Part 3

§ 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.

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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SUBJECTIVE SIDE—PHYSICAL CONDITIONS

§ 6. There are no physical conditions absolutely necessary for becoming a good talker. I have known a man with a painful impediment in his speech far more agreeable than all the fluent people in the room. But when a man comes to consider by what conditions conversation can be improved, and turns first of all to his own side, to see what he can do for himself in that direction, he will find that certain natural gifts which he may possess, or the absence of which he may regret, are of no small importance in making him more agreeable to those whom he meets in society. It seems desirable to mention these at the outset for completeness’ sake, and also that educators may lay their foundations in children for after use in the world.

The old Greeks set it down as an axiom that a loud or harsh voice betokened bad breeding, and any one who hears the lower classes discussing any topic at the corners of the streets, may notice not merely their coarseness and rudeness in expression, but also the loudness and harshness of their voices, in support of this observation. The habit of wrangling with people who will not listen without interruption, and who try to shout down their company, nay even the habit of losing one’s temper, engenders a noisy and harsh way of speaking, which naturally causes a prejudice against the talker in good society. Even the dogmatic or over-confident temper which asserts opinions loudly, and looks round to command approval or challenge contradiction, chills good conversation by setting people against the speaker, whom they presume to be a social bully and wanting in sympathy.

Contrariwise, nothing attracts more at first hearing than a soft and sweet tone of voice. It generally suggests a deeper well of feeling than the speaker possesses, and certainly prejudices people as much in his favour as a grating or loud utterance repels them. It is to be classed with personal beauty, which disposes every one to favour the speaker, and listen to him or her with sympathy and attention. This sweetness in the tone of the voice is chiefly a natural gift, but it may also be improved, if not acquired, by constant and careful training in early years. It can certainly be marred by constant straining and shouting. It should therefore be carefully cultivated or protected in youth as a valuable vantage-ground in social intercourse.

Similarly the presence of a strong local accent, though there are cases where it gives raciness to wit and pungency to satire, is usually a hindrance in conversation, especially at its outset, and among strangers. It marks a man as provincial, and hence is akin to vulgarity and narrowness of mind. It suggests too that the speaker has not moved much about the world, or even in the best society of his native country, in which such provincialism is carefully avoided, and set down as an index of mind and manners below the highest level. Hence all careful educators endeavour to eradicate peculiarities of accent or pronunciation in children, and justly, though we have all met great talkers whose Scotch burr or Irish brogue seemed an essential feature of their charm. If this be so, no education can eradicate it. In lesser people to be provincial is distinctly an obstacle in the way, even though a great mind may turn it into a stepping-stone.

Footnote 2:

It has been suggested to me that a slight impediment or stammer often gives peculiar zest to conversation. But this is hardly the case at first hearing; it is only appreciated when we have discovered that what the speaker is hesitating to utter is worth waiting for. It then produces the same kind of surprise that irony does, which is often deliberate mental stammering.

§ 7. There is yet another almost physical disability or damage to conversation, which is akin to provincialism, and which consists in disagreeable tricks in conversation, such as the constant and meaningless repetition of catchwords and phrases, such as the unmeaning oaths of our grandfathers, such as inarticulate sounds of assent, such as contortions of the face, which so annoy the hearer by their very want of meaning and triviality as to excite quite a disproportionate dislike to the speaker, and to require great and sterling qualities to counterbalance it. However apt a man’s internal furniture may be for conversation, he may make it useless by being externally disagreeable, and how often when we praise a friend as a good talker do we hear the reply: I should like him well enough if he did not worry me with his don’t you know, or his what, or his exactly so, or something else so childishly small, that we shudder to think how easily a man may forfeit his position or popularity among civilised men in their daily intercourse. But modern society, which ought to be of all things in human life the most easy and unconstrained, is growing every day more tyrannical and only to be kept in good humour by careful attention to its unwritten behests, unless indeed we have the power to bend it to our will, and force it to follow our lead instead of driving us along like slaves.

No more need be said concerning these physical conditions, which are rather negative conditions, or favourable starting points, than real aids for our purpose. The handsomest man or woman, even with the sweetest tones of human voice, will soon be found out, if dull or unsympathetic, and then these advantages all go for nothing.

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MENTAL CONDITIONS—SPECIAL KNOWLEDGE

§ 8. Far more important than the physical gifts of nature, which can only be slightly improved, though they can be completely marred by habit, are the mental conditions of conversation. Among these the most obvious is, of course, Knowledge. An ignorant man is seldom agreeable in conversation, except as a butt; a man full of knowledge is certain to be agreeable if he will conform to the other conditions of the game. The word knowledge is, however, so vague, that we must be at pains to define more particularly its divisions, and consider what kind of knowledge is most conducive to good conversation.

Of course the first question suggested to the reader is whether general or special knowledge in the speaker is to be preferred. There are arguments in favour of each. Let us take the specialist first. There is undoubtedly a great satisfaction in talking to a man who is master of any special subject, even if it be remote from ordinary life. Intelligent questions will draw from the astronomer, from the chemist, possibly from the pure mathematician, curious facts and interesting views on the progress of discovery, which will pleasantly beguile the time even in a light-minded and frivolous company. This opens a field for conversation which is inaccessible if there be no one present to explain or to speak with authority, and so no invitation is more frequent or more welcome than to come and meet a man celebrated in his own line and of wide reputation. The very fact of meeting such a man disposes the company to be sympathetic, and to draw from him the secrets of his knowledge.

This kind of vantage-ground may be occupied by a man of no original capacity or deep learning, if accident has made him intimate with some exciting or absorbing subject of the day. The man who has just escaped a shipwreck, or fought in a famous battle, or survived some catastrophe, has for the moment the advantage of being endowed with special knowledge, which everybody wants to talk about, and to learn particulars from the actual eye-witness. Akin to this is the advantage of having seen and conversed with the greatest men of the day—a feature which lends the principal charm to those volumes of autobiography or of recollections, which approach nearer than any other kind of book to the conditions of a conversation.

§ 9. Of course the danger with either of these specialists, the specialist of a day or the specialist of years, is that he will not leave his subject when it has been sufficiently discussed, as he will probably gauge the interest of others by his own preoccupation, and so may become not a blessing but a bore to his company. Though this is frequently the case, those who have gathered company about them for conversation, and have long experience of what is most likely to succeed, will agree with me that to have a specialist present is always valuable. If other topics flag an appeal to this abundant source will always introduce a new current of talk, and often of the most agreeable kind.

Neither of these mental conditions, which are distinctly valuable in society, include the case of specialists on topics which are of no universal or no permanent interest. Thus there are in English society men devoted to one particular sport or one narrow pursuit, upon which they can talk with authority indeed, and with interest, but only to those who have received the same training. A party of fox-hunters, or racing-men, or college dons, or stockbrokers, who rehearse again in the evening what they have been doing all day, may indeed amuse themselves with talk, but in no sense is it good conversation. One specialist, as I have said, may be of the greatest use in conversation. A set of specialists when they get together are either unintelligible to the average mind or exceedingly tedious.