CONVERSATION has been said to be one of the lost arts-an assertion for which Talleyrand has been made responsible. Remembering as he did the brilliant salons of France in earlier days, he might be allowed to bewail the degeneracy of a duller generation. The sarcasm may be partly true. Yet we must not forget how common it is, even for those who have little of the great Frenchman's ability, to extol the glories of the days gone by, when, intellectually if not physically, there were giants in the land.

Undoubtedly in these modern days the art of conversation has some peculiar difficulties. We are all too busy, one way or the other -the movement of life, whether with or without an object, is too rapid-to allow us to spend as much time in talk as is required to perfect the accomplishment. People meet to eat and drink, to dance, to flirt, to act comedies or dress for tableaux, to play croquet, but not for conversation. Such talk as there is, we do rapidly, with as little expense of thought or of words as may be. It seems to be admitted generally that talk is an effort, which a busy person cannot be expected to make without an adequate motive, and which an idle person cannot be expected to make at all. Long words are abbreviated, as too troublesome to pronounce. Short recognised formulas, and handy condensed phrases, are made to serve, with very little variation, to express such few ideas as it is considered absolutely necessary to communicate; and the desired piquancy is sought in fashionable slang. Then, again, we all read a great deal more than our forefathers did, and therefore seem to have less need of talk as an intellectual exercise. We pay people to talk for us, in fact, just as the Ori

entals prefer hiring dancers to going through the exertion themselves. It is true that such trash as is commonly written and read is a very poor substitute in this respect for even the most ordinary conversation; for surely no real talk that ever was talked can come up to the inanity of dialogue and sentiment which fill the pages of three-fourths of our modern novels. Still, these do form the staple of mental entertainment to an unfortunately large number of people; and they seem quite content with their fare. To be sure, the talk of such persons can be no loss to society under any circumstances; and it may be better that they should exercise themselves within the pages of their green and yellow favourites than inflict their tediousness upon others. The purchase of a worthless volume at a railway stall may be very far from helping to improve the mind of the purchaser, but it may contribute very materially to the comfort of his fellow-passengers.

Some transcendental thinkers have imagined that all talk is at best a weakness. Mr Carlyle's contempt for it is well known. He looks upon it for the most part as "sinful waste;" but such an opinion might be expected from the cynical philosophy which holds mankind to be "mostly fools." Others besides him have suggested that, inasmuch as speech must have been originally invented to express our wants, and even the existence of a want of any kind implies a state of imperfection, all articulate utterances are in fact nothing better than developments of the natural cry of an animal for food, and therefore really connected with our lower being. There is a passage in a letter of Frederick Robertson's (of Brighton) which is not without some truth and beauty, as indeed few of his recorded thoughts are.

He suggests that the most perfect communion between two friends may be when they sit silent together, and "hour after hour passes, each taking it for granted that all which he desires to say is understood." He goes on as follows:

"If we had perfect fulness of all things-the entire beatitude of being without a want should we not lapse

into the silence of heaven itself? All

the utterances of man, his music, his poetry, are but the results of a loneliness which coarser and blunter spirits had been fortunate (or unfortunate) enough not to feel, and which compelled them to articulate expressions, in moans or cries of happiness, as the case may

be." *

All conversation, according to this theory, must be between dissatisfied people; just as it has been said that all the great works in this world are done by discontented men. If none of us wanted anything, and we were all contented with things exactly as they are, we should say nothing and do nothing. It is almost needless to add by way of illustration, that Mr Robertson was, as Mr Carlyle is, a fluent and excellent talker, and that both might claim a fair share of that grand discontent which is said to be the heritage of genius.

The Orientals retain something of this idea, that all talk for mere talking's sake is inconsistent with the dignity of man. The old Persian rule was, that every man should sit silent until he had something to say that was worth hearing. The social code in English or French society would enjoin almost the very opposite-that it would be better to say almost anything than not to talk at all. The most desperate plunge into nonsense, boldly made, is welcomed if it does but break one of those embarrassing pauses which we abhor as nature is said to do a vacuum. A silent member has his value in the House of Commons, but he is

at a discount in any other society; he seems hardly to come up to the old Homeric definition of his kind,

to belong to the race of "articulate-speaking men." It may be that this demand for talk at all hazards has helped to demoralise conversation; that the finer quality is no longer encouraged or appreciated, and therefore seldom produced; just as in the parallel case, the overwhelming influx of printed trash has made the cultivation of a true literary taste hopeless in the majority of readers.

