When you are going into a company it is of advantage to run over in your mind, beforehand, the topics of conversation which you intend to bring up, and to arrange the manner in which you will introduce them.  You may also refresh your general ideas upon the subjects, and run through the details of the few very brief and sprightly anecdotes which you are going to repeat; and also have in readiness one or two brilliant phrases or striking words which you will use upon occasion.  Further than this it is dangerous to make much preparation.  If you commit to memory long speeches with the design of delivering them, your conversation will become formal, and you will be negligent of the observations of your company.  It will tend also to impair that habit of readiness and quickness which it is necessary to cultivate in order to be agreeable.

You must be very careful that you do not repeat the same anecdotes or let off the same good things twice to the same person.  Richard Sharpe, the “conversationist” as he was called in London, kept a regular book of entry, in which he recorded where and before whom he had uttered severally his choice sayings.  The celebrated Bubb Doddington prepared a manuscript book of original faceti’, which he was accustomed to read over when he expected any distinguished company, trusting to an excellent memory to preserve him from iteration.

If you accompany your wife to a ball, be very careful not to dance with her.

The lady who gives a ball dances but little, and always selects her partners.

If you are visited by any company whom you wish to drive away forever, or any friends whom you wish to alienate, entertain them by reading to them your own productions.

If you ask a lady to dance, and she is engaged, do not prefer a request for her hand at the next set after that, because she may be engaged for that also, and for many more; and you would have to run through a long list of interrogatories, which would be absurd and awkward.

A gentleman must not expect to shine in society, even the most frivolous, without a considerable stock of knowledge.  He must be acquainted with facts rather than principles.  He needs no very sublime sciences; but a knowledge of biography and literary history, of the fine arts, as painting, engraving, music, etc., will be of great service to him.

Some men are always seen in the streets with an umbrella under their arm.  Such a foible may be permitted to such men as Mr. Southey and the Duke of Wellington:  but in ordinary men it looks like affectation, and the monotony is exceedingly boring to the sight.

To applaud at a play is not fashionable; but it is respectable to evince by a gentle concurrence of one finger and a hand that you perceive and enjoy a good stroke in an actor.

If you are at a concert, or a private musical party, never beat time with your feet or your cane.  Nothing is more unpleasant.