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Henry Fielding (1707-1754). The Art of Conversation. David J. Brewer, et al., eds. 1900. The World's Best Essays

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Henry Fielding (1707-1754). The Art of Conversation. David J. Brewer, et al., eds. 1900. The World's Best Essays Dictionary Biographies Literary Criticism Welcome Terms of Service ⧏ Previous Next ⧐ Contents Bibliographic Record David J. Brewer, et al., eds.  The World’s Best Essays.  1900. The Art of Conversation
By Henry Fielding (1707–1754) From the essay on “Conversation.”

AS conversation is a branch of society, it follows that it can be proper to none who is not in his nature social. Now, society is agreeable to no creatures who are not inoffensive to each other; and we therefore observe in animals who are entirely guided by nature that it is cultivated by such only, while those of more noxious disposition addict themselves to solitude, and, unless when prompted by lust, or that necessary instinct implanted in them by nature for the nurture of their young, shun as much as possible the society of their own species. If, therefore, there should be found some human individuals of so savage a habit, it would seem they were not adapted to society, and, consequently, not to conversation; nor would any inconvenience ensue the admittance of such exceptions, since it would by no means impeach the general rule of man’s being a social animal; especially when it appears (as is sufficiently and admirably proved by my friend, the author of “An Inquiry into Happiness”) that these men live in a constant opposition to their own nature, and are no less monsters than the most wanton abortions or extravagant births.

1   Again, if society require that its members should be inoffensive, so the more useful and beneficial they are to each other the more suitable are they to the social nature, and more perfectly adapted to its institution; for all creatures seek their own happiness, and society is therefore natural to any, because it is naturally productive of this happiness. To render therefore any animal social is to render it inoffensive; an instance of which is to be seen in those the ferocity of whose nature can be tamed by man. And here the reader may observe a double distinction of man from the more savage animals by society, and from the social by conversation.

2   But if men were merely inoffensive to each other, it seems as if society and conversation would be merely indifferent; and that, in order to make it desirable by a sensible being, it is necessary we should go further and propose some positive good to ourselves from it; and this presupposes, not only negatively, our not receiving any hurt, but positively our receiving some good, some pleasure or advantage from each other in it, something which we could not find in an unsocial and solitary state; otherwise we might cry out with the right honorable poet—  Give us our wildness and our woods, Our huts and caves again.”

3   The art of pleasing or doing good to one another is therefore the art of conversation. It is this habit which gives to all its value. And as man’s being a social animal (the truth of which is incontestably proved by that excellent author of “An Inquiry,” etc., I have above cited) presupposes a natural desire or tendency this way, it will follow that we can fail in attaining this truly desirable end from ignorance only in the means; and how general this ignorance is may be, with some probability, inferred from our want of even a word to express this art by; that which comes the nearest to it, and by which, perhaps, we would sometimes intend it, being so horribly and barbarously corrupted, that it contains at present scarce a simple ingredient of what it seems originally to have been designed to express.

4   The word I mean is good breeding; a word, I apprehend, not at first confined to externals, much less to any particular dress or attitude of the body; nor were the qualifications expressed by it to be furnished by a milliner, a tailor, or a periwig maker; no, nor even by the dancing master himself. According to the idea I myself conceive from this word, I should not have scrupled to call Socrates a well-bred man, though, I believe, he was very little instructed by any of the persons I have above enumerated. In short, by good breeding (notwithstanding the corrupt use of the word in a very different sense) I mean the art of pleasing, or contributing as much as possible to the ease and happiness of those with whom you converse. I shall contend, therefore, no longer on this head; for, whilst my reader clearly conceives the sense in which I use this word, it will not be very material whether I am right or wrong in its original application.

5   Good breeding then, or the art of pleasing in conversation, is expressed two different ways, viz., in our actions and our words, and our conduct in both may be reduced to that concise, comprehensive rule in Scripture: Do unto all men as you would they should do unto you. Indeed, concise as this rule is and plain as it appears, what are all treatises on ethics but comments upon it? And whoever is well read in the book of nature, and hath made much observation on the actions of men, will perceive so few capable of judging or rightly pursuing their own happiness, that he will be apt to conclude that some attention is necessary (and more than is commonly used) to enable men to know truly what they would have done unto them, or, at least, what it would be their interest to have done.

6   If, therefore, men, through weakness or inattention, often err in their conceptions of what would produce their own happiness, no wonder they should miss in the application of what will contribute to that of others; and thus we may, without too severe a censure on their inclinations, account for that frequent failure in true good breeding which daily experience gives us instances of.

