do not of course mean, Heaven forbid! that people should try to
converse seriously; that results in the worst kind of dreariness,
in feeling, as Stevenson said, that one has the brain of a sheep
and the eyes of a boiled codfish. But I mean that the more
seriously one takes an amusement, the more amusing it becomes. What
I wish is that people would apply the same sort of seriousness to
talk that they apply to golf and bridge; that they should desire to
improve their game, brood over their mistakes, try to do better.
Why is it that so many people would think it priggish and
effeminate to try to improve their talk, and yet think it manly and
rational to try to shoot better? Of course it must be done with a
natural zest and enjoyment, or it is useless. What a ghastly
picture one gets of the old-fashioned talkers and wits, committing
a number of subjects to memory, turning over a commonplace book for
apposite anecdotes and jests, adding dates to those selected that
they may not tell the same story again too soon, learning up a list
of epigrams, stuck in a shaving-glass, when they are dressing for
dinner, and then sallying forth primed to bursting with
conversation! It is all very well to know beforehand the kind of
line you would wish to take, but spontaneity is a necessary
ingredient of talk, and to make up one's mind to get certain
stories in, is to deprive talk of its fortuitous charm. When two
celebrated talkers of the kind that I have described used to meet,
the talk was nothing but a smart interchange of anecdotes. There is
a story of Macaulay and some other great conversationalist getting
into the swing at breakfast when staying, I think, with Lord
Lansdowne. They drew their chairs to the fire, the rest of the
company formed a circle round them, and listened meekly to the
dialogue until luncheon. What an appalling picture! One sympathizes
with Carlyle on the occasion when he was asked to dinner to meet a