Year: 1879

The first requisite of good talker is
genuine social sympathy. A man may
not say. out of some selfish motive, or
some motive of personal policy, aGo
tol will become a good talker.S He
must enjoy society, and have a genuine
desire to serve and please. We have
all seen the talker who talks for his
own purpose, or talks to please himself.
He is the well-known characterize
talking bore. The talker who gets him
self up for show, who plans his conver-
sations for an evening, and Grams for
them, becomes intolerable. He lect-
ures; he does not converse; for there is
no power of talker so delightful as
that of exciting others to talk, and list
ening to what his own inspiring and
suggestive utterances have called forth.
Genuine social sympathy and hearty
desire to please others are necessary to
produce such a talker as this, and no
other is tolerable. Social sympathy is a
natural gift, and there is a combination
of other gifts which constitute what
may be called esprit, that are very es-
sential to good talker. This combina-
ton includes individuality, tact and
wit-the talents, aptitudes and peculiar
characteristic charm which enable a
man to use the materials of conyersa-
hon in an engaging way, entirely his
own; for every talker has his own way
of saying good things, as well Of
managing conversation based on his
esprit.


Yet it is true that there are no good
takers who depend upon their natural
gifts and such material as they get in
the usual interchanges of society. For
the materials of conversation we must
draw upon knowledge. No man can be
thoroughly good talker who does not
know great deal. Social sympathy
and the agift of gab' go but a short way
toward producing good conversation.
though we hear great deal of this kind
of talk among the young. Sound and
exact knowledge is the very basis of
good conversation. To know great
many things well is to have in hand the
best and most reliable materials of good
conversation. There is nothing like
abundance and exactness of knowledge
with which to furnish a talker. Next
to this, perhaps, is familiarity with po-
lite literature. The faculty of quoting
from the best authors is a very desira-
BILE one. Facts are valuable, and
thoughts, perhaps, are quite as valuable,
especially as they are more stimulating
to the conversation of group. The
talker who deals alone in facts is quite
likely to have the talk all to himself,
while the man who is familiar with
thoughts and ideas, as he has found
them embodied in literature, becomes a
stimulator of thought and conversation
in those around them. Familiarity
with knowledge and with the products
of the literary art connot be too much
insisted on as the furniture of good
conversation.


Beyond this, the good talker must
be familiar with the current thought
and events of his time. There should
be no movement in politics, religion
and society that the good talker is not
familiar with. Indeed, the man who
undertakes to talk at all must know
what is uppermost in mems minds, and
be able to add to the general fund of
thought and knowledge, and respond to
the popular inquiry and the popular
disposition for discussion. The man
who undertakes to be a good talker
should never be caught mapping con-
cerning any current topic OF Immediate
public interest.


How to carry and convey superiority
of knowledge and culture without ap-
pearing to be pedantic, how to talk out
of abundant stores of information and
familiarity with opinion, without seem
ing to preach, as Coleridge was accused
of doing, belongs, with the ability to
talk wed, to Hthe art of conversation.
It has seemed to us that, if young peo-
pie could only see how shallow and silly
very much of their talk is, and must
necessarily be, SO long as they lack the
materials of conversation, they would
take more pains with their study, would
devote themselves more to the best
books, and that, at least, they would ac-
quire and maintain more familiarity
with important current events. To
know something is the best cure for
neighborhood gossip, for talk about
dress, and for 10000 frivolities and sili-
nesses of society. Besides, good
talker needs an audience to understand
and respond to him, and where is he to
find one, if there is not abundant
culture around him ?-Dr. Holland, in
Scrib7leY's Monthly.