| | | | | THE present system of bringing different classes into friendly | relations with each other through the medium of gratuitous | instruction has, among its many excellent points, one which | we regard as questionable. It cultivates fluency of speech and | furnishes a school for ready utterance. The young member, | the young squire, the young master, is encouraged to address | his inferiors on matters that will inform and interest them, but | on the understanding that he is to be superficial ~~ that he | must not bring his mind to bear on the subject lest he should | become deep and recondite, and so talk over the heads of his | simple, ignorant hearers. His aim must be to say the | commonplaces of his theme with facility, which is supposed | to be the only gift such people can understand. All this our | young orator is very willing to do. Whether aware of it or not, | it is quite easy to him not to be deep, all he knows of his | subject being its commonplaces; but, thus instructed, he has | no fear of being shallow, and even where consciously most | | weak, he believes he is only adapting himself to his hearers. | So, strong in his condescension, he gets along, to his own | wonder and his friends' admiration, in a little flood of | verbiage. It is, indeed, astonishing what a volubility, what a | grand stream of words obedient to grammatical rules, a man | can attain to if he only have sufficient contempt for his | audience; and what gratification he derives from the exercise | of this power of empty fluency and strictly verbal readiness. | If he had respected his hearers, if he had been solicitous to | give them the flower of his thoughts, and to put these into | words which should recommend them to discriminating | minds, if he had aimed at rigorous accuracy, feeling that there | were listeners who could detect a fallacy and miss a link in | the argument, he would probably have gone home humble | and dissatisfied, with a sense of failure, conscious of many a | pause and stumble and awkwardness of expression. But now | he is complacent, and ready to begin again; for, after all, it is | how we have said our say, rather than the force and merit of | what we have said, which impresses us. It is how he has | acquitted himself, what figure he has made, which dwells on | the speaker's mind, and encourages or depresses him. And | facility, of all things, gives this confidence. | | There are, we suppose, many listeners who take the same | view of facility, who are satisfied with it as a thing in itself, | and believe it to be power and rhetoric, and an evidence of an | absolute command of a subject. The least discriminating of | any crowd will clap him | | most who says most words in a breath, if those words are said | with sufficient confidence; but the admiration is by no means | universal. Indeed, we suspect that, to a good many, fluency is | irritating; so that, whenever we hear a man's rapid flow of | words much talked of, we may be pretty sure, whether the | commender know it or not, that he has felt it to be a bore. It is | all very well to be carried away occasionally by a torrent of | eloquence on some subject on which we feel that, but for | some natural hindrances, we could be eloquent too; but even | where thought and speech run together, as they do in the true | orator, it is fatiguing to have to follow at a pace which is not | our natural rate of thinking; and all we hear of hanging on the | lips of speakers of this rushing, impetuous sort, means less | than it says. Those who literally follow the processes of | another mind have a task, whether a pleasant one or not; most | persons are content with conclusions, and with any rapid, | agreeable arrangement of words by which conclusions are | arrived at. | | It is amusing to hear how thinkers by profession often regard | this volubility, which takes simpler people as so fine a thing. | When Madame de Stael visited Germany, the great minds | there shuddered at the mere approach of this impersonation | of "French volubility." Her inconceivable facility, her | capacity of talking with freedom and fluency on every | subject, simply annoyed and disgusted Goethe, who hated | being put out of his way; and the more amiable Schiller, who | pronounces her | | while he owns her to be the most | cultivated and intellectual of women, yet groans over the | in her | company, and attributes the interruption of her presence to | the reverse of divine influence. He was worried by the | disturbance to his own trains of thought by her self-absorbed | eloquence; while it is instructive to observe how the opposite | circumstance on his side ~~ his necessary shortcomings in | the conversational duet ~~ won and propitiated her. He spoke | French badly; and when she perceived so many fine ideas | struggling through oral difficulties, when she found him so | modest and careless of personal success in his advocacy of | his own views, she | And is | not this quite natural? His self-love had been wounded by the | fearless readiness of her tongue; her tenderness had been | roused by hesitations and failures which might be taken as a | sort of homage to her own surpassing powers. There are, no | doubt, times when