IN A CLUB CORNER TION. IN Dean Swift's Hints towards CONVERSAan Essay on Conversation, he sets out by saying that he had observed few obvious subjects to have been so seldom, or at least so slightly, handled as this, and that few were so difficult to treat. Conversation is an art, says Emerson, in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which all are practicing every day while they live. Metternich is re- Metternich's ported to have said, "In my whole life I have only known ten or twelve persons with whom it is pleasant to speak - that is, who keep to the subject, do not repeat themselves, and do not talk of themselves; men who do not listen to their own voices, who are cultivated not to lose themselves in commonplaces; and lastly, who possess tact and good sense enough not to elevate their own persons above their subjects. Steele said, "It is a secret known but to experience. The first thing to consider. few, yet of no small use in the conduct of life, that when you fall into a man's conversation, the first thing that you should consider is, whether he has a greater inclination to hear you, or that you should hear him." "To please," observed Chamfort, "one must make up his mind to be taught many things which he already knows, by people who do not know them." "The reason why few persons are agreeable in conversation," thought La Rochefoucauld, "is because each thinks more of what he intends to say than of what others are saying, and seldom listens but when he desires to speak." La Bruyère was of opinion that "the art of conversation consists much less in your own abundance than in enabling others to find talk for themselves. Men do not wish to admire In what the you; they want to please. The wit of conversation consists more in finding it in others than in showing a great deal yourself; he who goes from your conversation. pleased with himself and his own wit is perfectly well pleased with you.” wit of conversation mainly consists. The question was once put to Aristotle, how we ought to behave to our friends, and the answer he gave was, "As we should wish our friends to behave to us." The |