| Show shoptalk shop talk classed as self forgetfulness one of the last arts to mature in ID a young society Is the art of conversation at its best conversation Is a kind of 0 impromptu orchestra each player improvising in perfect harmony time and tune tossing the theme from instrument to instrument the themes developing and changing discarded or resumed at the caprice of the players this of course presupposes that the subject of the conversation be impersonal that it be free to range pretty much over the whole field of human experience such conversation Is first arst met with in the form of shoptalk shop talk tall and the reason shoptalk shop talk among peo ale of the same interests or profession in winch which Is included school studies Is so popular may be that here perhaps for the first time we learn how delightful it can be to ex arcise our minds to in company with others to the total exclusion and forgetfulness of our tiresome selves that Is why students talk so eagerly about their school tasks why business and professional people so mad den innocent by sitters with technical discussions of the minutiae of their trades why artists musicians and scholars persecute the public with their passionate dissertations but there Is a stage beyond this where human interests are broad enough and deep enough to embrace everybody where the whole of experience per peri lence ence Is the subject clever but undiscriminating undiscriminating because the past Is not alive to them highbrown highbrow High nigh brow anything rather than flinta this Is a good natured appraisal of how our sophisticated new yorkers make it appear to europeans the objection to them Is that they do not know enough either about the past or their own country but the condition Is temporary A passion for learning has sprung up in our land since the war which given time should turn out a crop of men and women able to interpret america to europe as it really Is and not as a glorified Wisecrack lana after the are of the world war after the whirlwind of the jazz decade after the earthquake of the economic depression pres slon cometh the still small voice of the spirit uncle dudley in the boston globe |
