The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1893-03-10
CONVERSATION A LOST ART.
People Nowadays Appear to Meet to Do
Almost Everything but Talk.

People Nowadays Appear to Meet to Do
Almost Everything but Talk.
When any number of persons wish to
eombine for social purposes nowadays
they form a club. The club, however,
Is by no means social organization.
The pretext is some sort of mind culture.
an arena for the discussion of some sub
ject. Shakespeare's plays, Browning,
Dante, the stage, indicate the simpler
range of topics. Or if nothing better
offers, the members set up a man of
straw and have SHES at him, sort of in
tellectual game of Aunt Sallie.
The town is honeycombed with such
clubs. They are superseding dancing
and the natural diversions of the young
and conversation and cards of the more
mature. The common pleasure in meet
ing one another in good clothes and off
duty no longer exists. Nor have the So
cial affiliations that used to be found in
the church and in the mission school
any remaining power of social cohesion.
1t is curious development, and is ma
turally in a more vigorous state among
people from other parts of the country
who have come here to live, and must
find excuses for social organization out
side those that exist in older and allied
communities of people. An inherent
craving to know and to commune about
Plato or Renaissance art will furnish
pretext for social advances that no one
can possibly mistake for bumptiousness
or any undue social aspiration. When
sufficient number of persons with
kindred thirst is discovered its satisfac-
ton takes place at intervals in one an
others drawing rooms. This climbing
of staircases, ascent of elevators, ia
miliaKity with one another's surround
ings and subsequent waters and cups of
tea after the main business is concluded
furnish as solid and as quickly riveted
bonds as are welded by society in any of
its older forms.
The regret is that conversation, the
politest, the most spiritual, evanescent,
the most agreeable of all arts, has no
greater chance in the mind culture clubs
than elsewhere. Where discussion and
information flourish the flame of CONVEX
sation fickers and goes out. Perhaps
the speaker must rise to speak, or there
is moderator or president who clings
to the main issue, or with great indis-
erection allows each person three minutes,
watch in hand, perhaps, to say nothing.
Or there may be q thirty minute paper
on "The Influence of Russian Thought
on the Accommodations of Wealth, which
settles down over the assembled intol-
lects like pail and calls for maids with
tea to the rescue.
Conversation has long since been
driven from more fashionable gayeties
where wit, wisdom and repartee are cut
off at some vital, blood letting point by
the hostess signal to listen to the song
or story of the professional entertainer,
and where the guests think themselves
happy if they are not forced into SERTED
ranks of camp chairs. Conversation is
no longer permitted except at the dinner
table, and then the amateur or profess
sional story teller is apt to have the first
fork, and seems only to precede the
jester yet to be found behind his mis-
tress' chair.
Regret, however, is only faint sigh
for the SHOWS of last year. The wise
person does not quarrel with what is but
accepts it as the outcome of circum-
stances, or the result of tendencies too
wide reaching or too deep for us to grasp.
If we are all under the pressure of mind
culture it is doubtless for some good end.
and if everywhere the more familiar
wagging of our tongues is checked there
are passages of scripture that will arise
in explanation and consolation to the
silent member.-New York Evening Sun