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Talking of conversation, he said, "There must, in the first place, be knowledge, there must be materials; in the second place, there must be a command of words; in the third place, there must be imagination, to place things in such views as they are not commonly seen in; and in the fourth place, there must be presence of mind, and a resolution that is not to be overcome by failures" (Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. H. V. Abbott, Lake Library Edition, 1923, p. 456). Here St. Paul's "ready to give . . . the right answer" becomes Johnson's first two points: knowledge and command of words; St. Paul's "edge of liveliness" becomes imagination and presence of mind. The great lexicographer, who has been accused of frequently mistaking conversation for a verbal prize contest, failed to mention the point which St. Paul calls graciousness. But another great English word-marshaler, Jonathan Swift, follows St. Paul in putting this first. In his "Hints towards an Essay on Conversation," he declares, "And surely one of the best rules of conversation is, never to say anything which any of the company can reasonably wish we had left unsaid." In his "Letter to a |
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