who usually set
sail on some highly abstract paradox, such as "Civilization is a nervous
disease," and landed in a tale of adventure in Mexico or the Rocky
Mountains. Or you may follow the example of Edward Eggleston, who
started in at the middle and worked out at either end, and sometimes at
both. It makes no difference. If the thing is in you at all, you will
find good matter for talk anywhere along the route. Hear what Montaigne
says again: "In our discourse all subjects are alike to me; let there
be neither weight nor depth, 't is all one; there is yet grace and
pertinence; all there is tented with a mature and constant judgment, and
mixed with goodness, freedom, gayety, and friendship."

How close to the mark the old essayist sends his arrow! He is right
about the essential qualities of good talk. They are not merely
intellectual. They are moral. Goodness of heart, freedom of spirit,
gayety of temper, and friendliness of disposition,--these are four fine
things, and doubtless as acceptable to God as they are agreeable to men.
The talkability which springs out of these qualities has its roots in a
good soil. On such a plant one need not look for the poison berries of
malign discourse, nor for the Dead Sea apples of frivolous mockery.
But fair fruit will be there, pleasant to the sight and good for food,
brought forth abundantly according to the season.

III. VARIATIONS--ON A PLEASANT PHRASE FROM MONTAIGNE

Montaigne has given as our text, "Goodness, freedom, gayety, and
friendship,"--these are the conditions which produce talkability. And
on this fourfold theme we may embroider a few variations, by way of
exposition and enlargement.

GOODNESS is the first thing and the most needful. An ugly, envious,
irritable disposition is not fitted for talk. The occasions for offence
are too numerous, and the way into strife is too short and easy. A
touch of good-natured combativeness, a fondness for brisk argument, a
readiness to try a friendly bout with any comer, on any ground, is a
decided advantage in a talker. It breaks up the offensive monotony of
polite concurrence, and makes things lively. But quarrelsomeness is
quite another affair, and very fatal.

I am always a little uneasy in a discourse with the Reverend Bellicosus
Macduff. It is like playing golf on links liable to earthquakes. One
never knows when the landscape will be thrown into convulsions. Macduff
has a tendency to regard a difference of opinion