"Chat and Chatter": Capturing Family Conversation

"Chat and Chatter":Capturing Family Conversation Clemence Schultze (bio) Novelist charlotte Mary Yonge (1823–1901) became famous for her 1853 bestseller The Heir of Redclyffe. But she shrank from celebrity, was tongue-tied with strangers, and felt discomfited when fans accosted her. Friends and family, however, knew a different person, fluent and enthusiastic in conversation, self-identifying as "an eager talker" (Yonge, Musings l).1 Lengthy exchanges in her letters about people, places, and books convey some conception of such face-to-face talks.2 Even more evocative is the transcript of a pair of real-life conversations that took place when Yonge, aged twenty-one, had just published her first novel, Abbeychurch. End Page 198 It was Yonge's practice, as a girl and young woman, to record family talk almost verbatim, as her biographer Christabel Coleridge describes: These are evidently an almost exact record of what was said, mixed up and disjointed as family talk is apt to be. They are on all kinds of topics—books, dress, poultry, walks, botany, fancy work, everything that was going on—and to any one knowing the talkers they are extraordinarily characteristic. They are not discussions, preserved as expressions of opinion, but the ordinary chat and chatter of clever young people. (151) "A good many of these have been preserved," observes Coleridge, and she reproduces just one in full (373–79).3 This surviving transcript is laid out like a play, with the names of the ten participants at the top and the speaker identified at the start of each paragraph. Five pages recount the conversation at dessert after dinner, ending "exeunt ladies"; two more cover "breakfast next morning," where only six people participate. The date is 8 September 1844, the scene Heath's Court, Ottery St. Mary, Devon, owned by Sir John Taylor Coleridge. As a Justice of the Queen's Bench, Sir John lived in London; Heath's Court was the country home where he welcomed members of his extended family and friends as holiday visitors. Those present were his wife; their four children (John Duke, Henry, Mary, and Alethea); Jane Seymour, the eldest son's fiancée; a young niece; and one non-family member, Mr. Meyrick, probably a college friend of the Coleridge sons.4 Yonge herself (second cousin once removed to Sir John) was close to the Coleridge girls and intimate with the Reverend John Keble and his household; Keble's connection with Sir John dated to their Oxford days. Sir John and Lady Coleridge were the oldest; niece Edith the youngest (aged twelve); the rest were in their late teens or twenties. The transcript exhibits the inputs from speakers of differing ages, genders, and familial roles; the demarcations between one topic and another; and the range of subjects discussed on the basis of common knowledge and shared interests. The fact that Christabel Coleridge—well acquainted with the Coleridge and Yonge families—terms the talk "extraordinarily characteristic" of the individuals concerned suggests that Yonge has competently represented the conversation.5 For example, a quip by John Duke Coleridge about Pompeii being "potted for posterity" reappears verbatim in Yonge's 1860 novel Hopes and Fears, strongly suggesting the practical uses to which Yonge's transcripts might be put (187).6 As to factual accuracy, there is one patent error, but it is impossible to determine whether Yonge misheard or Christabel Coleridge mistranscribed.7 Topics of conversation at dinner proceed from the correct forms of plurals, apropos Yonge's recently published Abbeychurch, via sequels to novels, to End Page 199 characterization in some specific novels. This leads to the practice of skipping when reading, and finally to Southey's poems. Despite Christabel Coleridge's description of the family talk as "mixed up and disjointed," there is a traceable progression from one topic to another. It is apparent that by posing questions, individuals advance new topics or divert from others that might be tedious. While the young adults of the family (Yonge and the Coleridge siblings) are the most enthusiastic talkers, there is also an effort to draw in the more-or-less outsiders (the fiancée and the college friend). So ease of conversation does not entail...