It may be shrewdly suspected lence of the conversation of older that, after all, the vaunted exceldays has been considerably overrated. It has been asserted of our modern Parliamentary eloquence that it does not come up to the great powers of Fox and Sheridan. We have no Hansard of those days to refer to; but we know enough to feel sure that the popular reports of such things are never to be much depended upon. If Dr Johnson could be accommodated under the gallery of the present House of Commons on the night of some great debate, he might have no occasion to complain of the degeneracy of real eloquence amongst our legislators, though he might miss some of the stately periods in which he thought proper to dress the speeches of his own younger days. So also we may venture to demur, on some points, to the eulogies which have been passed upon the talk which prevailed in the drawing-rooms of our great-grandmothers. If it was high art, it was certainly not the highest; for the art seems to have been nearly always patent-anything less like nature it is not possible to conceive. Elaborate and fulsome compliment, childish badinage, double entendre and profanity, made up a great part of it. Impromptus which had been carefully studied, remarks which passed for naïveté, but which

were really consummate artifice, clever blasphemy, and the grossest thoughts veiled in the politest clothing-this is what we find the tone of good society a hundred years ago, what we are told we are to regret, and what, in those of its features which are most easily copied, it is said that in some circles there is a tendency to reproduce.

Such conversation as was not indebted for its piquancy to some of the ingredients above named, and which affected a higher intellectual range, must sometimes have been boring both to talkers and to listeners. It would certainly be so now, if we gather a fair idea of it from such notices as survive. People made believe to enjoy it, no doubt, as they do with many fashions of the present day; but they must sometimes have had to "make believe very hard." When Lady Mary Wortley Montagu first met with the man who, as they were both aware, was meant to be her future husband, they talked together, of all things in the world, about "the Roman heroes." Mr Montagu mentioned some classical author, and she regretted that she had never read his works. The conversation of modern fashionable lovers would probably not make a very lively or instructive chronicle; but at least it can hardly be less natural than this. So in the days of that worldrenowned circle of Précieuses, who met at the Hotel de Rambouillet, and who have the credit of having reformed and polished the French language itself, we are told that they talked classics, discussed the private life of the Romans, and composed and read aloud for each other's edification sonnets and epigrams. At those Saturdays of Mademoiselle de Scudéri, where so much of what held itself to be the wit and intellect of the day met for the purpose of showing what clever talk could be, the notion was much the same. Does one wonder that after such an evening a French wit of

the day seized his companion's arm as they withdrew, and said, “For heaven's sake, my friend, come and let us talk a little bad grammar!" or that Talleyrand, fresh from the Bureaux d'esprit (as they were called) of a later generation, in spite of his admiration for his fair countrywomen's fine talk, should have said that "he found nonsense singularly refreshing"? We are told of one of the Scudéri evenings in particular, which was styled "La Journée des Madrigaux," when the hostess and all her party set to work to compose verses— which of course were to be full of point and liveliness, and which were the subject of mutual praise and admiration. The spirit of the hour extended itself even to the kitchen, and squires of the chamber, footmen, and ladies' maids caught the poetic fury, and disported themselves with this literary "High Life below Stairs." Collectors of literary curiosities have reason to regret that no copies of this genuine domestic poetry have been preserved. But such performances as these are not conversation in any sense; rather, they show that in the case of those who have recourse to them, either the powers or the charms of conversation are insufficient. Modern attempts of the same kind have been made even in English society. The Della Crusca Academy and the Blue Stocking Club are well known, and had their day of popularity, though we remember them now only to laugh at their pretensions. If we may estimate the quality of their talk by the samples of their written compositions which have survived, it must have been poor enough. The tales and poetry of the 'Florence Miscellany,' for instance, which the amateur authors mutually praised and admired, would hardly be admitted now into the pages of a school magazine. The same kind of thing has been revived continually from time to time, and goes on still under various designations.

It befell the present writer, on one occasion, to be introduced in the character of a visitor to one of the evening meetings of a very exclusive and mysterious body, whom (not to be too personal) may here be called the Literary Rosicrucians. A subject was given out some fortnight beforehand for treatment: and on this theme every member, lady or gentleman-happily the tax was not exacted from visitors-was expected to contribute either a short tale, a poem, or an original sketch in pencil or colours. The latter productions were laid on the tables at the monthly soirée of the club, and examined, with a criticism more or less friendly, by the assembled members. The artists were supposed to be unknown, and so had the advantage of listening, if they pleased, under this conventional incognito, to the opinions expressed. The literary contributions (also anonymous) were collected in some way by the secretary of the evening, and by him read aloud in succession. This was the trying scene in the evening's performances. Some, of course, were intended to be grave, and some to be humorous; but it was not always easy to distinguish, at least until the reader (a bad one of course) came to an end, which was which. And, as a rule, the production which was most clearly meant to be facetious was exactly that at which it was impossible to laugh, while the pathetic pieces were those during which it was most difficult to maintain one's gravity. A mere outsider had naturally that kind of excuse for preserving an impassive demeanour throughout, which was pleaded by the solitary hearer who remained unmoved during a sermon which threw all the rest of the congregation into tears-that he "belonged to another parish." But for one of the sacred band, who felt that he might be sitting next to the author of the hour, and yet was unable either to laugh or cry in the proper places or for the authors them

