The Portland daily press., 1888-02-18
CONCERNING BOOKS.
BY E. CAvAzzA.

Art of Conversation is an example of
small thing done greatly. The thin volume
easily to be slipped into the coat-pocket
for study on the way to some reunion where
one would distinguish himself in the tourney
of talk-contains the entire subject, CLASH
fed and arranged with philosophic order
possible only to a master of thought. The
preface is charming: one recognizes the man
of science to be also the man of society,
courteous, clever and sympathetic. One of
those witty sayings which decompose the
light of truth in order to present it in the
brilliant colors of the prism, has defined con-
versation as the art of concealing ideas;
Professor Mahaffy more justly considers
that the perfection of conversational art is to
conceal itself. Fermentation and effort are
fatal to its charm; art must so completely
initiate nature as to render itself second
nature.
Professor Mahaffy believes conversation to
be most important, not only to success in the
world, but also as a means OF limitless en-
joyment; and concludes his eloquent praise
by declaring 1t to be ''the delight of prosper
ity, the solace Of adversely, the eternal and
essential expression of that social instinct
which is one of the strongest and best fea-
lures in human nature" He recognizes the
difficulty of prescribing laws for an art
whose essence is spontaneity, and whose
ideal is the rapid creation of variety Of
beautiful images. Yet he observes that the
kindred art of rhetoric has its rules which it
most obeys when it most causes to be forgot
ten; and his mastery analysis of the science
of social speech is a good foundation upon
which to rear whatsoever graceful structure
one will. AS the physical requirements OF
Manner he notes a pleasant tone Of voice,
and the absence of local accent and of tricks
of speech and catch-words. AS regards
local accent in New England-it may gently
be limited that to the official five yowels is
apt to be added an oyerworked obscure
sound, substituted for any and all of them,
so that foreign ear is often puzzled as to
the spelling of syllable unless already
known to sight. And not seldom it happens
that even this representative of a vowel is
omitted; indeed one frequently hears New
Englanders, refined and careful in choice Of
words. slight the musical vowels until their
conversation resembles those personal items
of new spaper which announce, for exam
pie, that the Pr-s-d-nt is at the White H-se
at Washington. The proportion of vowels in
the English language is all too little for har-
mony; and this minority unheard, the utter
ance goes swapping, kissing, cracking on,
consonant after consonant, like the petulant
blaze of wood fire. Almost universal is the
vice of pet phrases and catchwords, tiresome
in themselves. they hinder precision of
thought and speech, thrust themselves into
the place of other words, write and speak
themselves without a reason. There is, we
are told. such q process as unconscious cere-
bration; there. is also, unconscious express
sion, the action of tongue or pen by means of
motive power gained by practice. when the
brain does not suggest hardly consents to
the words.
In considering the mental equipments Of a
good coRversationalist, Professor Mahaffy
compares the specialist with the person Of
general information, and on the whole, pre-
fers the 'all-round' man for social purposes.
He thinks, however, that the present system
of rapid transit Of news by means Of tele-
graphs, railroads and journals, is, on the
whole, detrimental to conversation, since it
affords an unassorted mass of truth and its
opposite, so condensed and conventional as
to destroy liberty and leisure of individual
thought.
OF the moral requisites of the art of con-
versation, he deems Modesty the first and
most Notwithstanding In this word all
grades from bashfulness up to the moral self
restraint which fears to overestimate ones
own worth. He reproves unsparingly the
false modsty which occupies itself with dep
recating its possessor. Tiresome indeed is
the person who qualities each of his opinions
as "a poor thing but mine own;" who begins
a letter with apologies for stupidity. The
social crime of shyness is its own punish
ment; while, on the contrary, reserve is
noble trait. One receives or merits small,
thanks for the sacrifice Of his personal dig
nifty or good taste; the amusement or the
fiattered vanity of those for whom the sacri-
fee is made soon gives place to the contempt
of familiarity.
Sympathy is the charity of the magma
ton: II is possible that Professor Mahatfy,
who testines TO its inestimable worth in So
cial relations, places a certain restraint up
on himself in failing to indorse fully the
opinion of Adam Smith, who traced all hu-
man virtues to their common root Of sympa-
thy. Every breach of good m anners and
good morals derives from some lack OF alice
tionate understanding of the human or divine
conditions. The Professors hint as to the