[on the "art" of conversation] In England conversation has died as an art--it can be an art--and, if indulged in at all, has become a kind of affectation, a fetish with certain writer-groups or "intellectuals". Americans, especially young Americans, tend to be too earnest when they take to conversation. The best conversation can still be found in Dublin and other parts of Ireland. It is ripe with the kind of backhand cynicism that one finds in [
James Joyce], and is apt to be tinged with malice, but it is stimulating.