selves—the situation did not appear a pleasant one. If Mademoiselle de Scudéri or Mrs Montagu's evenings were at all like this, we need hardly regret that we did not live in that Arcadia. The thing ended with a supper, which was decidedly more artistic than any other part of the entertainment (the kitchen, fortunately, not having caught the literary infection in this case), and which appeared to bring great relief and refreshment to many of the initiated, as well as to the profane guest who had been for once admitted to their mysteries.

Much complaint has been made of the conversation of men of acknowledged literary powers. Authors are accused of proving, in ordinary society, either positively dull, or unworthily frivolous. Probably instances enough might be brought forward in support of the accusation. The faculty of expressing ideas clearly and pleasantly upon paper, when the writer can take his own time for thought and correction, is not always found in conjunction with that snap-shot readiness which hits its mark instinctively, and with fair accuracy, at the moment. There may be here and there an author of whom it might be said, as of Goldsmith, that

"He wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll."

On the other hand, we must consider from what quarters the charge comes. In answer to the cynical proverb that no man is a hero to his valet-de-chambre, it was observed with much fairness that the fault might quite as likely be the valet's as the hero's. So, before we set down genius as a dull companion, we must consider what we have a right to expect from it in that character. The child who is shown the Queen will be terribly disappointed to see a lady plainly dressed in black; the young imagination misses the crown, the orb, and the sceptre. There are unreasonable people, no doubt, who

expect to have an author always put on his war-paint, and talk in character, as it were: as Mrs Siddons terrified the footboy by asking in her deepest tragedy tones for "beer." Lord Macaulay probably never delivered orally a supplementary chapter of the History of England after dinner, and would have been extremely tiresome if he had. Mr Dickens would most likely object to doing a little Pickwick in a conversational form. Many writers who contribute, in their proper place, to the entertainment of the public, might very fairly shrink, out of natural dignity and delicacy, from anything like showing off in the ordinary intercourse of society. The conversation of clever people, whether their powers have ever been tested in print or not, is likely to be more or less interesting to clever people; it does not always follow that they should be appreciated by stupid ones. One may have heard the sneer that they keep their good things for their books. In a very limited sense, and by no means the sense intended, this may be true. Most literary performances which are worth anything are the result of considerably more thought and pains, and go through a longer process of mental correction and revision, than careless readers are inclined to believe. The two hundred lines an hour which Lucilius wrote standing on one foot were, in all probability, what might be expected-very lame affairs. Much which passes for rather brilliant conversation when we hear it, or take part in it, might have a very different effect if we had to read a proof-sheet of it. It is extremely probable that an author's best things will be found in his book rather than in his conversation. Miss Austen in past days, Mr Lever and Mr Trollope in the present, contrive to make their characters talk very cleverly indeed. Does any one suppose that they had nothing more to do than to

sit down and take notes of what their clever friends said in actual life?

Books have been written on what their writers are pleased to call "The Art of Conversation." But whether it is an art at all, in the sense of being subject to any rules, or attainable by any discipline of teaching, is much more than doubtful. In the same way there was supposed to be an art of poetry; the aspirant was to be fitted out with a dictionary of synonymes, and another of rhymes, and, by their help, was to turn out unexceptionable verse. Judging from what has before now been printed as poetry, this creed must have found its proselytes. But the instances are probably rare in which talk has formed any subject of study, whether such an addition to our social education would be an improvement or not. Some of the best talkers, according to their lights, will be found among the uneducated classes, by any one who will be at the pains to draw them out. The power of telling a story well, with all due embellishment of tone and gesture-including such a disguise of the plain prosaic truth as all good story-tellers have a licence for-belongs to some of this class in perfection. Shrewd remarks upon things and persons, founded very often upon a nice discrimination of character; satire, keen if not refined; often very delicate flattery (if flattery be not too harsh a word for what is much more like real good-breeding than the smiling insincerities of higher life); and never, under any circumstances, those covert sneers under the mask of politeness, of all social impertinences the most insufferable, which pass too often unrebuked, because to resent them involves almost an equal breach of good manners, and which are the exclusive accomplishments of the gentler sex. If some of the poor had only their Boswells, what amusing volumes might take the place of some of our tedious