The Floor

THE CONTRIBUTORS’ CLUB

GETTING the floor in a discussion conducted by our family is no simple matter; but once you have it, you are safe. We do not interrupt. Changing the subject, making irrelevant comments, or breaking up into little sub-groups and talking all at once, are matters that we deal with to the full extent of the Parliamentary law. We do this, not because we are polite, but because each of us loves an audience. We love it to the extent that we are willing to grant it to others on the condition that they may later do even so to us. If one of us starts to talk, the others listen; if two start at once, precedence is given to the elder, or the female. Being myself the youngest, and male, I have led an anxious life. But even I, once started, was always absolutely sure of the undivided attention of the whole house.

Upon this tradition I shall, to use an Hashimuran phrase, establish my family, if any. The genuine friendly confab demands this sense of safety. The most harrowing page in any literature, to my way of thinking, is the passage where Mr. Direck tries in vain to tell Mr. Britling about the little incident that happened to his friend Robinson in Toledo. And one of the most pathetic touches is poor Mr. Direck’s wistful day-dream later, when he imagines himself talking very slowly and carefully, while Mr. Britling listens. ‘Already he was more than half way into dreamland,’ observes Mr. Wells, ‘or he could never have supposed anything so incredible.’

A certain cousin of ours is very like Mr. Britling. She is to be found at a fine old sea-side farmhouse where we visit now and again. Whenever, in a placid moment, we all sit talking with the aunts and uncles, this particular cousin, not less dear than the others, but more restive, will come in from the milk-room, talking all the way. We hear her coming a long way off, and we suspend whatever sentence we are in the middle of, to strain our ears to hear her; much as an Episcopal congregation pricks up when the choir-boys begin to chant the processional in distant chapels. By that long-range method, our cousin puts a stop to our subjectmatter, preëmpts the floor, and ignores our squatters’ claims. We have only to refer to Cousin Britling when one of us, at home, changes the subject without giving due notice in advance. ‘Come in from the milk-room,’ we implore, and the offender at once subsides.

I know groups who are not satisfied unless everybody is talking all the time. Put six of them into a room, and they automatically split up into three groups of two talkers each. Each group listens with scattering attention to itself and to the adjoining one; remarks are overheard and replied to in bright asides; counter-messages are tossed back and forth with no checking system; until finally we are arranged in two groups with three talkers in each ring, and I suddenly find myself coping with two ladies who both scintillate at once, while my business partner near by contends with other twain. There is nothing for a deliberate-minded man to do but to dig in and do his best. Just as I have managed to train my forces on the objective before me, and our conversation really begins to grow interesting, one of the ladies from the other group calls over an appeal anent some remark of that partner of mine, and it is all up. I answer as nimbly as may be, but my soul stares balefully upon her. ‘Come in, come in,’ I long to say; ‘come in once for all from the milk-room!’ Rather would I juggle three croquet balls and a Derby hat than negotiate this sort of conversation with animated ladies upon my right hand and on my left.

The only parallel that I can think of is the way in which, during very early childhood, we sometimes played tiddledywinks. When the man-made rules of that staid sport became too wearing for our advanced intellects, we used to get to snapping all at once, promiscuously. Everybody snapped everybody else’s wink, at the bull’seye or the eye of his neighbor, regardless. This indiscriminating sort of thing lends a lawless charm most bracing to tiddledywinks, but it cancels conversation.

Now this is no mere masculine craving for monologues. I simply like a group, and I like to keep it whole. Why must it be broken up into chattering fragments? I want to see the personalities emerge distinctly. I like to hear a sustained sentence of each man’s making, and enjoy the swift current of challenging thought that makes itself felt in a group of expressive beings who are all awaiting their turn to have their say. The interplay of individualities is more vivid and quickening if both men and women are in the group; but beware of those ladies who, the instant a remark stirs their interest, are possessed to gather unto themselves a private auditor or two and start up a lowvoiced committee meeting of their own, instead of enriching the general group with their opinions. Such centres of volubility on the side-lines ruin real talk.

I suppose that even I would not demand that the guests at a large social function should sit in a great ring while each in turn stood up and gave his Oral Theme. At large receptions everybody must talk and nobody listens. But who likes a large reception anyway? What I really do like, is to go home and find guests around the fireplace of a winter evening. My sister meets me in the hall, and in her condensed and rapid way gives me the outline of such recent gossip as I need to know to look intelligent. My mother meanwhile slips away in the direction of the larder and beckons me out for a sustaining bit of pie. (One of the most exquisite joys in coming home unexpectedly is to have one’s mother offer one food of the forbidden variety that one had to steal out of the moonlit refrigerator of old.)

‘Who’s in there?’ say I from my throne on the kitchen table.

I learn.

‘What are they talking about?’

Barbara gracefully eavesdrops round the dining-room door. ‘Father’s telling his Captain Spicer stories,’ she reports cheerfully.

‘Then we have plenty of time.’ I finish my pie with the lingering Fletcherism of which its brand is worthy; and we watch and listen for an interval in the reminiscent flow when we can join the fireside group.

There, in that circle of alert men and women of assorted ages and callings, our thoughts feather out and fly. There is time to think, and time to change one’s mind; time also to express it. It is not only an interchange of readymade ideas; it is a chance to hatch some different ones and add them to our own. Wecatch tantalizing glimpses into each other’s hidden prejudices; and we disclose unsuspected convictions by the way.

But the most intimate moment of all comes after the company goes. Probably a truly upright family would not comment upon the vanished guest. We do. We discuss him and all his works. Sometimes, after this stimulating ceremony is over and we are on our way to bed, somebody thinks of an additional grain of truth which calls for conflicting comment. We pause upon the stairs for another session. I can see my father dimly, by the half-light in the hall, as he brings down his fist on the newel post to emphasize a vigorous ultimatum. In the heavy shadows he looks like a Rodin study of Authority. My mother, seated on the topmost stair, peers cheerfully through the banisters at him, and bides her time. Eftsoons, we know, she will carry her point, but for the present he has the floor. The floor! — that choice possession which none except the very spry can take away!