Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. and the Art of Conversation

The 19th-century doctor and poet offered a solution for a divided society

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (1809–1894) was a physician and poet who was considered by many of his peers to be among the best writers of his day. (Kean Collection/Getty Images)

The word “conversation” is on a lot of lips today. In many cases, though—as when one is invited to “have a conversation” about some facet of identity politics—the underlying meaning is more along the lines of, “Listen, and then accept our radical narrative without question.”

Far from representing an exchange of ideas, such doublespeak has contributed to communication breakdown.

Nineteenth-century America, by comparison, also was an era preoccupied with conversation. It was a period unique in many respects: a high point in Western civilization when the printing press spread education to frontier schoolrooms and politicians were orators who imitated the rhetoric of Cicero and Patrick Henry. The King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare could be found in every home, where a favorite pastime for families and friends was to sit around the fire entertaining one another with discussions and stories.

So when Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. expressed an ideal to share a “conversation of the culture” during this time, the word was no mere euphemism.

‘The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table’

Holmes was born in 1809 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and lived through almost the entire century. A successful physician, his many contributions to medicine include anticipating the germ theory of disease and coining the term “anesthesia.” As one of the fireside poets with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, he’s now a lesser-known figure of that literary period known as the American Renaissance. In his own day, however, he was a household name.

Holmes was a favorite in Boston’s social clubs and drawing rooms. Many people described him as being the greatest talker they ever heard. He developed a reputation as a humorist and public speaker that would later be modeled by Mark Twain. In an age that privileged conversation, Holmes was its best spokesperson.

His most important literary contribution was a trilogy of “table-talk” books, a genre with roots in Plato’s dialogues. Of these, the best is the first book, “The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table.”

The narrative takes the form of a monologue interrupted by conversations with table guests residing at a New England boarding house. Holmes’s narrator—basically himself—tackles a variety of topics with an overabundance of wit that makes his wisdom seem somewhat frivolous. The other table guests are, on the contrary, serious people who often take offense at what he says and never really comprehend him.

Though the characters are stereotypes—divinity student, schoolteacher, landlady—they are plausible ones. Each brings to bear, in their responses, the prejudices common to their professional positions. These practical and sentimental types, lacking in social graces, clash with the narrator’s impractical, analytical, aristocratic outlook, and with each other. Since “The Autocrat” was published in 1858, just prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, the conflicting principles expressed in the book were representative of the national divisions at large.

Principles of Conversation

The classic opening sentence sets the conversational tone of the work:

“I was just going to say, when I was interrupted, that one of the many ways of classifying minds is under the heads of arithmetical and algebraical intellects.” After explaining that people who think in terms of numbers are more vulgar than those who think in terms of letters, the narrator describes the reaction of his table guests: “They all stared.”

Holmes’s observation captures an important truth. The modern age privileges charts and statistics, amply rewarding those who are good at manipulating such figures. But there is something crass about this new world, and being civilized involves a level of verbal cultivation that is insufficiently realized under a pragmatic educational system.

The heated disagreements in “The Autocrat” are always resolved through dialogue, showing how diverse people can amicably come together. It might be worthwhile, then, to extract some of Holmes’s rules for conversational etiquette.

First, the thing that spoils “more good talks than anything else,” the narrator says, are “long arguments on special points between people who differ on the fundamental principles upon which these points depend.” When people can’t agree on ultimate beliefs, there should at least be an agreement not to broach these topics in ordinary conversation, unless one is willing to be self-reflective.

“Talking is like playing on the harp,” he says. “There is as much in laying the hand on the strings to stop their vibrations as in twanging them to bring out their music.”

Second, be suggestive rather than argumentative. Here, Holmes takes issue with intellectual types who “crush conversation” by throwing facts at their listeners. Contrary to this, information should be used like the “accompaniment” to a “quartet of vocalists.” Dress fresh ideas in warm words. Develop thoughts about facts. Avoid being overly literal. Speak partial truths to meet different viewpoints halfway. One is reminded here of Socrates, whose method of engaging verbal opponents was to ask them questions.

Third, be attentive to a conversation’s natural flow. Do not be a “jerky mind,” saying bright things in a “zigzag” manner. Talks are like breakfasts: Sometimes the toast is dry, and sometimes it is served with butter. “You must take them as they come.” Be attentive to whom one is talking to and address their preferences.

Fourth, respect language. Do not commit “verbicide,” which Holmes defines as the “violent treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate meaning.” One of the worst forms of this is “the gradual substitution” of stock phrases and slang terms “for words which truly characterize their objects.” Holmes describes “idiots” whose entire vocabulary has degenerated “into some half dozen expressions.”

This brings to mind, in our own time, the ever-increasing use of swear words in public speech. Four-letter obscenities have become catch-all descriptions for lazy minds that have become unable to articulate thoughts and feelings. In Holmes’s words, such habits are “the blank checks of intellectual bankruptcy.”

Fifth, balance levity with seriousness. Another form of verbicide (if comparatively harmless) is making bad puns, which result in “battered witticisms” and damage personal dignity. In modern parlance, we have all been in those awkward situations where someone tells a “dad joke” and we roll our eyes. Holmes’s priggish point here—stated by the priggish narrator—is that a good conversationalist tells jokes without sacrificing earnestness. Too light, and one becomes a shallow dandy in an Oscar Wilde play, spouting meaningless paradoxes; too serious, and animosity overtakes enjoyment.

Holmes’s “culture of conversation” was, in some respects, a failure—the Civil War broke out just a few years after “The Autocrat” was published. Militarism, and not polished mannerisms, solved the country’s divisions. And yet, one can see the impact of Holmes’s conversational culture on the exceptional statesmanship of the era, particularly in the person of Abraham Lincoln, an admirer of Holmes who memorized some of his poetry.

Holmes’s influence also extended into the next generation in a more direct way: He raised a son who inculcated his father’s values and became one of the most significant justices ever to sit on the Supreme Court. And in the 21st century, the lessons of Holmes’s tea-sipping autocrat are more relevant than ever.