and yet the extreme contrary is crippling. Open resentment of any attempt at warmth of speech is paralysis and torpor to talk. When one meets a hostess, or a conversational partner, "whose only pleasure is to be displeased," one is reminded of the railway superintendent who kept the wires hot with fault-finding messages bearing his initials "H. F. C."

until he came to be known along the road as "h.e.l.l For Certain." People of a resentful turn of mind, whose every sentence is a wager, and who convert every word into a missile, are fit for polemical squabbles, but not for polite discussion. Those raucous persons who, when their opponents attempt to speak, cry out against it as a monstrous unfairness, are very well adapted to a.s.sociation with Kilkenny cats, but not with human beings. It is in order to vanquish by this means one who might otherwise outmatch them entirely that they thus seek to reduce their opponent to a mere interjection. "A man of culture," says Mr.

Robert Waters, "is not intolerant of opposition. He frankly states his views on any given subject, without hesitating to say wherein he is ignorant or doubtful, and he is ready for correction and enlightenment wherever he finds it." Such a man never presses his hearers to accept his views; he not only tolerates but considers opposed opinions and listens attentively and respectfully to them. Hazlitt said of the charming discussion of Northcote, the painter: "He lends an ear to an observation as if you had brought him a piece of news, and enters into it with as much avidity and earnestness as if it interested only himself personally."

Of all the tenets of good conversation to which the French give heed, their devotion to listening is the most notable. From this judiciously receptive att.i.tude springs their uninterrupting shrug of a.s.sent or disapproval. But listening is only one of their many established conversational dicta: "The conversation of Parisians is neither dissertation nor epigram; they have pleasantry without buffoonery; they a.s.sociate with skill, with genius, and with reason, maxims and flashes of wit, sharp satire, and severe ethics. They run through all subjects that each may have something to say; they exhaust no subject for fear of tiring their hearer; they propose their themes casually and they treat them rapidly; each succeeding subject grows naturally out of the preceding one; each talker delivers his opinion and supports it briefly; no one attacks with undue heat the supposition of another, nor defends obstinately his own; they examine in order to enlighten, and stop before the discussion becomes a dispute." Such was Rousseau's description of Parisian conversation; and some one else has declared that the French are the only nation in the world who understand a _salon_ whether in upholstery or talk. "Every Britisher," said Novalis more than a hundred years ago, "is an island"; and Heine once defined silence as "a conversation with Englishmen." We Americans, tho not so reserved in talk as our English brothers, are less respectful to conversational amenities; and both of us are far behind the French in the gracious art of verbal expression. Not only is the spoken English of the cultured Irish the most cosmopolitan and best modulated of any English in the world, but the conversation of cultivated Irishmen more adequately approaches the perfection of the French.

It is as illuminating to study the best models in human intercourse as to study the best models in literature, or painting, or any other art.

One of the distinct elements in French conversation is that it is invariably kept general; and by general I mean including in the talk all the conversational group as opposed to _tete-a-tete_ dialog. Many people disagree with the French in this. Addison declared that there is no such thing as conversation except between two persons; and Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walter Savage Landor said something of the same sort.

Sh.e.l.ley was distinctly a _tete-a-tete_ talker, as Mr. Benson, the present-day essayist, in some of his intimate discourses, proclaims himself to be. But Burke and Browning, the best conversationalists in the history of the Anglo-Saxon race, like all the famous women of the French _salon_, from Mme. Roland to Mme. de Stael, kept pace with any number of interlocutors on any number of subjects, from the most abstruse science to the lightest _jeu d'esprit_. Good talk between two is no doubt a duet of exquisite sympathy; but true conversation is more like a fugue in four or eight parts than like a duet. Furthermore, general and _tete-a-tete_ conversation have both their place and occasion. At a dinner-table in France private chats are very quickly dispelled by some thoughtful moderator. Dinner guests who devote themselves to each other alone are not tolerated by the French hostess as by the English and American. Because _tete-a-tete_ conversation is considered good form so generally among English-speaking peoples, I have in other essays adapted my comments on this subject to our customs; but talk which is distributed among several who conform to the courtesies and laws of good conversation is the best kind of talk. In general talk every one ought to have a voice. It is the undue humility of some and the arrogance and polemical tendency of others that prevent good general conversation. People have only to begin with three axioms: the first, that everybody is ent.i.tled, and often bound, to form his own opinion; second, that everybody is equally ent.i.tled to express that opinion; and third, that everybody's opinion is ent.i.tled to a hearing and to consideration, not only on the ground of courtesy, but because any opinion honestly and independently formed is worth something and contributes to the discussion.

Another principle of French conversation is that it is kept personal, in the sense, I mean, that the personality of the speakers suffuses it.

"The theme being taken," as Stevenson says, "each talker plays on himself as on an instrument, affirming and justifying himself." This counter-a.s.sertion of personality, to all appearances, is combat, but at bottom is amicable. An issue which is essentially general and impersonal is lost in the accidental conflicts of personalities, because the quality which plays the most important part is presence of mind, not correct reasoning. A conversationalist whose argument is wholly fallacious will often, by exercise of verbal adroitness, dispose of an objection which is really fatal. The full swing of the personalities of the speakers in a conversation is what makes the flint strike fire. It is only from heated minds that the true essence of conversation springs; and it is in talk which glances from one to another of a group, more than in dialog, that this personality is reflected. "It is curious to note," says an editorial in _The Spectator_, "how very much dialog there is in the world, and how little true conversation; how very little, that is, of the genuine attempt to compare the different bearing of the same subject on the minds of different people. It is the rarest thing in the world to come, even in the best authors, on a successful picture of the different views taken by different minds on the same subject, and the grounds of the difference."