Manners and Social Usages by Mrs John M. E. W. Sherwood (great book club books TXT) 📖

knives and forks, and

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ordinary plate-warmer is now superseded by something far better, in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