I suppose the same is the case, in a certain degree, all the world over.  But the truth about conversation is that, to make anything of it, people must realize it as a definite mental occupation, and not merely a dribbling into words of casual thoughts.  To do it well implies a certain deliberate intention, a certain unselfishness, a certain zest.  The difficulty is that it demands a catholicity of interests, a full mind.  Yet it does not do to have a subject on the brain, and to introduce it into all companies.  The pity is that conversation is not more recognized as a definite accomplishment.  People who care about the success of social gatherings are apt to invite an instrumentalist or a singer, or a man with what may be called parlour tricks; but few people are equally careful to plant out two or three conversationalists among their parties, or to take care that their conversationalists are provided with a sympathetic background.

For the fact remains that conversation is a real art, and depends like all other arts upon congenial circumstances and suitable surroundings.  People are too apt to believe that, because they have interests in their minds and can put those interests into words, they are equipped for the pretty and delicate game of talk.  But a rare admixture of qualities is needed, and a subtle conversational effect, a sudden fancy, that throws a charming or a bizarre light on a subject, a power of pleasing metaphorical expression, the communication of an imaginative interest to a familiar topic—­all these things are of the nature of instinctive art.  I have heard well-informed and sensible people talk of a subject in a way that made me feel that I desired never to hear it mentioned again; but I have heard, on the other hand, people talk of matters which I had believed to be worn threadbare by use, and yet communicate a rich colour, a fragrant sentiment to them, which made me feel that I had never thought adequately on the topic before.  One should be careful, I think, to express to such persons one’s appreciation and admiration of their gifts, for the art is so rare that we ought to welcome it when we find it; and, like all arts, it depends to a great extent for its sustenance on the avowed gratitude of those who enjoy it.  It is on these subtle half-toned glimpses of personality and difference that most of our happy impressions of life depend; and no one can afford wilfully to neglect sources of innocent joy, or to lose opportunities of pleasure through a stupid or brutal contempt for the slender resources out of which these gentle effects are produced.

VI

BEAUTY