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[Sydney Smith (1771-1845) was an Anglican clergyman and a founder and contributor to the influential nineteenth century British magazine, the Edinburgh Review. He was famous in his day as a wit, humourist and all-round entertainer. The following excerpt is from The Smith of Smiths, being The Life, Wit and Humour of Sydney Smith, by Hesketh Pearson, 1934.]

However unequal he might feel to the demands made upon him, Sydney was quite incapable of boring people. When he had nothing amusing or novel to say, he said nothing. He had suffered terribly from conversational bores and expressed his feelings freely on the subject in his review of Lister’s novel Granby. Discussing one of the characters he relieved himself as follows:

Lord Chesterton we have often met with, and suffered a good deal from his lordship: a heavy, pompous, meddling peer, occupying a great share of the conversation, saying things in ten words which required only two, and evidently convinced that he is making a great impression; a large man, with a large head, and a very landed manner; knowing enough to torment his fellow-creatures, not to instruct them; the ridicule of young ladies, and the natural butt and target of wit. It is easy to talk of carnivorous animals and beasts of prey; but does such a man, who lays waste a whole civilized party of beings by prosing, reflect upon the joy he spoils and the misery he creates in the course of his life, and that any one who listens to him through politeness would prefer toothache or ear-ache to his conversation? Does he consider the great uneasiness which ensues, when the company has discovered a man to be an extremely absurd person, at the same time that it is absolutely impossible to convey by words or manner the most distant suspicion of the discovery? And then, who punishes this bore? What sessions and what assizes [periodic courts held by circuit judges with local juries] for him? What bill is found against him? Who indicts him? When the judges have gone their vernal and autumnal rounds—the sheep-stealer disappears—the swindler gets ready for the [penal colony in Australia known as Botany] Bay—the solid parts of the murderer are preserved in anatomical collections. But, after twenty years of crime, the bore is discovered in the same house, in the same attitude, eating the same soup—unpunished, untried, undirected—no scaffold, no skeleton—no mob of gentlemen and ladies to gape over his last dying speech and confession.

[James Murray Allison was an Australian who came to England and quickly made his name in the advertising world. The following is an excerpt from J. B. Morton’s Hilaire Belloc: A Memoir.]

Allison himself had a store of ridiculous songs and ridiculous stories. He was the only man I ever knew who could tell an enormously long story without boring his listeners. Nobody knew better how to build up details, prolong suspense, and then spring the surprise of a preposterous climax. It always amazed me that this boyish man, who was a bird-watcher, a painter and a writer of verse and prose, had concealed about him the patience and the self-discipline to become advertising manager of The Times and, later, of the Daily Telegraph. Seeing him at his own table, you could not believe that he took anything seriously.

There are few wild beasts more to be dreaded than a talking man having nothing to say.

Jonathan Swift

The habit of common and continuous speech is a symptom of mental deficiency. It proceeds from not knowing what is going on in other people’s minds.

The only way to entertain some people is to listen to them.

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