Of what use all the delicately tinted tapestry threads in the world, spread out before a tapestry-worker, if he does not possess the ability to weave them into faultless designs, employing his colors sparingly here, and lavishly there?
"One's tongue and pen should be in absolute command, whether for silence or attack," says Stevenson again; and, more than on any quality of force, business success depends upon that same nicety in the use of words which selects the tactful expression, the modest and simple phrase, in the drawing-room; the sort of nicety which is unobtrusive exactness and delicacy; an artistry which in no way labels itself skilful. But underneath all, the woof of the process is social skill--that skill which is the ability to go back to unadorned first principles with the dexterity of one who has acquired the power to do the simple thing perfectly by having mastered the entire gamut of the complex.
[Footnote B: Even Stevenson acknowledged secrecy in his earlier climbings.]
_Conversation Is Reciprocal--Good Conversationalists Cannot Talk to the Best Advantage without Confederates--As in Whist, It Is the Combination Which Effects What a Single Whist-playing Genius Cannot Accomplish--Good Conversation Does not Mark a Distinction among Subjects; It Denotes a Difference in Talkability--The Different Degrees of Talkability--Imperturbable Glibness Impedes Good Conversation--Ease with Which One May Improve One's Conversational Powers._
Good conversation, then, is like a well-played game of whist. Each has to give and take; each has to deal regularly round to all the players; to signal and respond to signals; to follow suit or to trump with pleasantry or jest. And neither you yourself, nor any other of the players, can win the game if even one refuses to be guided by its rules. It is the combination which effects what a single whist-playing genius could not accomplish. Good conversation, therefore, consists no more in the thing communicated than in the manner of communicating; no more than good whist consists entirely in playing the cards without recognizing even one of the rules of the game. One cannot talk well about either cabbages or kings with one whose attention wanders; with one who delivers a sustained soliloquy, or lecture, and calls it conversation; with one who refuses to enter into amicable discussion; or, when in, does nothing but contradict flatly; with one who makes abrupt transitions of thought every time he opens his mouth; with one, in short, who has never attempted to discover even a few of the thousand and one essential hindrances and aids to conversation. As David could not walk as well when sheathed in Saul's armor, so even nimble minds cannot do themselves justice when surrounded by people whose every utterance is demoralizing to any orderly and stimulating exchange of ideas.