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Certain Personal Matters - Of Conversation · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter five of Certain Personal Matters. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Certain
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  Speaker 1: Personal Matters by H. G. Wells of Conversation an apology.
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  Speaker 1: I must admit that in conversation I am not a
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  Speaker 1: brilliant success. Partly indeed, that may be owing to the
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  Speaker 1: assiduity with which my aunt suppressed my early essays in
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  Speaker 1: the art children She said should be seen but not heard,
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  Speaker 1: and incontinently rapped my knuckles to a larger degree. However,
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  Speaker 1: I regard it as intrinsic. This tendency to silence, to
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  Speaker 1: go out of the rattle and dazzle of the conversation
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  Speaker 1: into a quieter part, is largely I hold the consequence
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  Speaker 1: of a certain element and breadth and tenderness of mind.
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  Speaker 1: I am no blow fly to buzz my way through
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  Speaker 1: the universe, no rattle that I should be expected to
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  Speaker 1: delight my fellow creatures by the noises I produce. I
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  Speaker 1: go about to this social function and that deporting myself
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  Speaker 1: gravely and decently in silence, taking if possible, a back seat,
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  Speaker 1: and in consequence of that people who do not understand
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  Speaker 1: me have been heard to describe me as a stick,
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  Speaker 1: as shy, and by an abundance of the like unflattering terms,
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  Speaker 1: so that I am bound, almost in self justification, to
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  Speaker 1: set down my reasons for this temperance of mine in
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  Speaker 1: conversation speech, no doubt, is a valuable gift, but at
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  Speaker 1: the same time, it is a gift that may be abused.
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  Speaker 1: What is regarded as polite conversation is I hold such
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  Speaker 1: an abuse. Alcohol, opium, tea are all very excellent things
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  Speaker 1: in their way. But imagine continuous alcohol an incessant opium,
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  Speaker 1: or to receive ocean like a perennially flowing river of tea.
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  Speaker 1: That is my objection to this conversation. Its continuousness. You
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  Speaker 1: have to keep on. You find three or four people
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  Speaker 1: gathered together, and instead of being RESTful and recreative, sitting
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  Speaker 1: in comfortable attitudes and at peace with themselves and each other,
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  Speaker 1: and now and again, perhaps three or four times in
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  Speaker 1: an hour, making a worthy and memorable remark, they are
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  Speaker 1: all haggard and intent upon keeping this fetish flow agoing.
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  Speaker 1: A fortuitous score of cows in a field are a
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  Speaker 1: thousand times happier than a score of people deliberately assembled
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  Speaker 1: for the purposes of happiness. These conversationalists say the most
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  Speaker 1: shallow and needless of things in part aimless information, simulate interest,
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  Speaker 1: they do not feel, and generally impugne their claim to
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  Speaker 1: be considered reasonable creatures. Why when people assemble without hostile intentions,
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  Speaker 1: it should be so imperative to keep the trickling rill
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  Speaker 1: of talk running. I find it impossible to imagine. It
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  Speaker 1: is a vestige of the old barbaric times, when men
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  Speaker 1: murdered at sight for a mere whim, when it was
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  Speaker 1: good form to take off your sword in the ante
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  Speaker 1: chamber and give your friend your dagger hand to show
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  Speaker 1: him it was no business visit. Similarly, you keep up
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  Speaker 1: this babblement to show your mind has no sinister concentration,
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  Speaker 1: not necessarily because you have anything to say, but as
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  Speaker 1: a guarantee of good faith, you have to make a
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  Speaker 1: noise all the time, like the little boy who was
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  Speaker 1: left in the room with the plums. It is the
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  Speaker 1: only possible explanation to a logical mind. There is something
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  Speaker 1: very distressing in this social law of gabble. Out of
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  Speaker 1: regard for missus A. Let us say, I attend some
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  Speaker 1: festival she has inaugurated. There I meet for the first
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  Speaker 1: time a young person of pleasant exterior, and I am
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  Speaker 1: placed in her company to deliver her at a dinner table,
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  Speaker 1: or dance her about, or keep her from harm's way
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  Speaker 1: in a cozy nook. She has also never seen me before,
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  Speaker 1: and probably does not want particularly to see me now. However,
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  Speaker 1: I find her nice to look at, and she has
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  Speaker 1: taken great pains to make herself nice to look at.
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  Speaker 1: And why we cannot pass the evening I looking at
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  Speaker 1: her and she being looked at I cannot imagine. But no,
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  Speaker 1: we must talk now. Possibly there are topics she knows
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  Speaker 1: about and I do not. It's unlikely, but suppose so.
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  Speaker 1: On these topics she requires no information. Again, I know
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  Speaker 1: about other topics things unknown to her, and it seems
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  Speaker 1: a mean and priggish thing to broach these, since they
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  Speaker 1: put her at a disadvantage. Thirdly, comes a last group
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  Speaker 1: of subjects, upon which we are equally informed, and upon
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  Speaker 1: which therefore neither of us is justified in telling things
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  Speaker 1: to the other. This classification of topics seems to me exhaustive.
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  Speaker 1: These considerations, I think apply to all conversations in every conversation.
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  Speaker 1: Every departure must either be a presumption when you talk
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  Speaker 1: into your antagonist's special things, a pedantry when you fall
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  Speaker 1: back upon your own, or a platitude when you tell
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  Speaker 1: each other things you both know. I don't see any
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  Speaker 1: other line a conversation can take. The reason why one
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  Speaker 1: has to keep up the stream of talk is possibly,
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  Speaker 1: as I have already suggested, to manifest goodwill. And in
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  Speaker 1: so many cases this could be expressed so much better
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  Speaker 1: by a glance, by deferential carriage, possibly in some cases
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  Speaker 1: a gentle pressure of the hand, or a quiet, persistent smile.
