1854-1857
- 53
socially to make of me a nonentity does not in the least trouble me, save that it leads to one's being esteemed a nuisance. It would be a grievous mistake to think that the tittle-tattle and twaddle of conversation in parlour and dining-room, in pulpit and in literature lacks value. Sparkling dialogue was found in the old salons of Paris before the Revolution, and in the clubs frequented by Addison and Johnson. Rarely now ; it is given in clever novels, but not in real life. In the atmosphere we breathe the percentage of nitrogen is great—this lethargic, vitally destitute gas stands in volume to oxygen, that breeds activity, life, vivacity, in the proportions of seventy-nine to twenty-one. The proportion is still more conspicuous in conversation : thoughts are sparse, words are many. There are causes which serve to flatten conversation to intercommunication of twaddle. One who has ideas gauges the capacities of those with whom he is engaged in converse, and if he detects in them an inability to receive any other seed except groundsel, he holds back his superior grain. In highly cultured society, among literary men, again, there exists reserve as to the communication of piquant witticisms, original thoughts, apt quotations, lest one or other of the hearers should snap them up and use them as original in some essay or article he is composing for the press. A friend of mine was walking with the noted " Hicks of Bodmin," a great humorist, and on the way told him some amusing incidents that had occurred to himself. Arrived together at their destination, the mansion of Earl St. Germans, at dinner, to my friend's astonishment, he heard Hicks retail every one of the stories he had told him, richly dressed up, as having occurred to himself, or to his own uncle. Such experiences breed caution, and caution checks openness in conversation. In the Lew valley, where it contracts and receives from the east the scanty waters of the Cory brook, stood, under the bank of the road, a large cottage, one story high. It was long used as changing-house to the manganese mine that there pierced the hill; and the basin of the valley went by the name of Gally-trap, because it was supposed that should any criminal liable to be hung for his crime venture there, he would not be able to escape till he was released by the constable. But this Gally-trap had
