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out ill-natured sharpness, playful without silliness-if they will show us that affectation, vanity, jealousy, and slander are no necessary ingredients in the social dialogue, but that rather they give an ill savour to the wittiest and the cleverest play of words-if they will remember that good-humour, sympathy, and the wish to please for the sake of giving pleasure will lend a charm to the most commonplace thoughts and expressions, their conversation will "improve" us, perhaps, quite as much as most popular lectures and some popular sermons. The talk which puts you in goodhumour with yourself and with your neighbours is not wholly profitless. If it has but made half an hour pass pleasantly which with a less agreeable companion would have been spent in gloomy silence, broken by spasmodic efforts, resulting in disgust at your own and his or her stupidity, it will have effected one of the ends for which speech was given us. To be always seeking to make conversation profitable is to take a very commercial view of the transaction, of which none but a true Briton could be capable. The poet's graceful warning against utilitarianism was not altogether unneeded for the men of his generation :

"Oh! to what uses shall we put

to the speaker, especially in the opening of his career, he soon commands the attention of his audience, in spite of personal defects in these particulars, when it is once found that he can speak to the purpose. But all the good sense and ability in the world will not make up, in society, for a hesitating and embarrassed manner, or even for a very disagreeable voice. We may be conscious that the man has plenty to say, but we receive no pleasure from his talk.

Women have also nearly always the good taste to avoid those harangues and declamations which are really only gross interruptions of personal egotism upon the general entertainment. These are not the faults into which women are naturally tempted; they are conscious that their forte rather lies in touching a subject lightly and letting it go. But they are the pitfalls into which even sensible men continually stumble, when warmed by some favourite subject. If indulged in, they make the speaker, however well-informed in matter and felicitous in expression, an intolerable nuisance anywhere but on a platform; and public meetings have a good deal to answer for, inasmuch as they encourage a taste for these solo performances. No one who wishes that conversation should be

The wild weed-flower that simply pleasant to his neighbours as well as

blows?

And is there any moral shut

Within the bosom of the rose?" Voice and manner have much to do with the qualifications of a pleasant talker. And here of course the ladies beat us easily. It was this that lent the irresistible charm, which all his listeners acknowledged, to the conversation of Chateaubriand. It is really not so much what is said, as how it is said, that makes the difference between the talkers of society. In public discussions, in Parliament or elsewhere, though the graces of voice and manner are valuable adjuncts

himself, should speak more than two or three sentences at once. However much he may have to say, it will be all the more agreeably said for giving others the opportunity of assenting, illustrating, qualifying, or even contradicting. The ball needs to be returned by the opposite player to make a lively game. It is given to very few to keep a circle of hearers charmed by a continuous monologue, as Coleridge could for an hour together; and even he was very often complained of, outside the immediate circle of his clients and worshippers, as a monopolist of the common

rights of speech. His was not really conversation at all; it was, as De Quincey says, not colloquium, but alloquium. No wonder that one of his most loyal disciples tells us that "there were some whom he tired, and some whom he sent to sleep." That Ancient Mariner, who held the wedding guest fascinated by his glittering eye while he told the long story of his sufferings, would have been intolerable in real life even at a wedding breakfast, where talk is notoriously scarce and difficult.

But far more objectionable than calm monologue is the dogmatical talker. In the former case, so long as the stream flows smoothly and melodiously, the listener can at the worst take refuge in a dreamy repose. But the speaker who insists on continually laying down the law not only wearies but irritates. Wellbred persons of any social experience decline to answer him; and he probably stirs up at last some impetuous novice who falls an easy prey to his arms, and so encourages him the more in his self-sufficiency. Johnson must have been largely indebted both to the forbearance of one class and the folly of the other for his conversational triumphs. It was not only Boswell who set himself up continually as a nine-pin to be bowled over. Others made themselves victims unwillingly, after a rash and impotent struggle, as he did willingly. Fox and Gibbon are said to have been silent in his presence. It does not necessarily imply any inferiority on their parts in real conversatior al ability. They may have felt that their self-respect would not allow them either to battle with him in his own style, and thus draw upon themselves some of his rude and violent rejoinders to be knocked down, as Goldsmith said, with the butt of his pistol, after his shot had missed or to appear to yield to him a victory which was not fairly won. Any one who will be at the pains to

listen impartially to a social discussion will find that it is by no means always that truth and good sense, or even real ability, remain masters of the field. These only too often give way to a loud voice, a confident manner, and reckless assertion. It is often not worth while to put down a noisy pretender at the risk of an interminable argument (for such opponents seldom know when they are beaten), or of some disturbance to the social good-humour of the company. A gentleman may have other reasons for not engaging in a street fight than because he is afraid of a man's fists. Yet it is unfortunate that mere hardihood should have in this, as in other cases, even an apparent social triumph. It is here that the conversational

