Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1862-09-22
DEPARTMENT OF STAFF.
X AaETE arnE A-r-.-.-. . r.ea
The ART Of Conversation.

There are some people who have matter il
them, which, however, it is as hard for astraugeI
to draw out in conversation as It was to extract
the meat from John Bunyan's walnuts. Ere.
quenty, however, the matter is confined to one
idea, like the " madness upon 4 single point 81
SH Walter Scott, in a letter to Joanna Bailis
oncs wrote thus of one of those singular per-
sonsgss
L never heard Of stranger that utterly baflsd
/ all Efforts to engage him in conversation except
I one whom an acquaintance Of mine met in a
stage coach. MY friend, who piqued himself on
MS t2entS tor conversation, assaied this tortoise
on al hands, but in vain and at length de-
/ scended to expostulation have talked to
/ you my friend, on all the ruling subiscts-lite-
nature, farm, merchandise, gaming game laws,
horse races, suits at law, politics, and swindling
and blasphemy, and philosophy-is there any
one subject which you will favor me by opening
upon
The wight writhsd his counteuance into
grin. " Sir" said he, " can you say anything
clever about bend leather ~
There, says Sir Waiter, " own should
have been as much nonPlused as my acquaint-
sDce
The novelist Bulwer, who has reproduced this
anecdote iu his new snd interesting "Caxtoni-
aua, ventures to doubt Sir Walters modest AZ
serhon, and says that he should have perceived
that he had not come there to teach. but to
learn; and before the end of the Journey he
would have extracted from the traveller ali that
the traveller could have told him about bend
leather. This would have been sure to have
come out in one of his books, suggested some
teli1ity in hUmor, or spOTted some playful nov
city in character, which would have made the
whole reading world merTier and wiser ''And.
adds BulWe-, every man Of sound brain whom
you meet, knows something worth knowing
better than yourself"
la illustrating the idea that 'if the whole be
greater than part, whole man must be great
er than that part of him which is found in a
book" BUiwer asks What would YOU not
give to have an hours frank talk with Shsk-
speare aud replies TO his own question-''You |
cannot think of yourself so poorly as not to be |
sure that at the end Of the hour, you would /
have got something ont of him which fifty years |
study would not suffice to let you get out of his 1
plays"
"Caxtoniana" alludes to another writer. A /
poet as well as a novelist and of whom it has /
been oft times said that he was exceedingly dull /
II company, in the following sentences:
Goldsmith was said, by Garrick, to wri te /
like an angel, and talk like Poor Poll" But |
what does this prove Nothing more than this,
that the player could not fathom the poet. A /
man who writes ike an angel cannot always
talk like Poor Poll That Goldsmith. in his
peach-coiored coat, swed by q johnson, bulied
by Boswell, talked very fOOshly, l can well !
understands Ddt let any gentle reader of human
brains and human hearts have got Goldsmith all
to himself over bottle Of Madeira, in Gold
smiths own l0dgiugs-talksd to Goldsmith low |
ingly and reverentielly about the " Traveller" "
and SO The Vicar of Wakefield" and sure [ am
that he would have gone away with the couvic-
uOn that there was something ia the welspTnr
Of so much genius more marvellous than its
diamond ike sp7ay-sOmething in poor Oliver
Goldsmith immeasurably greater than these faint
and fragmentary expressions Of the man which
yet survives in the exquisite poem, in the in
comparable novel
IL is certainly great praise from such an ad-
nlred novelist as BUlweT is, when he prOnOuuces
) work OF fiction, written by one of his prede-
,essors, in letters 50 Incompatible"
The poet Campbell is said to have resembled
in his conversational talents, as his q!
ak was so inferior 10 his fame remark of
his kind was once made to Buwer by a very d,
popular writer and very brilliant cOnveTser,
md Bulwer could not gsinsay It's justice, as his
IVA experience confirmed it. Yet, he says:
Three days afteTward, Campbell asked me to
o come and sup with him tots-a tete I did J
10. l went at ten o'clock. l stayed till J
lawn; and all my recOLec,ions Of the most
parking talk have ever heard in drawing A..
CONS afford nothing to equal the Tiotous atlu- !
nee OF Wit, Ut humOr, of fancy, Of genius that !
he great lyrist poured forth ia his wondrous !
nORologue. MonolOgue it WAS he had it sll to /.
imselt" All people csn be studied by skillful !,
onveTsahonalists, and the writer adds to his 8
Illustrations. As we vary our study in books
7e should vary our study in men. Z