New-York tribune., 1875-02-25
THE ART OF CONVERSA TON

All tDe newspapers are III q Nv
tie paragraph, the large fact that certain
Baron in Paris, to lis anonymous, offers by
advertisement to give lessons in Conversation.
Terms, So month. Moreover, our baronial
friend will accept invitations to dinner-llm-
tied, since the human stomach is-and at these
banquets lie will furnish talk as the cook
does the courses. Better than all, our talk
ative nObleman has perfected cOlloquial sys-
tenn in which ideas are not necessary. You
20 on chattering volubly you amuse, you en-
tertain, you enchant; you seem to be learned,
wise, philosophical, witty, all-sided and all
the while you are only delicious delusOn
and fascinating fraud. Alas! we know sew
eral persons, more, indeed, than several, who
are adopts in this mystery. and who have
never had even S. worth of instruction from
the Baron or so many as six lessons from any
master-lOrds Of loquacity and ladies of rig
marole who will talk to you by the hour and
half of things which you understand and
which they do not, as if they were the en-
lightened and you were the ignOramus. The
secret land it is the BarOn's) is that very lit
tie goes to gabble-Only little techni-
caity and nomenclature with few names
and dates, and from six to twenty phrases
Is it of music that the discourse is I Beet
hoven, andante, Thalberg sympathetic and
symphony timbre, Lucca, and tOl-de-rol. Of
artq The Venus de- Medici and Miss H0smer,
the religion of Raphael, and the majesty OF
Michael Angelo-it will be great hit, and
will bother the other side, if you call this last
named parsonage Buonarotti, and mention his
admiration for the gate of Ghiberti. Of sci
oil
the Old Red Sandstone. OF the drama
Billy Shakespeare, Dion BOucicault, Joseph
Jefferson, Charlotte Cushman. And so on and
so on! All topics are trivial and easy to the
master of his resources AS for the resources
themselves, arc they not upon every book
f-dictiOnaries, encyclopedias, compendl-
ums, manuals-one universal swash OF all the
elements
The secret OF great talker is in his courage
and presence of mind. The god of gabble
helps those who help themselves to our ears
and time. o tongue-tied friend! what fool
you are, with your stammering and your rush
of blood to tho checks, your mistimed mod
esty and miserable struggles to be accurate
Shall we tell you o little anecdoteP The scene
is library. The subject is an edition of the
Greek Testament just put out. The interoc-
utors are two gentlemen who have written for
newspapers until they have forgotten all their
Greek, and another gentleman just from
Oxford and dreadfully fresh in his AL
pha- Beta Gamma. He at once points out an
error in the text-a wrong particle and not of
the least consequence, so far as the salvation
of the world is concerned. He wakes indig-
nant at the criminal carelessness Of proof
M. ,I,o. ind, nna
"heavens!" they cry, "what are we COM
"ing to7" SO the Oxford man goes
away with great respect for their
exegetcal powers, and then-they look
into each others faces and laugh. "Aw-
full carelessness !" they say as they smoke
over it" Baskerville would never have made
ga typo like that :" and then they smoke
and laugh again. There is nothing like as
suming eruditiOn. though you have it not.
Besides, it is usually safe, especially in this
country to take the ignorance Of the other
party for granted, unless you happen to know
your man too well to try it on. If you are a
fool, you will sometimes get caught; but, being
fool, you will not feel it. Accurate knowl-
edge of anything is the rarest acquisition of
this superficial time. Don't be scared
Wnen VIC afo cACcSoiFciy uShHOu "nu
moral, we express great contempt for mere
praters, and speak as if a general massacre of
the whole crowd of them would shove us
several thousand leagues towards the mil
lennium. Can anything be more embarrassing
than the awful silence which sometimes falls
down like an enormous wet blanket upon
company, left to look idiotically in each
others faces, and horribly to hem and haw
Is not your gabbler, he or she, beattude
then of vowels and cOnsonantsf Your part of
the work is but small-only a" Ye-e-es "dropped
here and there to keep things bObbing.
Sweet then is the sounding brass-sweet the
tinkling cymbal! Is it at dinnerf Is not any
noise better than a clatter of knives and
forksf Or, if it be at tea a ingle-jangle of
the spoonsi Or in the evening circle, better
by far than the thrum of the piano and the
chirp OF the family sopranOf So when we are
sometimes forewarned that "Miss Multiglott is
"coming,n and that she "will talk us to
death we are not in the least frightened, but
rather ,consoled. We like her simple, honest
chat. She will tell us about our neighbors.
And we like dearly to know all about our
neighbors. She will make matters lively.
She will sprinkle Worcestershire Sauce upon
the funeral baked meats, and put q little taste
into the cold tea Of g-lady-lispng. 1t is
so pleasant to loll back in ones chair and be
all reoepivityl And tho best of Il ~ that We