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arbiter," who has been already suggested, might reasonably step in, like Queen Elizabeth at the old University disputations, and bid the noisy and illogical disputant hold his peace.

Yet, after all, the art of listening is at least as important as the art of talking. Not to press the truism, that without listeners of some kind talk becomes either a Babel or a soliloquy, without an intelligent listener the best talker is at sea. Good listening is quite as popular a social quality as good talking. It is a mistake to conclude rashly that it is easier. A fool never listens, unless you put a direct question, or tell him the last current piece of gossip or scandal. Brissot left it on record of Benjamin Franklin, as one secret of his power, that he had the art of listening. 66 Il ecoutait-entendez-vous, lecteur? Et pourquoi ne nous a-t-il pas laissé quelques idées sur l'art d'ecouter?" It is a treatise which yet remains to be written. The art leaves too little room for brilliancy of display to induce many to study it. But other statesmen besides Franklin have practised it with success, and it is invaluable to all who are set in authority. In ordinary society perhaps

nothing will so soon embarrass, and finally shut up, the empty talker, supposing him to have any brains at all, as to catch the eye of an intelligent listener. There is often a more mortifying conviction of his own incapacity forced upon such a person by the marked and pregnant silence of one who has evidently taken in every word that he has been saying, and from whom, in the natural course of things, he looks for a reply, than by the most emphatic contradiction. If, as we are so often told, "speech is silvern, but silence is golden," in this case it may be said that, while speech might chastise him with whips, silence stings him with scorpions. The probability is, that he will flounder on with some attempt either of reiteration, explanation, or qualification, which, in the face of that attentive and merciless silence, plunges him into irretrievable confusion. You may choke off the most inveterate teller of long stories by listening with an eager interest all through, and preserving a look of expectation after he has finished, as if still waiting for "the point."

Not less than its polemical value in argument, is the social value of listening as an accomplishment. It is a somewhat humbling consideration, but it may be taken as undoubtedly true, that for one person in the company who wishes to listen to us (always excepting very young ladies and very deaf people), there are three who prefer that we should listen to them. Good listening, be it remembered, does not imply merely sitting still and holding one's tongue. It means attention-involving a certain amount of complimentary deference, and a skilful use of appreciative gestures and interjections. The favourable estimate which will be formed of the listener's own judgment, taste, and ability, in return for even a moderate exercise of this talent, will be a more than adequate reward.

You may discourse for a whole evening, and impress no single person with any opinion of your powers; but if you can listen judiciously, and with a proper emphasis in your silence, to one or two of the talkers present, you may safely reckon on their testimony in your favour as an intelligent and agreeable man. Of course, the perfect listener should possess largely the power of abstraction. He should be able to devote his visible attention to the veriest proser to whom he may be allotted as a captive for the time, while he is gathering in the pleasanter sounds which reach his ear from more distant quarters. There is some danger in this to the inexperienced. It incurs the risk of a sad misplacing of the needful interjections. Besides, most people listen with their eyes as well as with their ears. If, while trying to maintain a dialogue with an uninteresting neighbour, they want to catch what is being said on the opposite side of the table, they allow their glances to wander unmistakably to the point of attraction, or try to look out of the corners of them, as a magpie does, in a fashion which neither improves their own personal appearance nor gratifies the party to whom they affect to give their undivided attention. The cleverest compliment in words will fail to propitiate the lady who sits next you, if she discovers that all the time your eyes are, like the fool's, in the ends of the earth. So long as these do their duty, she may construe silence into admiration, and excuse your stupidity to herself on the ground that the charms of her person and conversation may be rather overwhelming to a modest man: but there can be no misinterpreting the fatal evidence of the wandering glances. It is only the really accomplished listener who can devote his eyes and all his visible allegiance where they are legally due, and yet keep his ears open to what he really wants to hear. To do this well requires

something of the quality of mind which can play two games of chess at once. It is a great social triumph to be able, after having done your duty in one quarter, and receiving an honourable dismissal from the bore of the evening, to walk quietly across the room and take up at once the threads of conversation somewhere else, and show a thorough acquaintance with all that has been said there already. It implies the compliment that your interest has been irresistibly drawn in that direction, though duty chained you to the oar elsewhere.

