Talk and Talkers

I

"Sir, we had a good talk."[1]--JOHNSON.

"As we must account[2] for every idle word, so we must for every idle
silence."--FRANKLIN.

There can be no fairer ambition than to excel in talk; to be affable,
gay, ready, clear and welcome; to have a fact, a thought, or an
illustration, pat to every subject; and not only to cheer the flight
of time among our intimates, but bear our part in that great
international congress, always sitting, where public wrongs are first
declared, public errors first corrected, and the course of public
opinion shaped, day by day, a little nearer to the right. No measure
comes before Parliament but it has been long ago prepared by the grand
jury of the talkers; no book is written that has not been largely
composed by their assistance. Literature in many of its branches is no
other than the shadow of good talk; but the imitation falls far short
of the original in life, freedom and effect. There are always two to a
talk, giving and taking, comparing experience and according
conclusions. Talk is fluid, tentative, continually "in further search
and progress;" while written words remain fixed, become idols even to
the writer, found wooden dogmatisms, and preserve flies of obvious
error in the amber[3] of the truth. Last and chief, while literature,
gagged with linsey-woolsey, can only deal with a fraction of the life
of man, talk goes fancy free[4] and may call a spade a spade.[5] It
cannot, even if it would, become merely aesthetic or merely classical
like literature. A jest intervenes, the solemn humbug is dissolved in
laughter, and speech runs forth out of the contemporary groove into
the open fields of nature, cheery and cheering, like schoolboys out of
school. And it is in talk alone that we can learn our period and
ourselves. In short, the first duty of a man is to speak; that is his
chief business in this world; and talk, which is the harmonious speech
of two or more, is by far the most accessible of pleasures. It costs
nothing in money; it is all profit; it completes our education, founds
and fosters our friendships, and can be enjoyed at any age and in
almost any state of health.

The spice of life is battle; the friendliest relations are still a
kind of contest; and if we would not forego all that is valuable in
our lot, we must continually face some other person, eye to eye, and
wrestle a fall whether in love or enmity. It is still by force of
body, or power of character or intellect; that we attain to worthy
pleasures. Men and women contend for each other in the lists of love,
like rival mesmerists; the active and adroit decide their challenges
in the sports of the body; and the sedentary sit down to chess or