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Some Chapters on Talk.

I. OF THE DESCRIPTIVE TALKER.

TALK is a necessity of civilized life-so much may be safely assumed to start with. And by the "Talk" here spoken of is not meant merely that bare utterance of intelligible sounds which is required for the expression of our wants, but rather that peculiar use of speech by means of which we convey one to another, either information of various kinds which we desire to impart, or opinions upon various subjects which we wish to communicate, and which use of speech is commonly called conversation. To define speech as a power of uttering certain articulate sounds, by means of which we are able to make known our urgent wants, or our irrepressible ideas, to those who hear them, is to adopt a merely savage view of this great gift. Persons imbued with such convictions meeting at a feast would not have much to say to each other. Their wants they would make known to the servants; while as to ideas, it is certain that some of us go into the world but poorly endowed with them. Our civilized creed with regard to the use of speech is widely different from that first, bare, crude conception which assigns to it a merely utilitarian limit. I hold that there are certain occasions, by no means of unfrequent recurrence, when talking must be engaged in for talking's sake. I hold that there arrive continually, during the course of ordinary nineteenth-century life, seasons when various persons, more or less known to each other, meet together for the purpose of celebrating certain social rites and ceremonies, and when, if the ceremonies in question are to be successfully conducted, it is absolutely necessary that the celebrants should engage in what is sometimes called conversation, but more frequently and more familiarly "Talk."

Of the importance of this element in our social life it is hardly possible to speak too highly. Which of those rites and ceremonies mentioned above-what dinner, what wedding-breakfast, what garden-party, what picnic, what evening assembly-can be got through without its aid? Has the reader, who is in the habit of attending such social gatherings, ever observed how entirely these entertainments are spoiled by any tendency to taciturnity on the part of the assembled company? What a dreadful thing is a dinner-party when the guests will not talk. The feelings of the host, or hostess, who presides on such an occasion, and who is responsible for the success or failure of the entertainment, are really pitiable; and the glance of gratitude with which he or she rewards the person who will start a remark which seems likely to have conversational consequences is almost pathetic.

This talk, then, being a thing of such prodigious value, and so much. of our happiness, as members of a social system, depending upon our proficiency in it, it seems wonderful that so little has hitherto been written upon the subject, and that as an art capable of cultivation, and having certain fixed principles, to be got at by means of diligent study, it has not been treated of at all. It is under this last-mentioned phase that it is proposed now to consider this subject. There are many persons who, though fully convinced that a certain amount of conversational readiness is indispensable to any man who intends to set up in business socially, are yet at the same time painfully conscious of their own inability to start a conversation, or having started it, to keep it going. To such persons a course of study, having for its object the attainment of a certain amount of conversational prowess, may be of essential service, and although there is no doubt that, to a certain extent, the talker, like the poet, is born, not made, and has the garrulous element specially developed in his nature from the very beginning, yet is it not too much to suppose that, by well-directed labour, even those, who are not gifted conversationally by nature, may be able greatly to improve themselves, and may learn, if not to be brilliant talkers, at least to have enough to say for themselves to enable them to pass muster in general society.

And now, what shall be our first act in pursuance of this determination to master, as far as may be, this great art of conversation? Our first proceeding must be to examine minutely and carefully, as all conscientious and laborious students should do, the performances of the masters, of those great men, that is to say, who may certainly be regarded as excelling in this art which we propose to cultivate. The great talkers-let us inquire —what is their manner of proceeding? What methods do they favour? What, in a word, do they talk about?

After a prolonged and elaborate consideration of this subject, I have arrived at the conclusion that your great talker will, in his ordinary practice, generally have recourse to one of four expedients. He will either describe experiences, his own or another's; or he will entertain his company with small gossip and scandal; or else he will express opinions which are sometimes original, and sometimes borrowed; or he will be—and this is the commonest phase of all-a professed raconteur, and teller of anecdotes. These are the four principal phases under which the phenomenon which we are considering is ordinarily exhibited. There are others of minor importance, which may perhaps be found deserving of after con sideration, but these are the principal; let us deal with them in order, and with a gravity becoming the importance of our subject. And first with the conversationalist, who is great as a describer.