a man may be as fluent as he likes, when | the opportunity is his own, and he has prepared for it ~~ as a | statesman on some great occasion, a lawyer who must seem | to have impregnated his mind with his cause, and, perhaps | especially, a preacher; though even here we feel that a | momentary pause, an instant devoted to a choice of words, is | a very becoming act of deference to an intelligent audience. | But fluency, where we stand on equal terms with the speaker, | has often some tinge of positive offence in it. He evidently | thinks we can be amused | | and occupied at too easy a rate; and in the case we | contemplated at starting ~~ the young orator condescending | to his audience ~~ this state of things is soon reached. We | should have liked him better if he had betrayed some timidity | in our presence. We should have felt the thing less cut and | dried if the ideas had had to struggle into fit words. We | should not have been so utterly hopeless of his success in the | field he was entering upon if he had seemed to realise its | difficulties. | | There is, however, a social side of the question, which is | perhaps its more important one. Public fluency may have its | drawbacks, and may go for very little; but, at any rate, it | saves those who have to listen to such efforts the pain that | comes with the opposite, and more dreaded, and more | common defect ~~ an utter want of words. It is a sort of | fluency familiar in private life which is most to be | deprecated, a facility of speech which has grown out of | certain causes, such as want of taste, ignorance of the | meaning and force of words, and a habit of thinking in | phrases, and talking for talking's sake. This is a habit | encouraged and fostered by that want of respect for the | listener which lies at the bottom, we verily believe, of all | irritating forms of volubility, the notion that something less | than our best will do well enough for the person we are | talking to, and, more than that, will amuse and gratify him. | People with hobbies are always fluent, and we may say | always wearisome; but they do not come under the present | head, because their volubility is undesigned and spontaneous, | and arises out of enthusiasm for their subject. | | They sin through egotism and defective sympathy, but not by | condescension or disrespect. The quality we mean is acquired | by practice, and is highly valued by its possessors, but is | always based on some fallacy or insincerity. Either the | speaker assumes to know more than he does, or to be more in | earnest than he is; and the offence lies in the assumption that | he can amuse without being amused, and can hold our | attention while his own is preoccupied. It takes the whole | mind to do anything well, but this fluency is effected by | machinery and not by hand, and is, in fact, the knack of rapid | talking and slow thinking. | | So much talking with no heart in it has necessarily to he done | that it may seem hard to be critical. Indeed, the cases that | most readily occur of this volubility are in persons of great | apparent kindness and good-nature, who perhaps, through a | concurrence of circumstances, added to a naturally defective | discernment, have fallen into it. Yet not the less is there a | sense of condescension at bottom, which, if they could have | suppressed it, would have saved them from a snare. The most | excusable, and yet least excused, sort of volubility is to be | found in women whose lot it has been to feel themselves the | lively and invigorating spirit of their own small circle. Many | a daughter, for instance, has learnt to be garrulous, while she | prided herself on her fluency, in her efforts to amuse her old | parents. It seems cruel to pick holes in virtue like this, but the | fact remains that she has acquired a terrible, rolling, flowing, | amplified vocabulary, and that she is impressed with the | | notion that this ready tongue amuses and interests. And | whence comes this but from the lifelong mistake that the | elders on whom she lavished her efforts were really | entertained by talk spoken, not because it was worth | speaking, or because it expressed her mind and heart, but | because she conceived it to be adapted to failing powers and | the dull monotony of a secluded life? Yet all the while, no | doubt, the old folks had constantly felt weary of the tongue | that never ceased, and had kept quite unimpaired their ideas | of what was really entertaining and worth saying and hearing. | Trifles swelled into an unnatural importance, with all their | details, are only amusing if the narrative occupies the | narrator, and develops what is in him. It is impossible really | to impart pleasure through conversation without sharing it; | but the people we mean do not see this. There is the notion of | conferring kindness, of dispensing a sort of intellectual alms | out of the store of their indisputable superiority, which keeps | them above the level of their hearers, and tends to make their | conversation continuous, easy, unembarrassed, and rapid | beyond any other system of talk under the sun. Invalids as | well as old people must be very liable to the infliction of this | patronage. We ought