“ Why is it that the slanderer and the tale-bearer regard themselves as honest and worthy people, instead of feeling that they are accursed of God and man? It is because they deal in evil words only, and they consider words as mere nought. Why is it that the carping tongue, which filches a little from everybody's good name, can hardly utter itself without a sneer, and makes every fair character its prey, thinks better of itself than a petty pilferer would? It is because by long, though baseless prescription, the tongue has claimed for itself a license denied to every other member and faculty. ”

“ Let wants and necessities, and trials and difficulties, not be forgotten, but let them not be the whole subject-matter of discourse. No, let it range far more widely, far more attractively; and your looks and your demeanor, and your tones and words, being all directed by good will, and by practice too, you indeed will be no idler in good works during times and occasions thus employed. You will win much love, much esteem, much appreciation; you will hear much right feeling expressed, and, at times, much to inform you of a practical kind. You will do good and receive good too. ”

“ I speak on no narrow topic, and I speak for all. Truly it is one which touches all; and in this lies its strength and its interest. There is no one, I believe, who does not intuitively and instinctively feel either his gain or his loss in conversation,—the effect of it on his own mind and on his own feelings at the time and afterwards,—either its harms or its charms. ”

“ And I, for one, will not hesitate to say that, it having been my lot to mix much, and willingly, in all the various classes of society,—and having endeavored, so far as in my power has been, to cultivate and show a true brotherly and friendly spirit, both to high and low,—I have met nothing to confer more pleasure and more advantage in daily life than fit conversation. ”

“ The most trivial news of the day, the concerns of the neighborhood, the floating gossip, whether good-natured or malignant, dress, food, frivolous surmises, paltry plans, vanities too light to remain an hour upon the memory,—these are the sole staple of what too many call conversation; and many are the young people who are training themselves in the use of speech for no higher or better purpose. ”

“ Never to act thus is surely an undue disregard of our endowment,—a virtual depreciation and contempt of that which is at once among the most needful, the most useful, and, at the same time, most ornamental gifts of God to mankind.
As, then, it is said of real wisdom, that first "it is pure," or free from error and wrong, so too, first of all, right and proper conversation must be free from everything evidently and positively inconsistent with our duty towards God and man. It has ever been well said that we must be just before we are generous. ”

“ But, on the other hand, just in proportion as you are enabled to unite yourself with others through your demeanor and words,—not, of course, hypocritically or obsequiously, but from real sympathy with all the innocent tastes and engagements of our fellow-creatures,—just, I say, in proportion as you are enabled to do this, will your intercourse with them, in the way of conversation, be of that kind at which we should aim. None will be afraid of your indulging in rebuffs, or ridicule, or depreciation. None will meet from you a cold, heartless, and repulsive indifference. ”

“ Evil speaking, slander, detraction, gossip, scandal, are different names for one of the chief dangers to be guarded against in conversation; and you are doing much towards defending yourselves against it by the generous mental culture which you enjoy in this seminary. The demon of slander loves an empty house. A taste for scandal betrays a vacant mind. Furnish your minds, then, by useful reading and study, and by habits of reflection and mental industry, that you may be able to talk about subjects as well as about people,—about events too long past or too remote to be interwoven with slander. ”

“ You can never trust the testimony of one who in common conversation is indifferent to the import, and regardless of the power, of words. I am acquainted with persons whose representations of facts always need translation and correction, and who have utterly lost their reputation for veracity, solely through this habit of overstrained and extravagant speech. They do not mean to lie; but they have a dialect of their own, in which words bear an entirely different sense from that given to them in the daily intercourse of discreet and sober people. ”

“ I have chosen, as usual, a subject of general, of national, of wide-world, of never-failing interest, from day to day, from week to week, from month to month, from year to year, among the vast race of our fellows,—born social creatures, born for mutual sympathy, with interchanged utterance, speech, and conversation. ”

“ Conversation, to be worthy of the name at all, is not child's play. It must be dealt with, if considered at all, as an important and substantial thing, not as the mere toy wherewith to trifle and sport each day and hour till we pass away to meet that judgment where our Lord has himself declared,—"By your words ye shall be justified, and by your words ye shall be condemned." ”

“ It is readily acknowledged, by all well educated foreigners, that English Grammar is very easy to learn, the difficulties of the language lying in the numberless variations and licenses of its pronunciation. Since to us then, children of the soil, pronunciation has no difficulties to offer, is it not a reproach that so many speak their own language in an inelegant and slatternly manner,—either through an inexcusable ignorance of grammatical rules, or a wanton violation of them? There are two sorts of bad speakers,—the educated and the uneducated. ”

“ And large indeed will be the amount of pleasure and of benefit which you may thus hope to reap for yourself and communicate to others in the course of your life, and that, too, up to an age, should your days be prolonged, when you may be shut up, or at all events much restrained, from many other means of active usefulness. For the mellowed wisdom of age, showing and expressing itself in that charity and sympathy for all which nothing less than experience itself has taught, is indeed a strong and beautiful thing. ”

“ In order, again, to promote conversation of a superior sort, endeavor must be made to expand and enlarge its bounds to the very utmost. It should be of a comprehensive kind,—not the gossip of some narrow set, not a mere comment on the persons and affairs of any one locality, not a wearisome and dull repetition of things already, perhaps long, familiar to all present. ”

