The Houma courier. (Houma, La.) 1878-1939, 1900-01-06


good points that, although he could
5 ogerbea1ing ind rude, Be could also
LISTEN. Naturally, tie lions share Of
Ahp talk often tel to his lot, and Just
as naturally, whether he talked much
rs Little. he inevitably dominated the
Conversational this was in the ma
ture Of thing-but johnson was not
monologist. he led, be often domi-
mated, and sometimes domineered,
but be also listened and thoroughly
understood that the good talk which
MS soul loved involved give and take,
exchange Of Ideas, the power to listen
as vel IS To speak The exchange
may not always be on quite equal
terms. Was It not Heine who, whena
friend found him unusually dull one
day explained, with sarcastic intent,
thathe had been exchanging thoughts
with Prof. So and So? The Herr Pro
fessor, one may be sure, had the best
OF that exchange, But when takers
meet on fairly equal terms exchange
is of the essence of the art Of both talk
ing andlistening.
On the whole, one is inclined to
think that the supposed disappear
ance Of the art Of conversation is de-
fusion. What has really disappeared
is the tyranny Of the m~onologist; and
efor this relief ? we may say with the
Danish soldier, much thanks" tits
difdcuH to believe that were any lat
ter-d Macanlay, for example, to
rise, crammed with information on
every conceivable subject with a re-
leEtless memory stored with all kinds
of useful and useless knowledge, and
endowed with a fatally fluent and
cruelty copious gift of speech-it is
difficult, we say, to believe that such
one would be able to command or re
tain an audience or to dominate and
monopolize talk in the way that the
great Whig essayist was accustomedto
do. Or, to take another example
Mrs. Justin wrote to NJ. Barthelemy
st. Hilaire in january, 1862, that a
lady correspondent Of hers at Cannes
had written to saythat Victor Cousin,
the Well-known philosopher, 'Stalked
the other day without stopping for
four hours Would the preparation
of such a harangue nowadays find an
audience as patient as that Of 4Oyears
ago?
The victims Of the monologists
we're patient listeners, but they
kicked occasionally; moreover, their
sense Of humor was pleasantly it'll
lated when they beheldt two great talk
ers thrown together by chance or so
cial circumstance, and saw how one
dominated, and how the other, accus.
toned himself to dominate, Writhed
under the novel discomfort Of being
himself listener by compulsion. A
Spanish prOverb says: 'oTwo great
takers viii not travel far together
Greville records with humorous ap
probation Of the position how, wher
he was at BoWood, in December, 1841
Macaulay and Samuel Rogers wer,
among his fellow-guests. The for
mer's flow was inexhaustible, galway.
amusing and instructive, about every
body and everything" Never, Ger
tainly, says GreVille, was anything
heard like him. But Rogers ais,
loved to hold forth, andthe diarist re
marks upon the droll effect which
Macaulay's dominance had upon tn.
banker poet, "who is nearly extin
guished, and can neither make him
self heard nor find an interval to &c
81 a word" It was a trying position
for a luminary, accustomed to shin.
brightly in a circle Of his own, to fnt
his light NEARLY extinguished" b.
the greater brilliance Of a rival
Greville p~rophesied that Roger
would revive when Macaulay went
and later-when that event happene,
recorded not only that Rogers wa
Call alive again" but that the othe
guests under Lord Lansdowne's hos
pitable roof had found their voice:
and on the whole he concludes the.
we're as wen without Macaulay.
A somewhat similar state of thing
on one occasion-though in this cas-
a matter Of hours only, noting it wa
chronicled By Darwin in his "Autc
biography" He relates hat at a dir
ner party where, besides himseI
we're Babbage (of calculating maehin
fame) and Si2 Charles LyeH, VIII
both liked to talk, Carlyle silence
them all by haFanguing during ia
wboln Gfmmnw an fhn odvonte gae IF q