Of Conversation - Page 2

anything to say, but as a guarantee of good faith. You have to make
a noise all the time, like the little boy who was left in the room with
the plums. It is the only possible explanation.

To a logical mind there is something very distressing in this social law
of gabble. Out of regard for Mrs. A, let us say, I attend some festival
she has inaugurated. There I meet for the first time a young person of
pleasant exterior, and I am placed in her company to deliver her at a
dinner-table, or dance her about, or keep her out of harm's way, in a
cosy nook. She has also never seen me before, and probably does not want
particularly to see me now. However, I find her nice to look at, and she
has taken great pains to make herself nice to look at, and why we cannot
pass the evening, I looking at her and she being looked at, I cannot
imagine. But no; we must talk. Now, possibly there are topics she knows
about and I do not--it is unlikely, but suppose so; on these topics she
requires no information. Again, I know about other topics things unknown
to her, and it seems a mean and priggish thing to broach these, since
they put her at a disadvantage. Thirdly, comes a last group of subjects
upon which we are equally informed, and upon which, therefore, neither
of us is justified in telling things to the other. This classification
of topics seems to me exhaustive.

These considerations, I think, apply to all conversations. In every
conversation, every departure must either be a presumption when you talk
into your antagonist's special things, a pedantry when you fall back
upon your own, or a platitude when you tell each other things you both
know. I don't see any other line a conversation can take. The reason why
one has to keep up the stream of talk is possibly, as I have already
suggested, to manifest goodwill. And in so many cases this could be
expressed so much better by a glance, a deferential carriage, possibly
in some cases a gentle pressure of the hand, or a quiet persistent
smile. And suppose there is some loophole in my reasoning--though I
cannot see it--and that possible topics exist, how superficial and
unexact is the best conversation to a second-rate book!

Even with two people you see the objection, but when three or four are
gathered together the case is infinitely worse to a man of delicate
perceptions. Let us suppose--I do not grant it--that there is a possible
sequence of things to say to the person A that really harmonise with A
and yourself. Grant also that there is a similar sequence between
yourself and B. Now, imagine yourself and A and B at the corners of an
equilateral triangle set down to talk to each other. The kind of talk
that A appreciates is a discord with B, and similarly B's sequence is