COOD TALKING.

Waikato Times, Volume II, Issue 89, 23 November 1872, Page 3

COOD TALKING.

(G-I.obe.)* Raist Augustixh, we-arc t>ld, was once asked to define Time, but lie evaded the question by saying that it was What we all felt, but could none of us understand. It is pretty iiiiu-h the same with good talking ; we all know it when we hear it.; but nine-tenths of us would be very much puzzled j to point out what it was that plearsed us ifr the talker—what i'-if was th'at mnde'us-gt)'KTTfiy witlr the remark, ■'-That man knows how to talk." It cannot be learning, for learned men are not. commonly' happy talkers. Neither is it humour ; humorous people are us hdic-s prettily put it, very trying;- It is not satire ; for satirical people are ill-natured, and as there is nothing charming about ill-nature, there can be' nothing char tiling about ill-natured conversation. It is not the power of graphic description, for graphic description necessitates monologue, and everybo ly hates monologue. There is a popular idea that Coleridge'- \vas a great talker—meaning, of course, that lie was d'good talker (an in'sfaifce, by tho way, of the slipshod phraseology so common jnst now) ; a groat talker hir most, certainly • was, as many: knew to their cost. A good or.e he most decidedly was not. lie could soliloquize aud rhapsodize, and ramble on '• from lu'orn till dewy eve, a summer's day," in a rich, mellow voice, which few who have heard can ever forgot-.-, Periol after period he would roll out'—no doubt' brillia*nt, with boundless wealth of illustration, laden with an enormous mass of acquired knowledge fiiat Magliabechi himself might -have 'envied; but Coleridge could not talk. De Q.uincev was just the same! he could' keep his auditors up a whole night with that silvery voice of his, and if they had the patience and admiration—and, wo may add, the constitution of «; Bos well, they'might, iri'thoi.tt much harm, have preferred him to the sleep that would probably have done them more good than- his eloquent j but very slinky ideas of the Kantian philosphy. Then there was Macaulay, who talked, as Sydney Smith said, " like a book in breeches," and .Macintosh, wiio would go through all the merits and demerits of the schoolmen from- Abclard to Oceham—knock you down with a quotation from Thomas Aquinas, and pick you up again with another from " Summa Tecologire," and who had a mind like a magazine with shells Of knowledge of every description stewed awnt in their, proper compartments; all loaded arid'labelled, and ready to fire off at a moment's notice, with powers of conversation to match; and there was Diderot, "with the most encyclopaedic head ever known to be on liutEdn shoulders," who could talk down any savant in Paris, though endowed with A hundred mouths, a hundred tongues, And throats of brass, inspired with iron lungs. In thv lncre convivial walks of conversntionalisni we have Theodore Hook, with his sparkling puns aud marvellous anecdotes ; Lamb, with his quaint .jokes and endless fund of old English literatm-e ; and Brougham, who would give you in tlie same breath a parallel between Cicero and Demosthenes, a criticism between-the fourth canto of - " Childe Harold," mid a practical dissertation on sheep-shearing. But they had all the same defect—like Cowley's brook. : hewoukl " Flow, and as they flowed, for ever iPduH'iio-v or:'

but they knew no more of veal talking i Inn Mr QcLrcr knc ■.*■<, of Greek, or MrMartin Tupper of ; poetry. . , . Good talking is a very different thin;i from c??: : .i or rca'-lr' talking : it is the art of perpetually building on :h.- iv>nvcr» nation of your companion, of amnl living !iis i'iustrarion?, of carping his allusions, of honestly giving.him his nv-in pro quo, of evading none of his questions, of being, in fact, a constant and adequate comment on his remarks.where they are just and sensible, and a > ddlichtd. corrective where .they are erroneous; but, above all, of having the capacity to sunplv his deficiencies-by unobtrusively-suggesting-topics adapted to his tastes and abilities, of keeping, in fin?, the ball constantly going between you. Had Johnson known how to command his temper,.and been Jess bigoted aud intolerant : had'Edmurid Burke been'able to adapt .himself-to h's hearers, arid keep - his over-mastering" enthusiasm subservient to his common sense, tbev -would have been the most perfect conversationalists in Europe, with the- exception, perhaps, of Tallevrand. in his best moments, among the lffeneh; iftid .of Ulric~vou , Hut-ton, in his worst moments, among the Germans. " •-■"'■ .The. grand defect of-modem, conversation—and modern conversation is sometimes very good—is its utter lack of. anything like acquired knowledge. A few trite quotations, which, like Porsou's Shakspearian parallels to Euripides, have been greedily-received bV->liundi*d'' hungry wifs, one, j or two threadbare anecdotes, wliichj*"like the laid' Lord j Carlisle's pun on the leg of mutton, are lugged.in oh every I possible occasion, make up the capabilities of most minds for illustrating the innumerable topics of the clay. If people will not read and reflect, we can never expett-t<rhrar"good talking, but must continue to rest satisfied with the miserable platitudes, vague generalities,' and-blatant opinions thatldis-? grace two-thirds of modern "society, aucMrive to abstraction* the very few who been atpains to equip themselves with a more or less substaptialJstocK ofCTii&ipia-c tiou. We are encouraging every other form of mental culture, and j. giving-; prizes tfor every other; species of intellectualexercise ; it seems a great pity we cannot "devise some means of proposing and adjudging prizes fpr,good talking.. t . _~-...

Josh Billings says :—" The bat is a winged mouse. They live very retired during the day, but at nite they come for "a frolik. They fli very much uusartin, and aekt'as tho thcy they had then a leetle-too much gin. They look out ov their face like a young owl, and will bite like a snappiu turtle. What they arc good, for I kan't tell, and I don't believe they can.-t«tT-neither. They don't seem to be a bird, beast, or inseek. but a kind, of live hash made out of all three. ■If there warnt any bats in tho world I don't supposo the earth would' refuge tew revolve-on its axis, once in a while, just for fun-. «