Conversation, Mary Greer Conklin [popular books to read txt] 📗
- Author: Mary Greer Conklin
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Opinions as to what good nature is would perhaps vary. "You may be good-natured, sir," said Boswell to Doctor Johnson, "but you are not good-humored." The speech of men and women is diverse and variously characteristic. All people say "good morning," but no two of God's creatures say it alike. Their words range from a grunt to gushing exuberance; and one is as objectionable as the other. Even weighty subjects can be talked about in tones of badinage and good breeding. Plato in his wonderful conversations always gave his subject a fringe of graceful wit, but beneath the delicate shell there was invariably a hard nut to be cracked. If good nature above all is sincere, it will escape being gushing. The hypocrisy which says, "My dear Mrs. So-and-so, I'm perfectly delighted to see you; do sit right down on this bent pin!" is not good nature; it is pure balderdash.
Thoughtful dinner-guests take pains not to monopolize the conversation. They bring others of the company into their talk, giving them opportunities of talking in their turn, and listening themselves while they do so: "You, Mr. Brown, will agree with me in this"; or, "Mr. Black, you have had more experience in such cases than I have; what is your opinion?" The perfection of this quality of conversational charm consists in that rare gift, the art of drawing others out, and is as valuable and graceful in guests as in hosts.
The French have some dinner-table conventions which to us seem strange. At any small dining of eight or ten people the talk is always supposed to be general. The person who would try to begin a tête-à-tête conversation with the guest sitting next to him at table would soon find out his mistake. General conversation is as much a part of the repast as the viands; and wo to the unwary mortals who, tempted by short distances, start to chatter among themselves. A diner-out must be able to hold his own in a conversation in which all sorts of distant, as well as near, contributors take part. Of course, this implies small dinners; but English-speaking people, even in small gatherings, do not attempt general conversation to such an extent. They consider it a difficult matter to accomplish the diagonal feat of addressing guests at too great a distance.
Dinner-companions, however, should be alert to others of the conversational group. A guest can as easily lead the talk into general paths as can a host or hostess. Indeed, it is gracious for him to do this, tho it is not his duty. The duty lies entirely with a host or hostess. At any time through the dinner a guest can help to make conversation general: If some one has just told in a low voice, to a right-hand or left-hand neighbor alone, some clever impersonal thing, or a good anecdote, or some interesting happening suitable to general table-talk, the guest can get the attention of all present by addressing some one at the furthest point of the table from him: "Mr. Snow, Miss Frost has just told me something which will interest you, I know, and perhaps all of us: Miss Frost, please tell Mr. Snow about," et cetera. Miss Frost, then, speaking a little louder in order that Mr. Snow may hear, engages the attention of the entire table. The moment any one round the table thus invites the attention of the whole dinner-group, dinner-companions should drop instantly their private chats and join in whatever general talk may ensue on the topic generally introduced. The thread of their tête-à-tête conversation can be taken up later as the general table-talk is suspended.
A narration or an anecdote should not be long drawn out. A dinner-guest, or a host, or a hostess, is for the time being a conversationalist, not a lecturer. It is the unwritten law of successful dinner-talk that no one person round the table should keep the floor for more than a few short sentences. The point in anecdotes should be brought out quickly, and no happening of long duration should be recounted. A guest in telling any experience can break his own narration up into conversation by drawing into his talk, or recital, others who are interested in his hobby or in his experience. Responses to toasts at banquets may be somewhat longer than the individual speeches of a single person in general table-talk; but any dinner-speaker knows that even his response runs the risk of being spoiled if extended beyond a few minutes.
There are never-failing topics of interest and untold material out of which to weave suitable dinner-talk, provided it is woven in the right way. And this weaving of talk is an art in which one may become proficient by giving it attention, just as one becomes the master of any other art by taking thought and probing into underlying principles. So in the art of talking well, even naturally fluent talkers need by faithful pains to get beyond the point where they only happen to talk. They need to attain that conscious power over conversational situations which gives them precision and grace in adapting means to ends and a fine discrimination in choosing among their resources.
A one-sided conversation between companions is deadly unless discrimination is used in the matter of listening as well as talking. For instance:
Mr. Cook: "Don't you think the plan of building a great riverside drive a splendid one?"
Miss Brown: "Yes."
Mr. Cook: "The New York drive is one of the joys of life; it gives more unalloyed pleasure than anything I know of."
Miss Brown: "Yes."
