and in the best-selected
company one may sit beside a stupid man--that is, stupid for the purpose
of a 'tete-a-tete'. But this is not the worst of it. No one can talk well
without an audience; no one is stimulated to say bright things except by
the attention and questioning and interest of other minds. There is
little inspiration in side talk to one or two. Nobody ought to go to a
dinner who is not a good listener, and, if possible, an intelligent one.
To listen with a show of intelligence is a great accomplishment. It is
not absolutely essential that there should be a great talker or a number
of good talkers at a dinner if all are good listeners, and able to "chip
in" a little to the general talk that springs up. For the success of the
dinner does not necessarily depend upon the talk being brilliant, but it
does depend upon its being general, upon keeping the ball rolling round
the table; the old-fashioned game becomes flat when the balls all
disappear into private pockets. There are dinners where the object seems
to be to pocket all the balls as speedily as possible. We have learned
that that is not the best game; the best game is when you not only depend
on the carom, but in going to the cushion before you carom; that is to
say, including the whole table, and making things lively. The hostess
succeeds who is able to excite this general play of all the forces at the
table, even using the silent but not non-elastic material as cushions, if
one may continue the figure. Is not this, O brothers and sisters, an evil
under the sun, this dinner as it is apt to be conducted? Think of the
weary hours you have given to a rite that should be the highest social
pleasure! How often when a topic is started that promises well, and might
come to something in a general exchange of wit and fancy, and some one
begins to speak on it, and speak very well, too, have you not had a lady
at your side cut in and give you her views on it--views that might be
amusing if thrown out into the discussion, but which are simply
impertinent as an interruption! How often when you have tried to get a
"rise" out of somebody opposite have you not had your neighbor cut in
across you with some private depressing observation to your next
neighbor! Private talk at a dinner-table is like private chat at a parlor
musicale, only it is more fatal to the general enjoyment. There is a
notion that the art of conversation, the ability to talk well, has gone
out. That i