This particular talker-the man who describes-has perhaps, speaking in mercantile fashion, a larger stock-in-trade to depend upon than any other. There is positively no limit to his resources. New subject-matter for treatment is furnished by every act of his life. Has he just returned from a journey to the Pyramids, or has he newly come from a flower-show

at the Horticultural Gardens, it is all the same. an experience, and he will describe it.

He has passed through

"Where do you think I've been all the afternoon?" he will ask, selecting a suitable moment for his question, and addressing his hostess, or some person who occupies a good central position at the dinner-table before which he is seated. "I have been doing' the athletic sports down at Stoke Pogis. Two of my nephews are at the school there, you know— very good school I'm told, two hundred boys, almost like a public school, only the boys get better looked after. Well, these young rascals my nephews must needs send me an invitation to their annual athletic sports, or whatever they call 'em, and as I had nothing particular to do I went down-drove down with Mrs. Talboys, who's got a son thereuncommon fine boy he is, carried away half the prizes." The conversationalist will break off here. Mrs. Talboys is seated at table. "She'll tell you all about it," says this great master. The lady declines, however: "You will describe it better than I can," she says. "Oh, there's nothing to describe," the professor continues, depreciating his own art; "there were the usual things, as I'm told. I never saw anything of the kind before, but I'm told it's always the same. Running, you know, and high jumps, and long jumps, and water-jumps-water the colour of peas-soup -and racing in sacks, and all the rest of it." And so once fairly started, and with a good audience, comprising at least all the guests at his own end of the table, our talker goes off into a long and brilliant account of the Stoke Pogis athletics, describing the "little men in their straw hats, you know, and with their bright-coloured scarves and ribbons, and their eager little faces, and taking jumps as high as themselves;" and it is ten to one that he will give one particular instance of a "youngster," somewhat older than most of the others, who was evidently very much smitten with an uncommonly pretty girl who was there with some members of the young fellow's family. The professor will narrate how he had his eye on this youngster, who had a most resolute expression of countenance, and who was evidently determined. to win the great stake of the day-"silver-gilt cup, really a handsome thing "-in order that he might appear to advantage in the eyes of the beloved object. "I kept my eye upon the lad," our talker goes on, "and I do assure you I was never, in the whole course of my life, more powerfully interested. It was a long race-longest of the day. The starting point was exactly where I place this salt-cellar; the course went round in this fashion, and the winning-post was here, where I will put Miss Flickster's fan, if she will allow me. The position of the beloved object is indicated by this piece of roll-I'm sorry I've nothing better to represent her withI don't know what my young friend would say; but at any rate there she stood." Then he goes on to describe the race; how the "young fellow" was at first rather behind than otherwise, how he gradually drew on, and managed, by the time that half the distance was done, to get into a better place; how at last he distanced all except a single competitor; how these VOL. XVI.-No. 96. 85.

two ran, neck and neck, till they came to the piece of rising ground where the young lady, represented by the roll, was stationed; how the youngster cast one glance at her as he flew past, and how he seemed, in that moment of time, to receive a new impetus, snatching the race away from his rival, at the very last moment, and to the bewilderment and rapture of all beholders.

He finds that he is making

Our conversationalist does not stop here. a good thing out of the Stoke Pogis athletics, and he wisely determines to get all he can out of them. He describes the racing in sacks, the "putting" the stone, the throwing the cricket-ball, and, at last, the great water-jump. "The best fun of all, I do assure you. Half the young fellows fell in, and got thoroughly drenched. I was standing close to the water, and so were you, by-the-by, Mrs. Talboys. And didn't you get most horribly splashed?"

