TALKABILITY
A PRELUDE AND THEME WITH VARIATIONS
"He praises a meditative life, and with evident sincerity: but we
feel that he liked nothing so well as good talk."--JAMES RUSSELL
LOWELL: Walton.
I
PRELUDE--ON AN OLD, FOOLISH MAXIM
The inventor of the familiar maxim that "fishermen must not talk" is
lost in the mists of antiquity, and well deserves his fate. For a
more foolish rule, a conventionality more obscure and aimless in its
tyranny, was never imposed upon an innocent and honourable
occupation, to diminish its pleasure and discount its profits. Why,
in the name of all that is genial, should anglers go about their
harmless sport in stealthy silence like conspirators, or sit
together in a boat, dumb, glum, and penitential, like naughty
schoolboys on the bench of disgrace? 'Tis an Omorcan superstition;
a rule without a reason; a venerable, idiotic fashion invented to
repress lively spirits and put a premium on stupidity.
For my part, I incline rather to the opinion of the Neapolitan
fishermen who maintain that a certain amount of noise, of certain
kinds, is likely to improve the fishing, and who have a particular
song, very sweet and charming, which they sing to draw the fishes
around them. It is narrated, likewise, of the good St. Brandan,
that on his notable voyage from Ireland in search of Paradise, he
chanted the service for St. Peter's day so pleasantly that a
subaqueous audience of all sorts and sizes was attracted, insomuch
that the other monks began to be afraid, and begged the abbot that
he would sing a little lower, for they were not quite sure of the
intention of the congregation. Of St. Anthony of Padua it is said
that he even succeeded in persuading the fishes, in great
multitudes, to listen to a sermon; and that when it was ended (it
must be noted that it was both short and cheerful) they bowed their
heads and moved their bodies up and down with every mark of fondness
and approval of what the holy father had spoken.
If we can believe this, surely we need not be incredulous of things
which seem to be no less, but rather more, in harmony with the
course of nature. Creatures who are sensible to the attractions of
a sermon can hardly be indifferent to the charm of other kinds of
discourse. I can easily imagine a company of grayling wishing to
overhear a conversation between I. W. and his affectionate (but
somewhat prodigal) son and servant, Charles Cotton; and surely every
intelligent salmon in Scotland might have been glad to hear
Christopher North and the Ettrick Shepherd bandy jests and swap
stories. As for trout,--was there one in Massachusetts that would
not have been curious to listen to the intimate opinions of Daniel
Webster as he loafed along the banks of the Marshpee,--or is there
one in Pennsylvania to-day that might not be drawn with interest and
delight to the feet of Joseph Jefferson, telling how he conceived
and wrote RIP VAN WINKLE on the banks of a trout-stream?
Fishermen must be silent? On the contrary, it is far more likely
that good talk may promote good fishing.
All this, however, goes upon the assumption that fish can hear, in
the proper sense of the word. And this, it must be confessed, is an
assumption not yet fully verified. Experienced anglers and students
of fishy ways are divided upon the question. It is beyond a doubt
that all fishes, except the very lowest forms, have ears. But then
so have all men; and yet we have the best authority for believing
that there are many who "having ears, hear not."
The ears of fishes, for the most part, are inclosed in their skull,
and have no outward opening. Water conveys sound, as every country
boy knows who has tried the experiment of diving to the bottom of
the swimming-hole and knocking two big stones together. But I doubt
whether any country boy, engaged in this interesting scientific
experiment, has heard the conversation of his friends on the bank
who were engaged in hiding his clothes.
There are many curious and more or less venerable stories to the
effect that fishes may be trained to assemble at the ringing of a
bell or the beating of a drum. Lucian, a writer of the second
century, tells of a certain lake wherein many sacred fishes were
kept, of which the largest had names given to them, and came when
they were called. But Lucian was not a man of especially good
reputation, and there is an air of improbability about his statement
that the LARGEST fishes came. This is not the custom of the largest
fishes.
In the present century there was a tale of an eel in a garden-well,
in Scotland, which would come to be fed out of a spoon when the
children called him by his singularly inappropriate name of Rob Roy.
This seems a more likely story than Lucian's; at all events it comes
from a more orthodox atmosphere. But before giving it full
credence, I should like to know whether the children, when they
called "Rob Roy!" stood where the eel could see the spoon.
On the other side of the question, we may quote Mr. Ronalds, also a
Scotchman, and the learned author of THE FLY-FISHER'S ENTOMOLOGY,
who conducted a series of experiments which proved that even trout,
the most fugacious of fish, are not in the least disturbed by the
discharge of a gun, provided the flash is concealed. Mr. Henry P.
Wells, the author of THE AMERICAN SALMON ANGLER, says that he has
"never been able to make a sound in the air which seemed to produce
the slightest effect upon trout in the water."
So the controversy on the hearing of fishes continues, and the
conclusion remains open. Every man is at liberty to embrace that
side which pleases him best. You may think that the finny tribes
are as sensitive to sound as Fine Ear, in the German fairy-tale, who
could hear the grass grow. Or you may hold the opposite opinion,
that they are
"Deafer than the blue-eyed cat."
But whichever theory you adopt, in practice, if you are a wise
fisherman, you will steer a middle course, between one thing which
must be left undone and another thing which should be done. You
will refrain from stamping on the bank, or knocking on the side of
the boat, or dragging the anchor among the stones on the bottom; for
when the water vibrates the fish are likely to vanish. But you will
indulge as freely as you please in pleasant discourse with your
comrade; for it is certain that fishing is never hindered, and may
even be helped, in one way or another, by good talk.
I should therefore have no hesitation in advising any one to choose,
for companionship on an angling expedition, long or short, a person
who has the rare merit of being TALKABLE.
II
THEME--ON A SMALL, USEFUL VIRTUE
"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.
Robert Louis Stevenson uses the word "talkable" in one of his essays
to denote a certain distinction among the possible subjects of human
speech. There are some things, he says in effect, about which you
can really talk; and there are other things about which you cannot
properly talk at all, but only dispute, or harangue, or prose, or
moralize, or chatter.
After mature consideration I have arrived at the opinion that this
distinction among the themes of speech is an illusion. It does not
exist. All subjects, "the foolish things of the world, and the weak
things of the world, and base things of the world, yea, and things
that are not," may provide matter for good talk, if only the right
people are engaged in the enterprise. 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. It is not an
attribute unequally distributed among material objects and abstract
ideas. It is a virtue which belongs to the mind and moral character
of certain persons. It is a reciprocal human quality; active as
well as passive; a power of bestowing and receiving.
An amiable person is one who has a capacity for loving and being
loved. An affable person is one who is ready to speak and to be
spoken to,--as, for example, Milton's "affable archangel" Raphael;
though it must be confessed that he laid the chief emphasis on the
active side of his affability. A "clubable" person (to use a word
which Dr. Samuel Johnson invented but did not put into his
dictionary) is one who is fit for the familiar give and take of
club-life. 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.