I hope the next generation will not accept the
reports of "interviews" as specimens of the conversations of these
years of grace.
But do we talk as well as our fathers and mothers did? We hear
wonderful stories of the bright generation that sat about the wide
fireplaces of New England. Good talk has so much short-hand that it
cannot be reported,--the inflection, the change of voice, the shrug,
cannot be caught on paper. The best of it is when the subject
unexpectedly goes cross-lots, by a flash of short-cut, to a
conclusion so suddenly revealed that it has the effect of wit. It
needs the highest culture and the finest breeding to prevent the
conversation from running into mere persiflage on the one hand--its
common fate--or monologue on the other. Our conversation is largely
chaff. I am not sure but the former generation preached a good deal,
but it had great practice in fireside talk, and must have talked
well. There were narrators in those days who could charm a circle
all the evening long with stories. When each day brought
comparatively little new to read, there was leisure for talk, and the
rare book and the in-frequent magazine were thoroughly discussed.
Families now are swamped by the printed matter that comes daily upon
the center-table.
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