7   Besides, the commentators have well paraphrased on the above-mentioned divine rule, that it is, to do unto men what you would they (if they were in your situation and circumstances, and you in theirs) should do unto you; and, as this comment is necessary to be observed in ethics, so it is particularly useful in this our art, where the degree of the person is always to be considered, as we shall explain more at large hereafter.

8   We see, then, a possibility for a man well disposed to this golden rule, without some precautions, to err in the practice; nay, even good nature itself, the very habit of mind most essential to furnish us with true good breeding, the latter so nearly resembling the former that it hath been called, and with the appearance at least of propriety, artificial good nature. This excellent quality itself sometimes shoots us beyond the mark, and shows the truth of those lines in Horace:—  “Insani sapiens nomen ferat, æquus iniqui, Ultra quam satis est, Virtutem si petat ipsam.” Instances of this will be naturally produced where we show the deviations from those rules which we shall now attempt to lay down.

9   As this good breeding is the art of pleasing, it will be first necessary with the utmost caution to avoid hurting or giving any offense to those with whom we converse. And here we are surely to shun any kind of actual disrespect, or affront to their persons, by insolence, which is the severest attack that can be made on the pride of man, and of which Florus seems to have no inadequate opinion when, speaking of the second Tarquin, he says: in omnes superbia (quæ crudelitate gravior est bonis) grassatus. He trod on all with insolence, which sits heavier on men of great minds than cruelty itself. If there is any temper in man which more than all others disqualifies him for society, it is this insolence or haughtiness, which, blinding a man to his own imperfections, and giving him a hawk’s quick-sightedness to those of others, raises in him that contempt for his species which inflates the cheeks, erects the head, and stiffens the gait of those strutting animals who sometimes stalk in assemblies for no other reason but to show in their gesture and behavior the disregard they have for the company. Though to a truly great and philosophical mind it is not easy to conceive a more ridiculous exhibition than this puppet, yet to others he is little less than a nuisance; for contempt is a murderous weapon, and there is this difference only between the greatest and weakest man when attacked by it, that in order to wound the former, it must be just; whereas, without the shields of wisdom and philosophy, which God knows are in the possession of very few, it wants no justice to point it, but is certain to penetrate, from whatever corner it comes. It is this disposition which inspires the empty Cacus to deny his acquaintance, and overlook men of merit in distress; and the little silly, pretty Phillida, or Foolida, to stare at the strange creatures round her. It is this temper which constitutes the supercilious eye, the reserved look, the distant bow, the scornful leer, the affected astonishment, the loud whisper, ending in a laugh directed full in the teeth of another. Hence spring, in short, those numberless offenses given too frequently, in public and private assemblies, by persons of weak understandings, indelicate habits, and so hungry and foul-feeding a vanity, that it wants to devour whatever comes in its way. Now, if good breeding be what we have endeavored to prove it, how foreign, and indeed how opposite to it, must such a behavior be! and can any man call a duke or a duchess who wears it well bred? Or are they not more justly entitled to those inhuman names which they themselves allot to the lowest vulgar? But behold a more pleasing picture on the reverse. See the Earl of C——, noble in his birth, splendid in his fortune, and embellished with every endowment of mind; how affable! how condescending! himself the only one who seems ignorant that he is every way the greatest person in the room.

10   But it is not sufficient to be inoffensive—we must be profitable servants to each other; we are, in the second place, to proceed to the utmost verge in paying the respect due to others. We had better go a little too far than stop short in this particular. My Lord Shaftesbury hath a pretty observation, that the beggar, in addressing to a coach with, “My lord,” is sure not to offend, even though there be no lord there; but, on the contrary, should plain “Sir” fly in the face of a nobleman, what must be the consequence? And, indeed, whoever considers the bustle and contention about precedence, the pains and labors undertaken, and sometimes the prices given, for the smallest title or mark of pre-eminence, and the visible satisfaction betrayed in its enjoyment, may reasonably conclude this is a matter of no small consequence. The truth is, we live in a world of common men, and not of philosophers; for one of these, when he appears (which is very seldom) among us, is distinguished, and very properly too, by the name of an odd fellow; for what is it less than extreme oddity to despise what the generality of the world think the labor of their whole lives well employed in procuring? We are therefore to adapt our behavior to the opinion of the generality of mankind, and not to that of a few odd fellows.

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