Chapter 7

The Do’s and Don’t’s of Agreeable Conversation

After a person has fixed for himself the two principles of talking to please others more than himself and of being forethinkingly tactful, a series of important conversational policies follow naturally.

The paradoxical one is that to be an agreeable talker one must be a good listener. Good listening is as important to good conversation as the canvas is to the painting. Conversation being the most human of arts, a good talker should be about as much canvas as paint. It is not true, however, as many say, that silence of itself is better than talking. Active, sympathetic listening is a fine thing, but even then only as a complement to speech. If the Apostles had forever listened and never talked, there would be no Christianity.

Most sayings in praise of silence are excessive. Carlyle, who did not practice it, said, "Silence is the eternal duty of man"; Benjamin Disraeli wrote, "Silence is the mother of Truth"; and Menander claimed, "All things, save silence, bring repentance." In the Gesta Romanorum we read, "Hear, see, and be silent, if you wish to live in peace." True, but then, why be a man at all, why not be a jellyfish. True also that Hitler and Mussolini, had they never talked, would have lived their lives out in peace.

But so would Lincoln and Joan of Arc and John the Baptist. And so would He whose sandals St. John thought himself unworthy to loose.

No, silence is not a virtue in itself. But it is an indispensable background for good talk. As Montaigne, the earliest essayist, wrote, "Silence and modesty are very valuable qualities in the art of conversation." One can also say to a conversationalist what Shakespeare advises, "Be check'd for silence, But never tax'd for speech." We may also agree with La Bruyere, "We seldom repent talking too little, but very often talking too much."

At any rate a person who talks to please others more than himself will make sure that he does his share of listening and that he keeps improving himself in the art of listening. The fundamental in this art is a sincere sympathy with the speaker and the will to get some pleasure or wisdom from him. Christ's Golden Rule of doing to others as we want to be done by is the best prescription. If you try to realize how it discommodes you when, while talking, someone appears to be disinterested, you will give the speaker the attention and sympathy you want yourself. This is the quickest way to earn the unconscious gratitude of nearly everyone with whom you associate.

A good listener is not a person who merely keeps quiet. It is one whose eyes are kept on the speaker's face, whose expression registers the emotion proper to what is said. It is one who above all does not fidget with his hands or squirm in his chair or slouch languidly down upon it. It is one who, as the ball of talk is hit back and forth, follows it from speaker to speaker and is ever alert to catch it, without scrambling for it.

Swift says that one who talks to please others, not himself, cannot have the twin faults of "impatience to interrupt others" and "uneasiness of being interrupted." Few faults are so noticeable in conversation as that of breaking in on another before he is finished. This fault has already been so lampooned that anyone guilty of it usually belatedly tries to amend matters by saying, "Pardon me, I did not mean to interrupt you before." But in fact he did interrupt. And it was probably because he was more anxious to enjoy his own ideas than to please the company. It is also true that anyone with worth-while ideas will constantly be tempted to break in on another. The better a potential conversationalist you are, the more you need to guard yourself against this urge.

This does not mean, however, that one may not check anyone politely who is running on interminably or who is clearly in error on a significant point. An interruption that safeguards the point under discussion is not always reprehensible. If one says, "Pardon me, John, on that last point — it seems to me you might well add that the op ponents did the same thing" or words to that effect, it generally furthers rather than hinders the conversation.

But two types of interruptions are particularly annoying and indefensible. One type is frequent at parties composed of close friends or of married couples. One starts an episode, and the other falls in with, "No, that isn't the way it was, Jack. Don't you remember . . ." whereupon he says, "You better tell it." Not infrequently, when the second continues, the first will in turn interrupt. This sort of thing is done, not over significant points, but minor details. Any interruption to correct unimportant details in anyone's account is most objectionable. But especially husbands and wives and close friends should take a mutual pledge not to cut in on each other when either relates what both of them know. If my observation is not faulty, this is a matter in which very, very many couples need a reorientation.

The other unpardonable type of interruption is that which introduces an irrelevant or new topic in the middle of another's remarks. This is a double insult. First it cheats the other of the floor, secondly it shows that the new speaker wasn't listening to the other or brushes his topic off as uninteresting. The speaker is saying that he has trouble keeping the leaves off the lawn, when another pipes up with an observation, such as, "Say, have you noticed how car prices are coming down?" A person who often does that sort of thing is not ready for polite company. If you have ever done this, I trust it was the last time.

But if anyone ever interrupts you in this irrelevant manner; remember that you are talking not to please yourself but others. Whatever you do, do not allude to the interruption. Pretend not to have noticed it and glide with the others into the new topic. If the guilty one directly offers you an apology, and requests you to continue what you were saying, accept the apology gracefully and as unobtrusively as you possibly can, and do continue what you were saying. However, it is well to recognize in the interruption a hint that your theme was not of sufficient or general interest and therefore do shorten it gracefully, if possible concluding it with an opening for the topic which constituted the interruption.

