3.  Having thus assured yourself, cast out the fear of those who listen to you—­they are only human and will respect your words if you really have something to say and say it briefly, simply, and clearly.

4.  Have the courage to study the English language until you are master of at least its simpler forms.

Conversational Hints

Choose some subject that will prove of general interest to the whole group.  Do not explain the mechanism of a gas engine at an afternoon tea or the culture of hollyhocks at a stag party.

It is not considered good taste for a man to bare his arm in public and show scars or deformities.  It is equally bad form for him to flaunt his own woes, or the deformity of some one else’s character.  The public demands plays and stories that end happily.  All the world is seeking happiness.  They cannot long be interested in your ills and troubles.  George Cohan made himself a millionaire before he was thirty by writing cheerful plays.  One of his rules is generally applicable to conversation:  “Always leave them laughing when you say good bye.”

Dynamite the “I” out of your conversation.  Not one man in nine hundred and seven can talk about himself without being a bore.  The man who can perform that feat can achieve marvels without talking about himself, so the eternal “I” is not permissible even in his talk.

If you habitually build your conversation around your own interests it may prove very tiresome to your listener.  He may be thinking of bird dogs or dry fly fishing while you are discussing the fourth dimension, or the merits of a cucumber lotion.  The charming conversationalist is prepared to talk in terms of his listener’s interest.  If his listener spends his spare time investigating Guernsey cattle or agitating social reforms, the discriminating conversationalist shapes his remarks accordingly.  Richard Washburn Child says he knows a man of mediocre ability who can charm men much abler than himself when he discusses electric lighting.  This same man probably would bore, and be bored, if he were forced to converse about music or Madagascar.

Avoid platitudes and hackneyed phrases.  If you meet a friend from Keokuk on State Street or on Pike’s Peak, it is not necessary to observe:  “How small this world is after all!” This observation was doubtless made prior to the formation of Pike’s Peak.  “This old world is getting better every day.”  “Fanner’s wives do not have to work as hard as formerly.”  “It is not so much the high cost of living as the cost of high living.”  Such observations as these excite about the same degree of admiration as is drawn out by the appearance of a 1903-model touring car.  If you have nothing fresh or interesting you can always remain silent.  How would you like to read a newspaper that flashed out in bold headlines “Nice Weather We Are Having,” or daily gave columns to the same old material you had been reading week after week?