Mince Pie

What Men Live By

What a delicate and rare and gracious art is the art of conversation!

With what a dexterity and skill the bubble of speech must be maneuvered

if mind is to meet and mingle with mind.

There is no sadder disappointment than to realize that a conversation

has been a complete failure. By which we mean that it has failed in

blending or isolating for contrast the ideas, opinions and surmises of

two eager minds. So often a conversation is shipwrecked by the very

eagerness of one member to contribute. There must be give and take,

parry and thrust, patience to hear and judgment to utter. How uneasy is

the qualm as one looks back on an hour's talk and sees that the

opportunity was wasted; the precious instant of intercourse gone

forever: the secrets of the heart still incommunicate! Perhaps we were

too anxious to hurry the moment, to enforce our own theory, to adduce

instance from our own experience. Perhaps we were not patient enough to

wait until our friend could express himself with ease and happiness.

Perhaps we squandered the dialogue in tangent topics, in a multitude of

irrelevances.

How few, how few are those gifted for real talk! There are fine merry

fellows, full of mirth and shrewdly minted observation, who will not

abide by one topic, who must always be lashing out upon some new byroad,

snatching at every bush they pass. They are too excitable, too

ungoverned for the joys of patient intercourse. Talk is so solemn a rite

it should be approached with prayer and must be conducted with nicety

and forbearance. What steadiness and sympathy are needed if the thread

of thought is to be unwound without tangles or snapping! What

forbearance, while each of the pair, after tentative gropings here and

yonder, feels his way toward truth as he sees it. So often two in talk

are like men standing back to back, each trying to describe to the other

what he sees and disputing because their visions do not tally. It takes

a little time for minds to turn face to face.

Very often conversations are better among three than between two, for

the reason that then one of the trio is always, unconsciously, acting as

umpire, interposing fair play, recalling wandering wits to the nub of

the argument, seeing that the aggressiveness of one does no foul to the

reticence of another. Talk in twos may, alas! fall into speaker and

listener: talk in threes rarely does so.

It is little realized how slowly, how painfully, we approach the

expression of truth. We are so variable, so anxious to be polite, and

alternately swayed by caution or anger. Our mind oscillates like a

pendulum: it takes some time for it to come to rest. And then, the

proper allowance and correction has to be made for our individual

vibrations that prevent accuracy. Even the compass needle doesn't point

the true north, but only the magnetic north. Similarly our minds at best

can but indicate magnetic truth, and are distorted by many things that

act as iron filings do on the compass. The necessity of holding one's

job: what an iron filing that is on the compass card of a man's brain!

We are all afraid of truth: we keep a battalion of our pet prejudices

and precautions ready to throw into the argument as shock troops,

rather than let our fortress of Truth be stormed. We have smoke bombs

and decoy ships and all manner of cunning colorizations by which we

conceal our innards from our friends, and even from ourselves. How we

fume and fidget, how we bustle and dodge rather than commit ourselves.

In days of hurry and complication, in the incessant pressure of human

problems that thrust our days behind us, does one never dream of a way

of life in which talk would be honored and exalted to its proper place

in the sun? What a zest there is in that intimate unreserved exchange of

thought, in the pursuit of the magical blue bird of joy and human

satisfaction that may be seen flitting distantly through the branches of

life. It was a sad thing for the world when it grew so busy that men had

no time to talk. There are such treasures of knowledge and compassion in

the minds of our friends, could we only have time to talk them out of

their shy quarries. If we had our way, we would set aside one day a week

for talking. In fact, we would reorganize the week altogether. We would

have one day for Worship (let each man devote it to worship of whatever

he holds dearest); one day for Work; one day for Play (probably

fishing); one day for Talking; one day for Reading, and one day for

Smoking and Thinking. That would leave one day for Resting, and

(incidentally) interviewing employers.

The best week of our life was one in which we did nothing but talk. We

spent it with a delightful gentleman who has a little bungalow on the

shore of a lake in Pike County. He had a great many books and cigars,

both of which are conversational stimulants. We used to lie out on the

edge of the lake, in our oldest trousers, and talk. We discussed ever so

many subjects; in all of them he knew immensely more than we did. We

built up a complete philosophy of indolence and good will, according to

Food and Sleep and Swimming their proper share of homage. We rose at 10

in the morning and began talking; we talked all day and until 3 o'clock

at night. Then we went to bed and regained strength and combativeness

for the coming day. Never was a week better spent. We committed no

crimes, planned no secret treaties, devised no annexations or

indemnities. We envied no one. We examined the entire world and found it

worth while. Meanwhile our wives, who were watching (perhaps with a

little quiet indignation) from the veranda, kept on asking us, "What on

earth do you talk about?"

Bless their hearts, men don't have to have anything to talk _about_.

They just talk.

And there is only one rule for being a good talker: learn how to listen.