Here, then, is a specimen of the art of talking, as practised by the descriptive talker. There is much to be learned from him. He furnishes us with an example of courage and of perseverance. Courage it certainly requires to commence such an undertaking as this which we have just seen him through, and perseverance to carry that undertaking on, when interrupted, as a man continually must be, in making so long a statement at a dinner-table, by the handing of dishes, the pouring out of wines, and the desperate attempts of certain envious gentlemen amongst the audience to break the thread of his narrative. I would particularly direct the attention of all talk-students to these indications of the nerve and energy possessed by our friend, also to the very able manner in which he contrives to bring certain members of the company into his story, and to his skilful management of parenthesis.

Nor let it be for a moment supposed that this artist only excels in the treatment of subjects of this almost trifling description. He is quite as strong in the impressive line, and in treating the serious and poetical as in dealing with this sort of light comedy of " Athletic Sports." He canalas! say some people-describe anything and everything. His choice of subject depends entirely upon the nature of the experiences which he has most recently gone through. Whether he has been in Norway, salmonfishing, or hunting lions in South Africa, he is sure to return as full of matter as we have seen him to be after the Stoke Pogis entertainment. He is a man whose peculiar talent is differently regarded by his different listeners. He affords entertainment to some few who are easily amused; he furnishes an excuse for silence to other few who are too stupid, or too idle, to talk; and he drives the members of that small class who are easily bored to the confines of desperation. This, indeed, is the worst part of the descriptive talker: the risk of his becoming a bore is so exceedingly imminent. Descriptions, by word of mouth, of scenery, of an Alpine sunset, of a journey across the desert, of a naval review, of gun experiments at Shoeburyness, of a chamois-hunt, of a match at Lord's, or even, as we have seen, of athletic sports at Stoke Pogis, are so dreadfully apt to

lead to the boring of those to whom they are addressed that we get at last to feel alarmed when the first warning notes of the describer's voice begin to make themselves heard, when the sunset reminds him of "an evening scene which, indeed, he will never forget-on the Lake of Como," or when the shape taken by the coals in the fire recall to him the profile of a guide he once had in Calabria-"the merriest, heartiest fellow you ever saw."

Still, in spite of all, this man is generally well received. His talk, at any rate, is incessant in its flow; and he may be depended upon to go on with it for any length of time. So that, upon the whole, he is welcome in most societies, and is much asked out to dinner.

II. OF THE TALKER WHO RETAILS Gossip.

THIS is a talker of a very exalted quality indeed. For the perfect development of this species, moral and mental qualifications of an elevated order are imperatively needed. The retailer of small gossip must be possessed of a fine memory, and he should also be exceedingly diligent and industrious. Consider, in proof of his diligence, how hard and how continuously he has to work. He is for ever on the move. There is scarcely such a thing as a friendly gathering of any kind, or an unfriendly one either, from which he may safely be absent. Wherever men and women assemble together with any social object in view, there he is obliged to be on duty. He must frequent flower-shows, gardenparties, exhibitions, musical entertainments, balls, and evening-parties. He must haunt clubs, and hang about ladies' drawing-rooms. Nor is the large amount of bodily activity, which is necessary that he may be thus ubiquitous, all. It is needful, wherever he is, that he should have all his mental faculties about him, that he should constantly be listening with all his ears, and watching with all his eyes, lest something important should escape him. He has a reputation to keep up, and keep it up he must at any cost. He is supposed to know everything. Is some loveaffair attracting the attention of that small section of the world which calls itself society? He must know all the ins and outs of that loveaffair, be acquainted with the exact nature of the settlements, and the views of the parents on both sides; in fact, he must be thoroughly up in all the particulars connected with it from beginning to end, must know what the lovers said to each other when they were under the trees in Richmond Park, and what it was that they quarrelled about at the Woolwich ball.

Or is it some less romantic subject with which society is busying itself? Does it want to know the particulars of that break-up of the Guildersquash establishment which is exciting so much attention? How much money has the house failed for ? was there anything settled on Mrs. Guildersquash? what do they mean to do next? On all these points