--_Mathews._
* * * * *
The fault of literary conversation in general is its too great
tenaciousness. It fastens upon a subject, and will not let it go. It
resembles a battle rather than a skirmish, and makes a toil of a
pleasure. Perhaps it does this from necessity, from a consciousness of
wanting the more familiar graces, the power to sport and trifle, to
touch lightly and adorn agreeably, every view or turn of a question _en
passant_, as it arises. Those who have a reputation to lose are too
ambitious of shining, to please. "To excel in conversation," said an
ingenious man, "one must not be always striving to say good things: to
say one good thing, one must say many bad, and more indifferent ones."
This desire to shine without the means at hand, often makes men
silent:--
The fear of being silent strikes us dumb.
A writer who has been accustomed to take a connected view of a
difficult question and to work it out gradually in all its bearings, may
be very deficient in that quickness and ease which men of the world, who
are in the habit of hearing a variety of opinions, who pick up an
observation on one subject, and another on another, and who care about
none any further than the passing away of an idle hour, usually acquire.
An author has studied a particular point--he has read, he has inquired,
he has thought a great deal upon it: he is not contented to take it up
casually in common with others, to throw out a hint, to propose an
objection: he will either remain silent, uneasy, and dissatisfied, or he
will begin at the beginning, and go through with it to the end.
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