T-----?' I inquired.
'I like her too,' he replied, 'but less than I do Circourt. She has
considerable talent, but she thinks and reads only to converse. She has
no originality, no convictions. She says what she thinks that she can say
well; like a person writing a dialogue or an exercise. Whether the
opinion which she expresses be right or wrong, or the story that she
tells be true or false, is no concern of hers, provided it be _bien
dit_.'
'The fault of her conversation,' I said, 'seems to me to be, that while
she is repeating one sentence she is thinking of the next, and that while
you are speaking to her, she is considering what is to be her next topic.
I have noticed this fault in other very fluent conversers. They are so
intent on the future that they neglect the present.'
'It is rather a French than an English fault,' said Tocqueville. 'The
English have more curiosity and less vanity, than we have; more desire to
hear and less anxiety to shine. They are often, therefore, better
_causeurs_ than we are. _Le grand talent pour le silence_, or, in other
words, the power of listening which has been imputed to them, is a great
conversational virtue.
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