After having trained yourself to listen spiritedly, not to interrupt irrelevantly or sulk at interruption, then your big aim must be to find something to say when no one else seems to want to carry on. Bacon wrote, "The honorablest part of talk is to give the occasion; and again to moderate and pass to somewhat else." Conversation is a good thing, and therefore it does not always come naturally. Anne Parrish writes somewhere, "The conversation fainted again, and again Mr. Lacey leapt forward with restoratives." Dean Swift, the writer who devoted the keenest analysis to the problem of talking, said,

It is not a fault in company to talk much; but to continue it long is certainly one; for, if the majority of those who are got together be naturally silent or cautious, the conversation will flag, unless it be often renewed by one among them, who can start new subjects, provided he does not dwell upon them, that leave room for answers and replies.

A really good conversationalist is the one who can renew the talk, "who can start new subjects." When a roomful of good conversationalists meet, the whole thing is so spontaneous that no one knows who started the subjects. But among most people who are mere acquaintances, not intimate daily companions, the one who can talk when no one does is the nugget in a bucket of stones. He can be, and deserves to be, the life of the party. But let him not try to be; let him merely try to get others to enjoy themselves. If that is his motive, his intuition is likely to hit upon those topics upon which others in the group can and would like to talk. The person who starts the talk for his own sparkling can be spotted in that he will pick on a pet interest of his in which no one there can share. However much the hostess and the others will have been grateful to the one who carried the conversational ball in that ' painful moment when no one else had anything to say, they will nevertheless soon be bored, and even resentful, if he does not soon manage to toss the ball into someone else's ready lap.

This is another way of saying that no one under any circumstances, unless he is perhaps an honored guest expected to give a sort of informal discourse, should talk long. I would say that you should make two minutes at a time your outer limit, unless specifically requested to tell a rather lengthy incident. Except in the latter circumstance, you should always talk in such a way as to give openings to others. Even in relating a lengthy request episode, you should manage enough of a pause from time to time for another to take up the thread of discourse. You might say, "I guess the same thing has happened to some of you" or "I wonder if any of you happen to know about this" or "Have any of you heard anything to support or deny this?"

One cannot stress too much that monopolizing the conversation is a fearful delinquency. It violates the precepts of charity and sociability. It is particularly intolerable in the featherhead, the chatterbox, the person who, though talking much, has really no special or valuable information. A person who with a little common sense can know that he is not especially qualified with information on any topic must resolutely hold his comments to a minimum. If he knows nothing of the topic, he ought to confine himself to questions, and to requests for better data or proofs.

On the other hand, if a person has special information on the topic, if it is his specialty, or if he has just read a book about it, or if he has just been there, then he may properly take more than his fractional share in the conversation. However, if it is his specialty then he must be cautious about two things: not to show impatience or register surprise at the ignorance of others; secondly, not to use such technical language or dwell on such minor points as cannot be within the common range of interest and knowledge of his hearers. If a miscellaneous group of people happen to get on the subject of poetry, verse, and free verse, a literature teacher might well become the dominant talker, but if he goes beyond such words as rhyme, meter, and figures of speech, into synecdoches and metonomies and catalexis, he will sound like a pedant trying to show off — and he will end by being a bore.

The determination to please others rather than one's self ought to give anyone the perception not to drag in subclassifications and details that cannot be of interest or value to nonspecialists. I still shudder at the mistake two of us made in Quebec, when we asked a certain man about the history and construction of the Quebec Bridge. We wanted a sort of bird's-eye view of the bridge. But our informant, who apparently had worked on the bridge, insisted on giving us a welder's blueprint of every brace. We could not get him off the topic of the bridge for two hours!

Much as I respect my colleagues in college teaching, I have long learned never in a general gathering to allow the topic of discussion to come within a stone's throw of anyone's doctoral dissertation. When a man has, for example, spent two years in burrowing through incunabula in tracing the phonological changes in Spanish of the Latin / in facere to the h in haber, one can sympathize with him if he yearns for a chance to throw his knowledge about a room for an hour. But the fact is that for even the average scholar the topic is merely worth an extensive footnote, not a whole appendix. Becoming technical or subclassificatory on one's specialty is akin to the matter of talking shop.

In both matters the rule must be that one must not talk one's specialty or one's shop unless the company is of the same shop or has the same specialty. A little thought as to what will please others, not one's self or one's clique, will make this self-evident.