to be lenient to any form of testiness in | them when we are conscious of having been talking in a | groove, our thoughts not keeping pace with our words; for we | should remember that anyone who sits down expecting to | entertain, without the further effort of rousing his powers to | sympathy, is engaged in an act of presumption. | | | But this facility grows out of less amiable forms of self- | conceit. The superiority of health over sickness, of spirits | over depression, of vigour over decay, is patent and | incontestable even to the suffering side; but there are people | who are actuated in all they do and say, and in their way of | doing it, by this same notion of conferring something, of | being the obliging party, who practically forget that human | beings stand in mutual relations. Education, if it does not | immediately infuse these ideas, fosters them on the one hand, | as it moderates them on the other. Thus a public school | training violently opposes any such inborn tendency, while | certain private crotchety systems as actively develop it. All | plans that put into children's heads the notion that it is their | part to instruct or to patronise their elders, lay the foundations | of a mechanical facility of speech, so that many would say | that private education makes the best talkers. Young people | who live at home, who perhaps are secluded from the | amusements of their own age, and consequently from its | society, are often indemnified for the privation by a notion | carefully instilled into them of their usefulness. If they may | not be amused after the careless fashion of their fellows, they | can, at any rate, lay themselves out to amuse, and study to | devote their talents to the service of others. This sounds | excellent, but neither a good manner nor a good style is | formed by it, because it is not the natural order of things. | Young people ought to do one another good, and they ought | to expect to get good from their betters, of whom they are the | unconscious cheerers. But as | | soon as it formally enters into the mind of boy or girl to | entertain their elders by their conversation, and to cultivate | topics with this view ~~ as soon as they set themselves to talk | as a sort of practice, collecting things to say, and storing them | in their memory, not because they naturally interest them, but | because they esteem them the sort of things for Mr and Mrs | So-and-so ~~ they are laying the foundation of a facile, | monotonous, inexpressive diction, which will haunt them | through life. It will get them many a compliment, no doubt, | and many a pretty speech of thanks, but will act as an | insuperable impediment to all natural, free, enjoyable, and | really profitable interchange of thought. A seed of conceit | and self-estimation is sown which, because it is never | recognised as a fault, or, rather, has all along been classed | among the virtues, is scarcely likely to be eradicated. As we | review all the fluent, complacent, mechanical utterances | within our experience, certainly a sense of superiority, a | mission to teach, to amuse, to do everybody good, or | pleasure, lies at the bottom of them all. We find no | recognition of mutual profit and service. | | There is a volubility which is free from this charge. Children | chatter, and some women chatter upon occasion; nay, men | will now and then bubble over with words, and we like them | all the better for it. It is an effervescence of the spirits, and if | only the brain, by ever so trivial an exercise of its functions, | has gone along with the tongue, the performance may be not | only endurable, but delightful and exhilarating. But, | | if delightful, it is so because it is spontaneous, | and indulged in for the speaker's own pleasure and | need of sympathy, his hearer's benefit being the very | last thing thought of. Alas both for those that speak | and us that hear, if they ever come to value | themselves upon this charming vivacity, and keep it | up deliberately for our entertainment after their own | is spent! But it may be said that we often have to | talk for mere talking's sake, which is very true; and | what philosophers have advised about never opening | our mouths unless we have something to say is | impracticable nonsense; but in this case we ought to | take the necessity quietly, and as a condition of | which each party is fully aware. The people we | mean throw themselves into the situation with a | spurious, unnatural relish, and use it as a sort of | practice-ground for their powers. A half-hour of | quiet dulness with a neighbour leaves us where it | found us; but when one of the two throws himself | with a false enthusiasm into the gap, and gets up a | flow about nothing ~~ the words being always half a | sentence, if not a whole one, ahead of the ideas, | while still the sentences are neat and complete in | their structure, and not a pin's point to be got in | between them ~~ we come away with a sense of | loss, and with a respect for the old science of | humming and ha-ing which puts us out of humour | with eloquence, ~~ as though we had been shown | the wrong side of it, ~~ until our nerves and our | memory have forgotten the infliction.