Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! | Page 6

word to the girls, almost
slang,--though no, not quite that! Make the grocer feel you have an
interest in groceries; the seamstress an interest in sewing, as of course
you have; and the doctor an interest in sickness. In fact, make each one
with whom you come in contact realize that you care for him and what
he specially does. Just put yourselves into the places of others, and the
words will take care of themselves.
The intellect is not such a supreme factor in conversation as the points
of character I have so far named. Mr. Mathews, in his "Great
Conversers," writes, "The character has as much to do with the
colloquial power as has the intellect; the temperament, feelings, and
animal spirits even more, perhaps, than the mental gifts." I add this
remark from De Quincy: "More will be done for the benefit of
conversation by the simple magic of good manners (that is, chiefly by a
system of forbearance) applied to the besetting vices of social
intercourse than ever was or can be done by all varieties of intellectual

power assembled upon the same arena."
But there are certain things the mind must do in connection with the
disposition. Concentrating the thoughts is one of these things,--very
hard for young or old to acquire. Persons resort to very queer methods
to obtain it,--some scratch their heads, others rub their chins. I have
seen a public speaker try to wreak thoughts out of a watch-chain.
Another jerked at the rear pockets of his swallow-tailed coat to pick out
a thought there. You know the story Walter Scott tells about the head
boy? He always fumbled over a particular button when he recited; so,
one day, the button being furtively removed by Walter, the boy became
abstracted, and Scott passed above him. Madame De Stael, as she
talked, twisted a bit of paper, or rolled a leaf between her fingers.
(Some have attributed this to her vanity, as she had very beautiful
hands.) I believe friends came to note her necessity, and supplied her
with leaves. Well, do what you will that is harmless, if it but serve to
pin your attention right down to the matter before you.
The great conversers of literature are wrongly called so. Set topics do
not often lead to genuine conversation, and those who occupy the time
by delivering their ideas on given subjects are really lecturers. Johnson
as well as Coleridge talked right on while all the rest sat and listened.
Conversation that is real implies give and take. We do not talk to
illuminate the minds of others only, but to get their ideas also. And,
don't you see, we never quite know what our own thoughts are till we
come to try to make them clear to others? "Intercourse is, after all,
man's best teacher. 'Know thyself is an excellent maxim; but even self-
knowledge cannot be perfected in closets and cloisters." [Footnote:
Mathews.] Three or four expressing ideas on the same subject give one
a larger range of thoughts, make one more liberal and less obstinate.
If you care for a girl's opinion because it is just like yours, maybe it is
her sympathy you are after and not her opinion. An interchange of ideas
sometimes leads to discussion, and that is admirable for the growth of
mind, provided it does not degenerate into dispute.
It is not necessary that conversation should roll around a given point. I
think that is the most entertaining, restful, and real talk which is the
most roving. You may begin in Portland and end in San Francisco. You
may start talking about preserving peaches, and halt on the latest
sensation. It is often very amusing to trace the line of such converse: it

moves in a zigzag course, and terminates many miles out of the original
direction. By this discursiveness I do not mean gossip. Of course talk of
that kind has no good part in conversation: it is the slave of ignorance
and bad character. I might, however, differ from some as to what gossip
is,--whether there may not be certain kinds of talk miscalled gossip. I
am quite sure that criticising the misfortunes of others, and watching a
chance for dilating upon their lot, with your neighbors on the next
doorstep, would come under the head of worse than gossip. It might be
well to distinguish between gossip and scandal: the one is goodness
adulterated; the other is evil unmixed.
Good conversation is the mark of highest culture. That is why, in spite
of shabby dresses, unbanged hair, tremendous mouths, and large noses,
some persons are purely delightful. We have seen that this is so, yet
have not added that something lies in the voice as well as in the
manners and words