A further obligation for a good conversationalist is promoting a variety of themes. Not only must he not talk too long at any one time, but, especially if he had a dominant part in it, he should also manage it so that no one topic will last too long. He should unobtrusively facilitate a sort of rotation of topics. This is, of course, the specific obligation of the host. But a good conversationalist is always the complement of the host. People often say almost with a feeling of guilt, "We talked about everything under the sun." The tinge of guilt comes from the Puritan tradition that anything which was fun must somehow have something wrong in it. The truth is that good conversation should glide along gracefully from topic to topic and sometimes back to the earlier ones.

This rotation of topic is not well done, however, if it is done formally, if someone says, "Now let's talk about something else for awhile" or "I think we have exhausted lawns, let's go on to gardens." This is never the mark of the best type of conversation. While if no one is really adept as a conversationalist, it may have to be done, very great care must obviously be taken so that the change will not seem to be a rebuke to the last speaker.

The best rotation is one that grows so naturally out of the stream of talk that the shift is not noticed until it is over. When it happens that way no matter how natural it seemed, it was probably guided that way by the hostess or a kindly, capable guest. In such an unobtrusive way, everyone has a right to guide the conversation. In the formal way, it is the prerogative of the host or hostess, and should only be ventured with much caution by anyone else. Semiformal shifts can be achieved by saying, "Your last remark, that jet planes of 1500 miles an hour are being blueprinted, happens to make me think that I haven't in a long time seen any of those advertising blimps that used to be so ubiquitous before the war. Have any of you seen them?" Thus the conversation can turn toward advertising, toward the probable business cycle, and so on. Naturally the person who would make such a remark before the previous topic about aeronautics has been fairly well threshed out commits a grievous offense against good talk. Changing a subject before everyone has had a chance to have his "say" on it is an irritating irrelevancy. A remark calculated to shift a topic is in place only when the general interest would suggest a need for a change. Then a good conversationalist will pave the way for a transition.

Only if people are gathered together specifically to discuss some particular topic should one definitely abstain from tactics for shifting the subject. Otherwise, even if a given topic still produces lively comment, it should be shifted. Every topic has its special proponents, who because of special interest will lead the talk about it. Were the same topic discussed all evening, the others in the group would never get a chance to do the leading. If enough topics pass in review, then in the course of the gathering everyone should have had the chance both to receive and to give out, to learn something new on one topic, and to tell others something new about another. Just as the stockmarket is a tussle between bulls and bears, so a good conversation ought to be a play between the followers and the leaders, the pitchers and the catchers, but the roles should change several times in an evening.

It is the essence of good conversation that all of those present be made to feel at home in it and a part of it. The good conversationalist somehow must feel at home himself, must manage to get some enjoyment out of it. At the same time he must make others feel an enjoyable part of it. As indicated before, a good conversationalist, once he is in a circle, makes up his mind to learn something from it and to contribute something to it. He listens constructively to what is being said, and if the theme is too uncongenial for him he will maneuver it to something which he and others can enjoy more.

The one mistake he will not make is to hang back, to show that he is uncomfortable, to act as if the topic were too deep or farfetched for him to enjoy. This is the unforgivable fault. And it is a fault of which well-meaning, rather bashful people, possibly newcomers to a crowd, are often guilty. The newer you are in a crowd, the more interest you must show in the talk. Often it will be about old times and friends unknown to you. Then it is all the more important that you pay the most interested attention, leaning forward, rather than hanging back, so that you will soon be initiated in the "secrets" of the set. You must show so much interest that the others will not be made to realize self-consciously that what they talked about might not have been interesting to you. Because the talk of a new set is often about unknown personalities, a shy or modest person almost feels as if he were eavesdropping on confidential matter. But once he is in the crowd, he must not feel that way, If it is a general conversation, he must have his eyes follow every speaker keenly.

Similarly when topics are discussed which are beyond your range, you must take particular pains not to hang back or look disinterested. Precisely then is it important for you to attend interestedly, to follow each speaker with your eyes, to learn what can be learned — and to watch for a cue to change the topic to something more congenial.

Once you are talking yourself, even though you got the floor because of someone's kindly question, you will make sure to take in the whole group with your eyes. This is an art which must be learned. A public speaker addressing a thousand must somehow manage continuously to sweep all of them with his eyes. A good talker in a parlor must continually catch the eyes of everyone who is supposed to be listening. Very many people fail to do this. Very often, owing perhaps to a subconscious nervousness, a talker keeps staring at the one who promoted the topic or who sits in the most prominent position or who appears to be most sympathetic. But no matter who raised the subject, or who is host, any remarks that go beyond two sentences must be carried not only to the ears but to the eyes of all present.

Everybody must be made to feel all the time that he is a full part of the party. How much or little you talk is of less importance than that you actively make everybody feel that you belong to the circle, and that you make everyone else feel that he belongs, too. This is good Christian neighborliness; it also brings its immediate reward. It will enhance your friendships, multiply your invitations, and cause people to remark on your interesting "personality."