our own case.

As an illustration of the value of conversation in its more familiar
forms and its daily requirements, consider its service at meal-times.
General usage has determined that three times a day we shall assemble
with our families for the common purpose of appeasing the demands of
hunger and satisfying the fancies or whims of the palate. Moreover, to
many men these are the only times of the day when they can have the
opportunity to meet all the members of their family in free and
unrestrained intercourse. Now to make this occasion something more than
mere "feeding," and to elevate it to the dignity of rational
intercourse, conversation is indispensable. We must open our mouths for
something more than the reception of food. As a mere hygienic rule, I
wish that excellent old proverb could be circulated among our
countrymen,--"Chatted food is half digested." I would almost pledge
myself by this single rule to cure or prevent nearly half the cases of
dyspepsia. But for higher reasons chiefly I speak of it now. We ought to
insist that everything shall be favorable at meal-times to the truest
sociality. No clouded brows, no absent or preoccupied demeanor, should
be permitted at our tables. Whoever is not ready to do his part in
making it a cheerful hour should be made to feel that he does not belong
there. Better the merest nonsense, better anything that is not scandal
and detraction, than absolute and freezing silence then. I am sure that
the usages of all the most civilized and refined people will bear me out
in this,--that the only way to dignify our meals, and make them
something better than the indulgence of mere animal appetites, is to
intersperse them largely with social talk. There, if not elsewhere, we
look for the _soluta lingua_. There all reserve and embarrassment of
speech, we trust, will have vanished, and each will feel free to impart
to the rest his brightest and most joyous moods. Shall we ever realize
this ideal, as long as "bolting" usurps the place of eating?

And what, after all, constitutes the charm and the power of
conversation, and makes it so desirable an attainment? Not, certainly,
the amount of knowledge one can bring into play; for, as I have already
shown you, instruction is a secondary object of conversation; and it is
well known also that some of the most learned and best-informed men have
been very poor talkers. Indeed, the scholastic habits which learning
usually engenders are alm