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"Talkable" is not a new adjective. But it needs a new definition, and the complement of a corresponding noun. I would fain set down on paper some observations and reflections which may serve to make its meaning clear, and render due praise to that most excellent quality in man or woman, especially in anglers, the small but useful virtue of TALKABILITY.
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.
The talkability which springs out of these qualities has its roots in a good soil. On such a plant one need not look for the poison berries of malign discourse, nor for the Dead Sea apples of frivolous mockery. But fair fruit will be there, pleasant to the sight and good for food, brought forth abundantly according to the season.
There is no occasion upon which this precious element of talkability comes out stronger than when we are on a journey. Travel with a cheerless and easily discouraged companion is an unadulterated misery. But a cheerful comrade is better than a waterproof coat and a foot-warmer.
It transforms letter-writing from a task into a pleasure. It makes music a thousand times more sweet. The people who play and sing not at us, but TO us, how delightful it is to listen to them! Yes, there is a talkability that can express itself even without words. There is an exchange of thought and feeling which is happy alike in speech and in silence. It is quietness pervaded with friendship.
I know a man who can make a description of the weather as entertaining as a tune on the violin; and even on the threadbare theme of the waywardness of domestic servants, I have heard a discreet woman play the most diverting and instructive variations. No, the quality of talkability does not mark a distinction among things; it denotes a difference among people.
A talkable person, therefore, is one whose nature and disposition invite the easy interchange of thoughts and feelings, one in whose company it is a pleasure to talk or to be talked to. Now this good quality of talkability is to be distinguished, very strictly and inflexibly, from the bad quality which imitates it and often brings it into discredit. I mean the vice of talkativeness.
The faithful clergy strained their voices to the verge of ministerial sore throat, but the people had no peace in their devotions until the vine was cut down, and the Anglican intruders were evicted. A talkative person is like an English sparrow, a bird that cannot sing, and will sing, and ought to be persuaded not to try to sing. Talkability is not at all the same thing as eloquence.
Having come thus far in the exposition of Montaigne, I shall conclude with an opinion of my own, even though I cannot quote a sentence of his to back it. The one person of all the world in whom talkability is most desirable, and talkativeness least endurable, is a wife.
Montaigne has given as our text, "Goodness, freedom, gayety, and friendship," these are the conditions which produce talkability. And on this fourfold theme we may embroider a few variations, by way of exposition and enlargement. GOODNESS is the first thing and the most needful. An ugly, envious, irritable disposition is not fitted for talk.
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