That is not the profit. The
profit is in the exercise, and above all in the experience;
for when we reason at large on any subject, we review our
state and history in life. From time to time, however, and
specially, I think, in talking art, talk becomes effective,
conquering like war, widening the boundaries of knowledge
like an exploration.
*
Natural talk, like ploughing, should turn up a large
surface of life, rather than dig mines into geological
strata. Masses of experience, anecdote, incident,
cross-lights, quotation, historical instances, the whole
flotsam and jetsam of two minds forced in and in upon the
matter in hand from every point of the compass, and from
every degree of mental elevation and abasement--these are
the material with which talk is fortified, the food on which
the talkers thrive. Such argument as is proper to the exercise
should still be brief and seizing. Talk should proceed by
instances; by the apposite, not the expository. It should
keep close along the lines of humanity, near the bosoms and
businesses of men, at the level where history, fiction, and
experience intersect and illuminate each other.
*
There can be no fairer ambition than to excel in talk; to
be affable, gay, ready, clear and welcome; to have a fact,
a thought, or an illustration, pat to every subject; and
not only to cheer the flight of time among our intimates,
but bear our part in that great international congress,
always sitting, where public wrongs are first declared,
public errors first corrected, and the course of public
opinion shaped, day by day, a little nearer to the right.
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