[Manners and social customs 775]

SUBJECTS OF CONVERSATION.

No one can tell another person what to talk about.  Advice on that subject is valueless.  There are some things we may do, however, to make ourselves agreeable in conversation.  We may study the art of expressing ourselves clearly,—­saying what we wish to say without circumlocution.  Some people seem to begin in the middle of a subject and talk both ways.

Avoid personalities in your conversation.  Don’t talk about yourself; nobody is interested in your personal perplexities and troubles.  Don’t recite your “symptoms” nor tell what the doctor says, nor what diet he has prescribed.  Nothing, positively nothing, is so tiresome.  Don’t indulge in animadversions upon the absent, nor make sarcastic remarks about them.

Try to discover some subject in which your companion is interested, and get him to talking.  Then show yourself a good listener.  A woman may get the reputation of being bright and clever if she will simply show herself a good listener.  To do this, she must give her attention to the person who is talking.  She must seem interested.  Her eyes must not wander around the room; she must not take up picture or book and glance over it; her questions must be intelligent and to the point.  Then, unless the speaker is a well-known bore, she need never suffer under the imputation of being neglected in society, and she will be thought courteous and intelligent.

Discourtesies.—­To interrupt a speaker, to take the words out of his mouth and finish the sentence for him, to broach a new topic, irrelevant to that in hand, unless the latter is in danger of leading to thin conversational ice,—­all these are discourtesies.

To yawn while listening to anyone; to show lack of interest in a story or anecdote that is being told, or let the attention wander, is marked impoliteness.  We are not to remind a speaker that his story is an old one, or that he has told it before.

Some Things to Avoid.—­A man should avoid raving over the perfections, the beauty or chic of one woman to another.  He shouldn’t talk golf to one who doesn’t know the language of the game, nor discourse on music to the unmusical.  Above all, he shouldn’t undertake to entertain the whole company, nor introduce a topic in which he only is interested or informed.  The more serious questions of life are barred in society; people wish to be amused, not instructed.  An inveterate talker, especially one of a didactic turn, is a bore.  So is the man who puts a hobby through its paces.  Avoid exaggerations in conversation, also extravagances, such as “beastly this” or “awfully that,” also avoid over emphasis.  Don’t talk in italics.

[776 Mothers’ remedies]

The Speaking Voice.—­A clear, distinct enunciation should be cultivated.  The voice need not—­should not—­be raised above the ordinary conversational level to make one perfectly understood, if only one speaks clearly.  This is something that can be cultivated.  So also a discrimination in the use of words, so that which most nearly expresses the meaning of the speaker comes to him readily.