Spontaneity and humor, and the possibility of a fine culture and a superb charm of personality in us are almost impossible and extremely rare.
One cause for our conversational decline is a lack of sympathy.

We are too selfish, too busily engaged in our own welfare, and wrapped up in our own little world, too intent upon our own self-promotion to be interested in others.

No one can make a good conversationalist who is not sympathetic.

You must be able to enter into another's life, to live it with the other person, to be a good listener or a good talker.
Walter Besant used to tell of a clever woman who had a great reputation as a conversationalist, though she talked very little.

She had such a cordial, sympathetic manner that she helped the timid and the shy to say their best things, and made them feel at home.