Unless under conditions suitable to listening and not to talking, Mr. Cook might feel like saying to Miss Brown, as a bright young man once said to a quiet, beautiful girl: "For heaven's sake, Miss Mary, say something, even if you have to take it back." While it is true that listening attentively is as valuable and necessary to thoroughly good conversation as is talking one's self, good listening demands the same discretion and discrimination that good talking requires. It is the business of any supposedly good conversationalist to discern when and why one must give one's companion over to soliloquy, and when and why one must not do so.
The dining-room is both an arena in which talkers fight with words upon a field of white damask, and a love-feast of discussion. If guests are neither hatefully disputatious, nor hypocritically humble, if they are generous, frank, natural, and wholly honest in word and mind, the impression they make cannot help being agreeable.
CHAPTER V TALK OF HOST AND HOSTESS AT DINNERThe Amalgam for Combining Guests—Hosts' Talk During the Quarter of an Hour before Dinner—Seating Guests to Enhance Conversation—Number of Guests for the Best Conversation—Directing the Conversation at Dinner—Drawing Guests Out—Signaling for Conversation—General and Tête-à-tête Conversation—Putting Strangers at Ease—Steering Talk Away from Offensive Topics—The Gracious Host and Hostess—An Ideal Dinner Party.
CHAPTER V THE TALK OF HOST AND HOSTESS AT DINNERSydney Smith, by all accounts a great master of the social art, said of himself: "There is one talent I think I have to a remarkable degree: there are substances in nature called amalgams, whose property it is to combine incongruous materials. Now I am a moral amalgam, and have a peculiar talent for mixing up human materials in society, however repellent their natures." "And certainly," adds his biographer, "I have seen a party composed of materials as ill-sorted as could possibly be imagined, drawn out and attracted together, till at last you would believe they had been born for each other."
But this rôle of moral amalgam is such a difficult one, it must be performed with such tact and delicacy, that hostesses are justified in employing whatever mechanical aids are at their command. In dinner-giving, the first process of amalgamation is to select congenial people. Dinners are very often flat failures conversationally because guests are invited at random. Choosing the lesser of two evils, it is better to run the risk of offending than to jeopardize the flow of talk by inviting uncongenial people. When dinners are given to return obligations it is not always easy to arrange profitably the inviting and seating of guests. But the judgment displayed just here makes or mars a dinner. A good way out of the difficulty, where hosts have obligations to people of different tastes and interests, is to give a series of dinners, and to send the invitations out at the same time. If Mrs. X. is asked to dine with Mrs. Z. the evening following the dinner to which Mrs. Z. has invited Mrs. Y., Mrs. X. is not offended.
To see that there is no failure of tact in seating guests should be the next process of amalgamation. To get the best results a great deal of care should be bestowed upon the mixture of this human salad. Guests should be seated in such a way that neighbors at table will interest each other; a brilliant guest should be placed where he may at least snatch crumbs of intellectual comfort if his near companions, tho talkative, are not conversationalists of the highest order; the loquacious guest should be put next to the usually taciturn, provided he is one who can be roused to conversation when thrown with talkable people. Otherwise one of the hosts should devote himself to the business of promoting talk with the uncommunicative but no less interesting person. A wise hostess will consider this matter of seating guests in connection with selecting and inviting them. It is, therefore, one of the subordinate and purely mechanical processes of the real art of amalgamation.
If hosts forget nothing that will tempt a guest to his comfort, they will remember above all the quarter of an hour before dinner, and will begin the actual conquest of amalgamation while their friends are assembling. By animation and cordiality they will put congenial guests in conversation with each other, and will bring forth their mines of things old and new, coining the ore into various sums, large and small, as may be needed.
In some highly cultured circles, men and women are supposed to be sufficiently educated and entertaining to require no literary or childish aids to conversation. Every dinner-giver, however, knows the device of suitable quotations, or original sayings, or clever limericks, on place-cards, and the impetus they give to conversation between dinner-companions as the guests are seated. But the responsibility of host and hostess does not end when they thus furnish dinner-companions a conversational cue. "This is why," as has been well said by Canon Ainger, "a dinner party to be good for anything, beyond the mere enjoyment of the menu, should be neither too large nor too small. Some forgotten genius laid it down that the number should never be less than that of the Graces, nor more than that of the Muses, and the latter half of the epigram may be safely accepted. Ten as a maximum, eight for perfection; for then conversation
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