emical squabbles, but
not for polite discussion. Those raucous persons who, when their
opponents attempt to speak, cry out against it as a monstrous
unfairness, are very well adapted to association with Kilkenny cats, but
not with human beings. It is in order to vanquish by this means one who
might otherwise outmatch them entirely that they thus seek to reduce
their opponent to a mere interjection. "A man of culture," says Mr.
Robert Waters, "is not intolerant of opposition. He frankly states his
views on any given subject, without hesitating to say wherein he is
ignorant or doubtful, and he is ready for correction and enlightenment
wherever he finds it." Such a man never presses his hearers to accept
his views; he not only tolerates but considers opposed opinions and
listens attentively and respectfully to them. Hazlitt said of the
charming discussion of Northcote, the painter: "He lends an ear to an
observation as if you had brought him a piece of news, and enters into
it with as much avidity and earnestness as if it interested only himself
personally."

Of all the tenets of good conversation to which the French give heed,
their devotion to listening is the most notable. From this judiciously
receptive attitude springs their uninterrupting shrug of assent or
disapproval. But listening is only one of their many established
conversational dicta: "The conversation of Parisians is neither
dissertation nor epigram; they have pleasantry without buffoonery; they
associate with skill, with genius, and with reason, maxims and flashes
of wit, sharp satire, and severe ethics. They run through all subjects
that each may have something to say; they exhaust no subject for fear of
tiring their hearer; they propose their themes casually and they treat
them rapidly; each succeeding subject grows naturally out of the
preceding one; each talker delivers his opinion and supports it briefly;
no one attacks with undue heat the supposition of another, nor defends
obstinately his own; they examine in order to enlighten, and stop before
the discussion becomes a dispute." Such was Rousseau's description of
Parisian conversation; and some one else has declared that the French
are the only nation in the world who understand a _salon_ whether in
upholstery or talk. "Every Britisher," said Novalis more than a hundred
years ago, "is an island"; and Heine once defined silence as "a
conversation with Englishmen." We Americans, tho not so reserved in