us as the sincere talker, with his sympathy and his
willing utterances. Luther, who stands out as one of the giants of the
Renaissance, came into close human touch with his friends in talk; in
conversation with him they could always feel his fierce and steady
pulse.

Another element of successful conversation is good-humored tolerance,
the willingness to bear rubs unavoidably occasioned. The talker who
cavils at anything that is said stops conversation more than if he
answered only yes or no to all remarks addrest to him. Still another
element of good conversation is the right sort of gossip; gossip which
is contemporary and past history of people we know and of people we
don't know; gossip which is in no way a temptation to detract. Raillery
may also become a legitimate part of good conversation, if the ridicule
is like a good parody of good literature--in no way malignant or
commonplace. "Shop," if nicely adjusted to the conversational
conditions, may have its rightful share in interesting talk. Friends
often meet together just to talk things over, to get each other's point
of view, to hear each other tell of his own affairs, of his work and of
his progress. "Shop" talk was sometimes the essence of those famous
conversations of the seventeenth century coffee-house. Anecdotes are a
natural part of conversation, but they become the bane of talk unless
kept in strict restraint.

There are times when good conversation is momentary silence rather than
speech. It is only the haranguers who feel it their duty to break in
with idle and insincere chatter upon a pleasant and natural pause. A
part of the good fellowship of acceptable conversation is what one
might call "interest questions." "Interest questions" are just what the
words imply, and have about them no suspicion of the inquisitive and
impertinent catechizing which only fools, and not even knaves, indulge
in.

The negative phase of conversation may largely grow out of a discussion
of the positive. By discovering what conversation is, we find, in a
measure, what it is not. It is not monolog nor monopolizing; it is not
lecturing nor haranguing; it is not detracting gossip; it is not
ill-timed "shop" talk; it is not controversy nor debate; it is not
stringing anecdotes together; it is not inquisitive nor impertinent
questioning. There are still other things which conversation is not: It
is not cross-examining nor bullying; it is not over-emphatic, nor is it
too insis