The state of the weather is always an excusable exordium,
but it is convenient to have a paradox or heresy on the subject always
ready so as to direct the conversation into other channels. Really
domestic people are almost invariably bad talkers as their very virtues
in home life have dulled their interest in outer things. The very best
mothers will insist on chattering of their babies and prattling about
infant education. In fact, most women do not take sufficient interest in
politics, just as most men are deficient in general reading. Still,
anybody can be made to talk, except the very obstinate, and even a
commercial traveller may be drawn out and become quite interesting. As
for Society small talk, it is impossible, Mr. Mahaffy tells us, for any
sound theory of conversation to depreciate gossip, 'which is perhaps the
main factor in agreeable talk throughout Society.' The retailing of
small personal points about great people always gives pleasure, and if
one is not fortunate enough to be an Arctic traveller or an escaped
Nihilist, the best thing one can do is to relate some anecdote of 'Prince
Bismarck, or King Victor Emmanuel, or Mr. Gladstone.' In the case of
meeting a genius and a Duke at dinner, the good talker will try to raise
himself to the level of the former and to bring the latter down to his
own level. To succeed among one's social superiors one must have no
hesitation in contradicting them. Indeed, one should make bold
criticisms and introduce a bright and free tone into a Society whose
grandeur and extreme respectability make it, Mr. Mahaffy remarks, as
pathetically as inaccurately, 'perhaps somewhat dull.' The best
conversationalists are those whose ancestors have been bilingual, like
the French and Irish, but the art of conversation is really within the
reach of almost every one, except those who are morbidly truthful, or
whose high moral worth requires to be sustained by a permanent gravity of
demeanour and a general dulness of mind.

These are the broad principles contained in Mr. Mahaffy's clever little
book, and many of them will, no doubt, commend themselves to our readers.
The maxim, 'If you find the company dull, blame yourself,' seems to us
somewhat optimistic, and we have no sympathy at all with the professional
story-teller who is really a great bore at a dinner-table; but Mr.
Mahaffy is quite right in insisting that no bright social intercourse is
possible without equality, and it is no objection to his book to say that
it will not teach people how to talk cleverly. It is not logic that
makes men reasonable, nor the science of ethics that makes men good, but
it is always useful to analyse, to formularise and to investigate. The
only thing to be regretted in the volume is the arid and jejune character
of the style. If Mr. Mahaffy would only write as he talks, his book
would be much pleasanter reading.

The Principles of the Art of Conversation: A Social Essay. By J. P.
Mahaffy. (Macmillan and Co.)

EARLY CHRISTIAN ART IN IRELAND

(Pall Mall Gazette, December 17, 1887.