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It is a mistake to suppose that the choice of subjects has much to do with the success of conversation. As the devout reader of nature is said to possess the faculty of finding sermons in stones," so the true social artist finds talk in everything. A writer in a popular journal speaks as if, in London society, the exhibitions and the opera during half the year, and travelling for the other half, formed the necessary topics, and that the great art would be to treat them with sufficient variety. No doubt they are very useful subjects, and in the hands of a good

talker will do just as well as anything else. But the conversational powers which can only discourse upon a theme, are not of the true order. They will be of very little use at those awful moments when the regular stock subjects have been worn to death by more clumsy hands, and a diversion is required.

Some of the most important ingredients in a good talker are mainly physical, when all is said. Lively animal spirits, moderate self-confidence, and a wish to please, will go much farther to make an agreeable, if not a highly accomplished talker, than great abilities or fulness of information. It is because they possess very largely the two first qualifications, that the Irish, the French, and, in a less degree, the Welsh, are more ready in conversation than most Englishmen. And where really clever men fail in the art, it may be often from a morbid dislike to compete in a race which they enter at a disadvantage against the light weights whose natural vivacity, imperturbable digestion, and happy unconsciousness carry them through to the end.

LINDA TRESSEL.-PART II.

CHAPTER III.

PETER STEINMARC had a cousin in a younger generation than himself, who lived in Nuremberg, and who was named Ludovic Valcarm. The mother of this young man had been Peter's first cousin, and when she died Ludovic had in some sort fallen into the hands of his relative the town clerk. Ludovic's father was still alive; but he was a thriftless, aimless man, who had never been of service either to his wife or children, and at this moment no one knew where he was living, or what he was doing. No one knew, unless it was his son Ludovic, who never received much encouragement in Nuremberg to talk about his father. At the present moment, Peter Steinmarc and his cousin, though they had not actually quarrelled, were not on the most friendly terms. As Peter, in his younger days, had been clerk to old Tressel, so had Ludovic been brought up to act as clerk to Peter; and for three or four years the young man had received some small modicum of salary from the city chest, as a servant in the employment of the city magistrates. But of late Ludovic had left his uncle's office, and had entered the service of certain brewers in Nuremberg, who were more liberal in their views as to wages than were the city magistrates. Peter Steinmare had thought ill of his cousin for making this change. He had been at the trouble of pointing out to Ludovic how he himself had in former years sat upon the stool in the office in the town-hall, from whence he had been promoted to the armchair; and had almost taken upon himself to promise that the good fortune of Ludovic should be as great as his own, if only Ludovic for the present would be content with the stool. But young Val

carm, who by this time was four-andtwenty, told his cousin very freely that the stool in the town - hall suited him no longer, and that he liked neither the work nor the wages. Indeed, he went further than this, and told his kinsman that he liked the society of the office as little as he did either the wages or the work. It may naturally be supposed that this was not said till there had been some unpleasant words spoken by the town-clerk to his assistant,-till the authority of the elder had been somewhat stretched over the head of the young man; but it may be supposed also that when such words had once been spoken, Peter Steinmarc did not again press Ludovic Valcarm to sit upon the official stool.

Ludovic had never lived in the garret of the red house as Peter himself had done. When the suggestion that he should do so had some years since been made to Madame Staubach, that prudent lady, foreseeing that Linda would soon become a young woman, had been unwilling to sanction the arrangement. Ludovic, therefore, had housed himself elsewhere, and had been free of the authority of the town-clerk when away from his office. But he had been often in his cousin's rooms, and there had grown up some acquaintance between him and aunt Charlotte and Linda. It had been very slight ;so thought aunt Charlotte. It had been as slight as her precautions could make it. But Ludovic, nevertheless, had spoken such words to Linda that Linda had been unable to answer him; and though Madame Staubach was altogether ignorant that such iniquity had been perpetrated, Peter Steinmarc had shrewdly guessed the truth.

Rumours of a very ill sort had

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