“ Its life is all mean, low, serpent-like,—a life that cannot bear the light, but finds all its nourishment and growth in darkness. Were these foul and odious forms of speech incapable of harming others,—did human reptiles of this class creep about in some outward guise, in which they could be recognized by all, and their words be taken for what they are worth, and no more,—still I would beg them, for their own sakes, not to degrade God's image, in which they were created, into the likeness of a creeping thing ”

“ We flock to hear and admire some mighty orator's address, but we think little of and little appreciate that daily, hourly thing which is our subject now,—I mean conversation. But I leave you to judge which has the most effect on our general interest, as social creatures,—which, in the long run, has most to do with the pleasure and the profit of all human intercourse. ”

“ Conversation may be termed or defined as "the exchange and communication, by word, of that which is passing in the inward mind and heart." And none of all known creatures, except man, has this peculiar gift. ”

“ One cannot indulge in idle, reckless talk, without being implicated in all the current slander and calumny, and acquiring gradually the envious and malignant traits of a hackneyed tale-bearer. And the person who, in youth, can attract the attention and win the favor of those of little reflection by flippant and voluble discourse, will encounter in the very same circles neglect, disesteem, and dislike, before the meridian of life is passed ”

“ A vague, undefined notion seems to float through each rank of society in our land, that those in the stage above think, feel, and act in a manner different from those below. A very great mistake this, which oftentimes chills and checks and mars all open freedom of address when one of an higher and one of a lower rank are brought into those circumstances where the opportunity for conversation occurs, if not the absolute claim. ”

“ Nearly akin to these offences against good grammar is another untasteful practice, into which you are probably more in danger of falling, and which is a crying sin among young ladies,—I mean the use of exaggerated, extravagant forms of speech,—saying splendid for pretty, magnificent for handsome, horrid for very, horrible for unpleasant, immense for large, thousands or myriads for any number greater than two. ”

“ In fine, transparency is an essential attribute of all graceful and becoming speech. Language ought to represent the speaker's ideas, and neither more nor less. Exclamations, needless expletives, unmeaning extravagances, are as untasteful as the streamers of tattered finery which you sometimes see fluttering about the person of a dilapidated belle. ”

“ The one attribute is essential and indispensable in every transaction of life. The acts and deeds connected with the other are comparatively undefined and indefinable. So it is essential, it is indispensable, that our conversation, from our own choice and deliberate aim, should be utterly free from all things irreverent to God and injurious to our fellow-creatures. God's name must never be taken in vain. ”

“ Many of the most important forms of charity are those of speech. Alms-giving is almost the only expression of charity of which the voice is not the chief minister; and alms, conferred in silent coldness, or with chiding or disdainful speech, freeze the spirit, though they [13] may warm the body. Speech, too, is the sole medium of a countless host of domestic duties and observances. There are, indeed, in every community many whose only activity seems to be in words. ”

“ Genius is above grammar, and this conviction may inspire in some bosoms an undue contempt for the latter. But grammar is a constituent part of good education, and a neglect of it might argue a want of education, which would, perhaps, be mortifying. It is an old axiom that "civility costs nothing," and surely grammatical purity need not cost much to people disposed to pay a little attention to it, and who have received a respectable education already. ”

“ And thus we have before us even the sanction and proof from the Word of God, that the most mighty and transcendent truth can reach us in no better form than that which conversation gives, and also that Jesus Christ put his own royal stamp of glory on it, by employing it Himself continually, when upon the earth among men, though he was their Lord and their God. ”

“ Equality must prevail as a general rule; I say a general rule, because there are, no doubt, certain seasons and times when the intercourse of social and of family life must partake of that special character which is adapted to the various relationships of man. ”

“ Hitherto I have spoken altogether on conversation with those whose rank and position of life corresponds with your own. A few words now on conversation, first, with those of a higher rank, and, secondly, with those in the humbler conditions of life—to use the common phrase; and every man should be qualified and prepared for any and for all kinds of association. ”

“ Man may indulge in any latitude of expression within the bounds of sense and decorum, but woman has a narrower range,—even her mirth must be subjected to rule. It may be [90] naïve, but must never be grotesque. It is not that we would have primness in the sex, but we would have refinement. Women are the purer and the more ornamental part of life, and when they degenerate, the Poetry of Life is gone. ”

“ But the grand fault, the glaring impropriety, committed by "all ranks and conditions of men," rich [65] and poor, high and low, illiterate and learned,—except, perhaps, one in twenty,—and from which not even the pulpit or the bar is totally free,—is, the substitution of the active verb lay for the neuter verb lie (to lie down) . The scholar knows that "active verbs govern the objective case," and therefore demand an objective case after them; and that neuter verbs will not admit an objective case after them, except through the medium of a preposition. ”

“ But if these wrong feelings often find utterance, though you call it hasty utterance, there is reason to fear that they flow from a bitter fountain within.
Consider, also, how large a portion speech makes up of the lives of all. It occupies the greater part of the waking hours of many of us; while express acts of a moral bearing, compared with our words, are rare and few. Indeed, in many departments of duty, words are our only possible deeds,—it is by words alone that we can perform or violate our duty. ”

“ I would entreat them not to be guilty of the meanest and most miserable of all forms of spiritual suicide; I would beseech them, if they are determined to sell their souls, to get some better price for them than the scorn and dread of all whose esteem is worth having. ”