t.

Most of us are bunglers in our conversation, because we do not make an
art of it; we do not take the trouble or pains to learn to talk well.
We do not read enough or think enough. Most of us express ourselves in
sloppy, slipshod English, because it is so much easier to do so than it
is to think before we speak, to make an effort to express ourselves
with elegance, ease, and power.

Poor conversers excuse themselves for not trying to improve by saying
that "good talkers are born, not made." We might as well say that good
lawyers, good physicians, or good merchants are born, not made. None
of them would ever get very far without hard work. This is the price
of all achievement that is of value.

Many a man owes his advancement very largely to his ability to converse
well. The ability to interest people in your conversation, to hold
them, is a great power. The man who has a bungling expression, who
knows a thing, but never can put it in logical, interesting, or
commanding language, is always placed at a great disadvantage.

I know a business man who has cultivated the art of conversation to
such an extent that it is a great treat to listen to him. His language
flows with such liquid, limpid beauty, his words are chosen with such
exquisite delicacy, taste, and accuracy, there is such a refinement in
his diction that he charms everyone who hears him speak. All his life
he has been a reader of the finest prose and poetry, and has cultivated
conversation as a fine art.

You may think you are poor and have no chance in life. You may be
situated so that others are dependent upon you, and you may not be able
to go to school or college, or to study music or art, as you long to;
you may be tied down to an iron environment; you may be tortured with
an unsatisfied, disappointed ambition; and yet you can become an
interesting talker, because in every sentence you utter you can
practise the best form of expression. Every book you read, every
person with whom you converse, who uses good English, can help you.

Few people think very much about how they are going to express
themselves. They use the first words that come to them. They do not
think of forming a sentence so that it will have beauty, brevity,
transparency, power. The words flow from their lips helter-skelter,
with little thought of arrangement or order.

Now and then we meet a real artist in conversation, and it is such a
treat and delight that we wond