Manners and Social Usages - Mrs John M. E. W. Sherwood (mobile ebook reader TXT) 📗
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whatever pertains to the dinner should be removed, and the tablecloth well cleared with brush or crumb-scraper on a silver waiter,
and then the plates, glasses, spoons, and forks laid at each plate
for the dessert. If this is done every day, it adds to a common
dinner, and trains the waitress to her work.
The dinner, the dishes, and the plates should all be hot. The
ordinary plate-warmer is now superseded by something far better, in
which a hot brick is introduced. The most recherch� dinner is
spoiled if hot mutton is put on a cold plate. The silver dishes
should be heated by hot water in the kitchen, the hot dinner plates
must be forthcoming from the plate-warmer, nor must the roasts or
entr�es be allowed to cool on their way from the kitchen to the
dining-room. A servant should have a thumb napkin with which to hand
the hot dishes, and a clean towel behind the screen with which to
wipe the platters which have been sent up on the dumb-waiter. On
these trifles depend the excellence of the simple dinner.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE SMALL-TALK OF SOCIETY.
One of the cleverest questions asked lately is, “What shall I talk
about at a dinner-party?” Now if there is a woman in the world who
does not know what to talk about, is it not a very difficult thing
to tell her? One can almost as well answer such a question as, “What
shall I see out of my eyes?”
Yet our young lady is not the first person who has dilated of late
years upon the “decay of conversation,” nor the only one who has
sometimes felt the heaviness of silence descend upon her at a modern
dinner. No doubt this same great and unanswerable question has been
asked by many a traveller who, for the first time, has sat next an
Englishman of good family (perhaps even with a handle to his name),
who has answered all remarks by the proverbial but unsympathetic
“Oh!” Indeed, it is to be feared that it is a fashion for young men
nowadays to appear listless, to conceal what ideas they may happen
to have, to try to appear stupid, if they are not so, throwing all
the burden of the conversation on the lively, vivacious, good-humored girl, or the more accomplished married woman, who may be the
next neighbor. Women’s wits are proverbially quick, they talk
readily, they read and think more than the average young man of
fashion is prone to do; the result is a quick and a ready tongue.
Yet the art of keeping up a flow of agreeable and incessant small-talk, not too heavy, not pretentious or egotistical, not scandalous,
and not commonplace, is an art that is rare, and hardly to be prized
too highly.
It has been well said that there is a great difference between a
brilliant conversationalist and a ready small-talker. The former is
apt to be feared, and to produce a silence around him. We all
remember Macaulay and “his brilliant flashes of silence.” We all
know that there are talkers so distinguished that you must not ask
both of them to dinner on the same day lest they silence each other,
while we know others who bring to us just an average amount of tact,
facility of expression, geniality, and a pleasant gift at a
quotation, a bit of repartee; such a person we call a ready small-talker, a “most agreeable person,” one who frightens nobody and who
has a great popularity. Such a one has plenty of small change, very
useful, and more easy to handle than the very large cheek of the
conversationalist, who is a millionaire as to his memory, learning,
and power of rhetoric, but who cannot and will not indulge in small-talk. We respect the one; we like the other. The first point to be
considered, if one has no inspiration in regard to small-talk, would
seem to be this; try to consider what subject would most interest
the person next to you. There are people who have no other talent,
whom we never call clever, but who do possess this instinct, and who
can talk most sympathetically, while knowing scarcely anything about
the individual addressed. There are others who are deficient in this
gift, who can only say “Really” and “Indeed.” These “Really” and
“Indeed” and “Oh” people are the despair of the dinner-giver. The
gay, chatty, light-hearted people who can glide into a conversation
easily, are the best of dinner-table companions, even if they do
sometimes talk too much about the weather and such commonplaces.
It is a good plan for a shy young person, who has no confidence in
her own powers of conversation, to fortify herself with several
topics of general interest, such as the last new novel, the last
opera, the best and newest gallery of pictures, or the flower in
fashion; and to invent a formula, if words are wanting in her
organization, as to how these subjects should be introduced and
handled. Many ideas will occur to her, and she can silently arrange
them. Then she may keep these as a reserve force, using them only
when the conversation drops, or she is unexpectedly brought to the
necessity of keeping up the ball alone. Some people use this power
rather unfairly, leading the conversation up to the point where they
wish to enter; but these are not the people who need help—they can
take care of themselves. After talking awhile in a perfunctory
manner, many a shy young person has been astonished by a sudden rush
of brilliant ideas, and finds herself talking naturally and well
without effort. It is like the launching of a ship; certain blocks
of shyness and habits of mental reserve are knocked away, and the
brave frigate Small-Talk takes the water like a thing of life.
