Jonathan Swift |
Jonathan Swift
(1667-1745)
Vol. 27, pp. 91-98 of
The Harvard Classics
To harp on one's
illnesses, giving all the symptoms and circumstances, has been a
blemish on conversation for ages. Two hundred years ago Swift
complained of persons who continually talked about themselves.
(Jonathan Swift born
Nov. 30, 1667.)
Hints
Towards an Essay on Conversation
I HAVE observed few
obvious subjects to have been so seldom, or, at least, so slightly
handled as this; and, indeed, I know few so difficult to be treated
as it ought, nor yet upon which there seemeth so much to be said.
Most things, pursued by men for the
happiness of public or private life, our wit or folly have so
refined, that they seldom subsist but in idea; a true friend, a good
marriage, a perfect form of government, with some others, require so
many ingredients, so good in their several kinds, and so much
niceness in mixing them, that for some thousands of years men have
despaired of reducing their schemes to perfection. But, in
conversation, it is, or might be otherwise; for here we are only to
avoid a multitude of errors, which, although a matter of some
difficulty, may be in every man’s power, for want of which it
remaineth as mere an idea as the other. Therefore it seemeth to me,
that the truest way to understand conversation, is to know the faults
and errors to which it is subject, and from thence every man to form
maxims to himself whereby it may be regulated, because it requireth
few talents to which most men are not born, or at least may not
acquire without any great genius or study. For nature hath left every
man a capacity of being agreeable, though not of shining in company;
and there are an hundred men sufficiently qualified for both, who, by
a very few faults, that they might correct in half an hour, are not
so much as tolerable.