If you can express yourself clearly, in clean-cut, terse language, if you have the persuasive tone which fascinates and holds, you will have a powerful weapon. If it is attended by a fine manner, a gracious personality, you will have a passport everywhere; you will not need an introduction to the great, they will all welcome you. It seems strange that young people neglect the very art of arts, the power of conversation. Who can estimate it? The charm of a fine diction, the advantage of the power to talk well! Isn't it strange that our schools and colleges teach almost everything except the ability to use one's own language with power, with facility, with conviction? What accomplishments can for a moment compare with the ability to converse well, with all the charm of a powerful and fascinating speaker?
Students learn Latin and Greek and higher mathematics and theories which they may never or seldom use, but that which is brought into constant exercise almost every minute of their lives they never learn as a fine art. The average person's conversation is but an accident. They have never made it a study. They have picked up their vocabulary on the street, in the car, in the store, everywhere. They have never made a scientific study of words, their roots, origin, the meanings, their synonyms.
What comparison is there between an accomplishment which we use occasionally and that which we use all the time and everywhere, as we do conversational power? People will spend years and years working themselves almost to death to master some phase of art or of science, or literature, and yet so utterly neglect their power of conversation that they are very stupid and dull in society. Isn't it humiliating to be conscious of being a giant in your vocation and a pigmy or a dummy in the parlor, a mere nobody in society, so that you do not dare to open your mouth because you do not feel that you are master of your conversation? Isn't it humiliating to be in company and be obliged to sit in silence because a man or woman with one-tenth of your ability monopolizes the conversation, simply because he or she has cultivated , the art which you have neglected?
Isn't it humiliating to sit dumb at a banquet to which you have been invited because of your reputation in some line of work? If called upon to speak you cannot express yourself as clearly and convincingly as a fifteen-year old boy ought to do. What matters it if you have discovered a new star, written a powerful book, invented a telephone, if you cannot say your soul is your own? It's a remarkable fact that men who have achieved great things in some special line do not dare to get up in an ordinary gathering to put a motion. They cannot preside at a public meeting for they have not the slightest idea of parliamentary rules. They would be frightened to hear their own voice in public; their limbs would tremble, and they would be all at sea, the mind confused like a child in its first attempt at declamation.
Isn't it humiliating, being conscious of knowing a great deal and not being able to express it? How clumsy the average man or woman is in conversation. They get snarled up in their sentences, twisted in their logic, and utterly confused when trying to put their thoughts clearly, to say nothing about elegant language.
Men may be a power in the office, but be mere children in social life. They have never learned to think on their feet; they could never hold the attention of an audience a minute; they are so dry, mechanical and uninteresting that nobody will listen to them. The merest tyro of a young boy or girl, gifted in talk, could take the attention of the company right away from them.
It does not matter what vocation you choose, if you cannot talk well, if you have not the gift of self-expression, if you cannot use language suited to the occasion, you will always be placed at a disadvantage.
Many people pass for a great deal more than they are because of their elegance of expression, their fine diction, — they can express themselves. They may have but one talent, but they make the most of it, they knew how to call out their mental reserves, and to use them to advantage.
How many people owe their advancement, their position, largely to their ability to talk well. Making a good appearance, a favorable first impression, is everything, and no one can do this so well as a good, charming talker. How many men in public life owe their success and popularity largely to their fine conversational powers. Many a man has lifted himself to Congress or into a governorship, or other high office, by his ability to talk well. Many a man has talked himself into a good position and a fine salary. Their ability alone would never have carried them there.
It is a great treat to converse with a man or woman who is master of this art. Their voices are like music in our ears, they have the power to charm, to soothe us, to satisfy, like a beautiful face or form. Many peoples' vocabularies are composed of all sorts of incongruities. They have never been taught the magic of choosing just the right shade of words — just the right meaning. A one-talent man who has learned to use his tongue, — has learned to fascinate, to interest, to succeed in holding attention. We know men and women who have developed this art to such an extent that wherever they go they command instant recognition. They are listened to in whatever company they appear; everybody else keeps silent, they cannot help listening.
Conversation is an art in which one may employ every bit of his skill and experience. You can tell how widely a man has travelled, whether he is a close or a slipshod observer; you can tell whether he is a systematic or a slovenly man. You can see what books he has read, and how he has read them, in his conversation. You can select his companions, you know his associates; you can tell where he has been, and what he has done. You can trace the trend of his thought, his habits of life, in what he says and how he says it. It is an art which embraces all others. No matter what your life has been, how much you know, where you have been, what you have done, you can find it all out in your conversation. It adheres to your word, it sticks to your compressed thought, they are all tell-tales of your life. Your conversation is a perfect panorama of your experiences. We know whether you are ignorant or learned, whether a giant or a pigmy, whether fine or coarse, sympathetic or selfish by what you say.
Conversational power every young person, who expects to accomplish anything in the world, should acquire; he should be able to command himself perfectly, to converse with ease and elegance in company. To be able to interest people is a great achievement in itself. It is worth everything to the youth who would achieve anything of note. This reputation will help him all through his life. How often when a man is wanted for an important position someone will say, "Let 's send Mr. Smith, or appoint him for this or that place. He will represent us with dignity because he knows what to say, he knows how to make a good impression, a good appearance."
Conversation is a great educator. A good conversationalist brings into play a great many qualities. He must exercise his tact. His judgment comes into play. Good sense can never be absent. The good conversationalist must be large-hearted, generous; if mean, if narrow, if prejudiced, all his bad qualities, as well as his good ones, come out in conversation. He must have a warm sympathy for his listeners. He must be interested in them, he must tactfully avoid their sore spots, or exposing their weaknesses. His power of analysis is in constant use. His creative ability must be exercised also. A good talker cannot be an imitator, a mere echo.
We advise young people to resolve at the very outset that, whatever else they do, they will cultivate the art of conversation at every opportunity. The ability to talk well is a tremendous power to a man who can command attention in any company.
It is pitiable to see how some able men and women stammer and wrestle with the English language, botching their sentences, mixing the parts of speech, dropping their adjectives and verbs as though they had never attempted to put a sentence together before.
It ought to be the ambition and pride of every young man and woman to handle language with facility and power, to express themselves vigorously, concisely, forcefully. The cultivation of a fine diction is an enviable acquirement.
Whatever other ambition you may have, resolve that you will become a specialist in conversational ability. You cannot practise law, medicine or any other profession, or attend to business, but you have a chance every day to bring into use your powers of speech, always and everywhere, and it is a shame with so many opportunities that you cannot become an adept. One of the best possible investments you can make is to spend time in studying the dictionary, tracing words, their roots, their origins, studying the thesaurus for synonyms and equivalent expressions, in order to give variety and breadth to your conversation, trying to broaden your vocabulary in every possible way, looking up every word which you come across that you do not know. This is an education in itself; it will mean very much to you. You cannot be a good converser with a narrow vocabulary or a limited experience. It takes breadth and largeness of view to be a conversationalist. The narrow, fault-finding, backbiting, criticising person, the sour pessimist, can never charm. The noble qualities must preside or the conversation will be lean and pinched.