It demands much tact and cleverness to touch upon the ordinary
events of the day at a mixed dinner, because, in the first place,
nothing should be said which can hurt any one’s feelings, politics,
religion, and the stock market being generally ruled out; nor should
one talk about that which everybody knows, for such small-talk is
impertinent and irritating. No one wishes to be told that which he
already understands better, perhaps, than we do. Nor are matters of
too private a nature, such as one’s health, or one’s servants, or
one’s disappointments, still less one’s good deeds, to be talked
about.
Commonplace people also sometimes try society very much by their own
inane and wholly useless criticisms. Supposing we take up music, it
is far more agreeable to hear a person say, “How do you like
Nilsson?” than to hear him say, “I like Nilsson, and I have these
reasons for liking her.” Let that come afterwards. When a person
really qualified to discuss artists, or literary people, or artistic
points, talks sensibly and in a chatty, easy way about them, it is
the perfection of conversation; but when one wholly and utterly
incompetent to do so lays down the law on such subjects he or she
becomes a bore. But if the young person who does not know how to
talk treats these questions interrogatively, ten chances to one,
unless she is seated next an imbecile, she will get some very good
and light small-talk out of her next neighbor. She may give a modest
personal opinion, or narrate her own sensations at the opera, if she
can do so without egotism, and she should always show a desire to be
answered. If music and literature fail, let her try the subjects of
dancing, polo-playing, and lawn-tennis. A very good story was told
of a bright New York girl and a very haw-haw-stupid Englishman at a
Newport dinner. The Englishman had said “Oh,” and “Really,” and
“Quite so,” to everything which this bright girl had asked him, when
finally, very tired and very angry, she said, “Were you ever thrown
in the hunting-field, and was your head hurt?” The man turned and
gazed admiringly. “Now you’ve got me,” was the reply. And he talked
all the rest of the dinner of his croppers. Perhaps it may not be
necessary or useful often to unlock so rich a r�pertoire as this;
but it was a very welcome relief to this young lady not to do all
the talking during three hours.
After a first introduction there is, no doubt, some difficulty in
starting a conversation. The weather, the newspaper, the last
accident, the little dog, the bric-�-brac, the love of horses, etc.,
are good and unfailing resources, except that very few people have
the readiness to remember this wealth of subjects at once. To
recollect a thing apropos of the moment is the gift of ready-witted
people alone, and how many remember, hours after, a circumstance
which would have told at that particular moment of embarrassment
when one stood twiddling his hat, and another twisted her
handkerchief. The French call “l’esprit d’escalier“—the “wit of
the staircase”—the gift of remembering the good thing you might
have said in the drawing-room, just too late, as you go upstairs.
However, two new people generally overcome this moment of
embarrassment, and then some simple offer of service, such as, “Can
I get you a chair?” “Is that window too cold?” “Can I bring you some
tea?” occurs, and then the small-talk follows.
The only curious part of this subject is that so little skill is
shown by the average talker in weaving facts and incidents into his
treatment of subjects of everyday character, and that he brings so
little intelligence to bear on his discussion of them. It is not
given to every one to be brilliant and amusing, but, with a little
thought, passing events may always give rise to pleasant
conversation. We have lately been visited by a succession of
brilliant sunsets, concerning which there have been various
theories. This has been a charming subject for conversation, yet at
the average dinner we have heard but few persons mention this
interesting topic. Perhaps one is afraid to start a conversation
upon celestial scenery at a modern dinner. The things may seem too
remote, yet it would not be a bad idea.
Gossip may promote small-talk among those who are very intimate and
who live in a narrow circle. But how profoundly uninteresting is it
to an outsider!—how useless to the real man or woman of the world!
That is, unless it is literary, musical, artistic gossip. Scandal
ruins conversation, and should never be included even in a
definition of small-talk. Polite, humorous, vivacious, speculative,
dry, sarcastic, epigrammatic, intellectual, and practical people all
meet around a dinner-table, and much agreeable small-talk should be
the result. It is unfortunately true that there is sometimes a
failure in this respect. Let a hostess remember one thing: there is
no chance for vivacity of intellect if her room is too warm; her
flowers and her guests will wilt together. There are those also who
prefer her good dishes to talking, and the old gentleman in Punch
who rebuked his lively neighbor for talking while there were “such
entr�es coming in” has his counterparts among ourselves.
Some shy talkers have a sort of empirical way of starting a subject
with a question like this: “Do you know the meaning and derivation
of the term ‘bric-�-brac?’” “Do you believe in ghosts?” “What do you
think of a ladies’ club?” “Do you believe in chance?” “Is there more
talent displayed in learning the violin than in playing a first-rate
game of chess?” etc.
These are intellectual conundrums, and may be repeated indefinitely
where the person questioned is disposed to answer. With a flow of
good spirits and the feeling of case which comes from a knowledge of
society, such
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