Mary Greer Conklin

Conversation is the interchange of ideas; it is the willingness to communicate thought on all subjects,

personal and universal, and in turn to listen to the sentiments of others regarding the ideas advanced.

They run through all subjects that each may have something to say; they exhaust no subject for fear of tiring their hearer; they propose their themes casually and they treat them rapidly; each succeeding subject grows naturally out of the preceding one; each talker delivers his opinion and supports it briefly; no one attacks with undue heat the supposition of another, nor defends obstinately his own; they examine in order to enlighten, and stop before the discussion becomes a dispute.