d talker is always welcome, but I often wonder why Americans, who
generally are so quick to improve opportunity, and are noted for their
freedom from traditional conventionalisms, do not make a more
systematic use of the general love of good conversation. Anyone who is
a witty conversationalist, with a large fund of anecdote, is sure to be
asked by every dinner host to help to entertain the guests, but if the
company be large the favorite can be enjoyed by only a few, and those
who are too far away to hear, or who are just near enough to hear a
part but not all, are likely to feel aggrieved. They cannot hear what
is amusing the rest, while the talk elsewhere prevents their talking as
they would if there were no interruptions. A raconteur generally
monopolizes half the company, and leaves the other half out in the
cold. This might be avoided if talkers were engaged to entertain the
whole company during dinner, as pianists are now sometimes engaged to
play to them after dinner. Or, the entertainment might be varied by
engaging a good professional reciter to reproduce literary gems, comic
or otherwise. I am sure the result would bring more general
satisfaction to the guests than the present method of leaving them to
entertain themselves. Chinese employ singing girls; Japanese, geishas
to talk, sing or dance. The ideal would here again seem to be an
amalgamation of East and West.

It is difficult for a mixed crowd to be always agreeable, even in the
congenial atmosphere of a good feast, unless the guests have been
selected with a view to their opinions rather than to their social
standing. Place a number of people whose ideas are common, with a
difference, around a well-spread table and there will be no lack of
good, earnest, instructive conversation. Most men and women can talk
well if they have the right sort of listeners. If the hearer is
unsympathetic the best talker becomes dumb. Hosts who remember this
will always be appreciated.

As a rule, a dinner conversation is seldom worth remembering, which is
a pity. Man, the most sensible of all animals, can talk nonsense
better than all the rest of his tribe. Perhaps the flow of words may
be as steady as the eastward flow of the Yang-tse-Kiang in my own
country, but the memory only retains a recollection of a vague,
undefined--what? The conversation like the flavors provided by the
cooks has been evanescent. Why should not hostesses make as much
effort to s