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  Speaker 1: And suppose there is some loophole in my reasoning, though
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  Speaker 1: I cannot see it, and that possibly topics exist, how
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  Speaker 1: superficial and unexact is the best conversation to a second
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  Speaker 1: rate book. Even with two people you see the objection.
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  Speaker 1: But when three or four are gathered together, the case
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  Speaker 1: is infinitely worse. To a man of delicate perceptions, let
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  Speaker 1: us suppose I do not grant it that there is
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  Speaker 1: a possible sequence of things to say to person A
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  Speaker 1: that really harmonize with A in yourself, grant also that
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  Speaker 1: there is a similar sequence between yourself and B. Now
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  Speaker 1: imagining yourself and A and B at the corners of
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  Speaker 1: an equilateral triangle set down to talk to each other.
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  Speaker 1: The kind of talk that A appreciates is discourse with B,
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  Speaker 1: and similarly, B sequence is impossible in the hearing of A.
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  Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, a real conversation of three
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  Speaker 1: people is the most impossible thing in the world. In
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  Speaker 1: real life, one of the three always drops out and
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  Speaker 1: becomes a mere audience or a mere partisan. In real life,
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  Speaker 1: you and A talk, and B pretends to be taking
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  Speaker 1: a share by interjecting interruptions or one of the three
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  Speaker 1: talks in a monologue. And the more subtle your sympathy
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  Speaker 1: and the greater your restraint from self assertion, the more
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  Speaker 1: incredible triple and quadruple conversation becomes. I have observed that
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  Speaker 1: there is even nowadays a certain advance toward my views
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  Speaker 1: in this matter. Men may not pick out antagonists and
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  Speaker 1: argue to the general audience as once they did. There
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  Speaker 1: is a tacit taboo of controversy. Neither may you talk
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  Speaker 1: your shop or invite your intents pagonist to talk his
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  Speaker 1: There is also a growing feeling against extensive quotations or
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  Speaker 1: paraphrases from the newspapers. Again, personalities scandal are, at least
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  Speaker 1: in theory excluded. This narrows the scope down to the
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  Speaker 1: last new book, the last new play, Impressions de Voyage,
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  Speaker 1: and even here it is felt that any ironical or
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  Speaker 1: satirical remarks, anything unusual, in fact, may disconcert your adversary.
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  Speaker 1: You ask, have you read the Wheel of Chance? The
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  Speaker 1: answer is yes, do you like it? A little vulgar?
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  Speaker 1: I thought, and so forth. Most of this is stereo.
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  Speaker 1: It is akin to responses in church, a prescription, a formula.
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  Speaker 1: And following out this line of thought, I have had
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  Speaker 1: a vision of the twentieth century dinner. At a distance,
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  Speaker 1: it is very like the nineteenth century type, the same
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  Speaker 1: bright light, the same pleasant deglutician, the same hum of conversation.
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  Speaker 1: But approaching you discover each diner has a little drum
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  Speaker 1: shaped body under his chin, his phonograph, so he dines
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  Speaker 1: and babbles at his ease. In the smoking room he
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  Speaker 1: substitute his antidote record. I imagine too, the suburban hostess
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  Speaker 1: meeting the new maiden. I hope, dear, you have brought
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  Speaker 1: a lot of conversation, just as now she asks for
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  Speaker 1: the music for my own part I must confess. I
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  Speaker 1: find this dinner conversation particularly a bother. If I could
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  Speaker 1: eat with my eye, it would be different. I lose
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  Speaker 1: a lot of friends through this conversational difficulty. They think
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  Speaker 1: it is my dulness or my temper, when really it
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  Speaker 1: is only my refined mind, my subtlety of consideration. It
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  Speaker 1: seems to me that when I go to see a man,
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  Speaker 1: I go to see him to enjoy his presence. If
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  Speaker 1: he is my friend, the sight of him healthy and
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  Speaker 1: happy is enough for me. I don't want him to
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  Speaker 1: keep his vocal cords, and I don't want to keep
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  Speaker 1: my own vocal cords in incessant vibration all the time
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  Speaker 1: I am in his company. If I go to see
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  Speaker 1: a man, it distracts me to have to talk, and
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  Speaker 1: it distracts me to hear him talking. I can't imagine
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  Speaker 1: why one should not go and sit about in people's
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  Speaker 1: rooms without bothering them, and without their bothering you to
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  Speaker 1: say all these stereotyped things. Quietly, go in, sit down,
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  Speaker 1: look at your man until you've seen him enough, and
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  Speaker 1: then go. Why not Let me once more insist that
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  Speaker 1: this keeping up a conversation is a sign of insecurity
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  Speaker 1: of want of confidence. All those who have had real
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  Speaker 1: friends know that when the friendship is assured the gabble ceases.
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  Speaker 1: You are not at the heart of your friend if
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  Speaker 1: either of you cannot go off comfortably to sleep in
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  Speaker 1: the other's presence. Speech was given us to make known
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  Speaker 1: our needs and for imprecation, expostulation, and entreaty. This pitiful
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  Speaker 1: necessity we are under, upon social occasions to say something. However,
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  Speaker 1: inconsequent is I am assured the very degradation of speech
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  Speaker 1: and of of conversation. Recording by Scotty