CHAPTER IV
WHAT SHOULD GUESTS TALK ABOUT AT DINNER?
"Good talk is not to be had for the asking. Humors must first be accorded in a kind of overture for prolog; hour, company, and circ.u.mstances be suited; and then at a fit juncture, the subject, the quarry of two heated minds, spring up like a deer out of the wood."
Stevenson knew as well as Alice in Wonderland that something has to open the conversation. "You can"t even drink a bottle of wine without opening it," argued Alice; and every dinner guest, during the quarter of an hour before dinner, has felt the sententiousness of her remark. Someone in writing about this critical period so conversationally difficult has contended that no person in his senses would think of wasting good talk in the drawing-room before dinner, but Professor Mahaffy thinks otherwise: "In the very forefront there stares us in the face that awkward period which even the gentle Menander notes as the worst possible for conversation, the short time during which people are a.s.sembling, and waiting for the announcement of dinner. If the witty man were not usually a selfish person, who will not exhibit his talent without the reward of full and leisurely appreciation, this is the real moment to show his powers. A brilliant thing said at the very start which sets people laughing, and makes them forget that they are waiting, may alter the whole complexion of the party, may make the silent and distant people feel themselves drawn into the sympathy of common merriment, and thaw the iciness which so often fetters Anglo-Saxon society. But as this faculty is not given to many, so the average man may content himself with having something ready to tell, and this, if possible, in answer to the usual question exprest or implied: Is there any news this afternoon? There are few days that the daily paper will not afford to the intelligent critic something ridiculous either in style or matter which has escaped the ordinary public; some local event, nay, even some local tragedy, may suggest a topic not worth more than a few moments of attention, which will secure the interest of minds vacant, and perhaps more hungry to be fed than their bodies. Here then, if anywhere in the whole range of conversation, the man or woman who desires to be agreeable may venture to think beforehand, and bring with them something ready, merely as the first kick or starting point to make the evening run smoothly." However this may be, it is only with that communicative feeling which comes after eating and drinking that talkers warm up to discriminating discussion; and in the drawing-room just before dinner, one can scarcely expect the conversation to turn on anything but trifles.
At the moment a man presents his arm to the woman he is to take in to dinner, he must have something ready in the way of a remark, for if he goes in in silence, he is lost. There are a thousand and one nothings he may say at this time. I know a clever man who talks interestingly for fifteen minutes about the old-fashioned practice of offering a woman the hand to lead her in to dinner, and whether or not that custom was more courteous and graceful than our modern way of proceeding.
The question is often asked, "What should guests talk about at a dinner?" I restrict my interrogation to guests, because there is a distinction between the directing of a dinner-guest"s conversation and the guiding of the talk by host or hostess into necessary or interesting channels. Dinners, especially in diplomatic circles, are as often given to bring about dexterously certain ends in view as they are given for mere pleasure; and when this is the case it is necessary as well as gracious to steer conversation along the paths that it should go. A guest"s first duty is to his dinner-companion, the person with whom, according to the prearranged plan of the hostess, he enters the dining-room and by whom he finds himself seated at table. His next duty is to his hosts. He has also an abstract conversational duty to his next nearest neighbor at table. It is every guest"s duty, too, to keep his ears open and be ready to join in general talk should the host or hostess attempt to draw all their guests into any general discussion.
The best answer to the question, "What should guests at dinner talk about?" is, anything and everything, provided the talk is tinctured with tact, discretion, and discrimination. To one"s dinner-companion, if he happens to be a familiar acquaintance, one can even forget to taboo dress, disease, and domestics. One might likewise, with discretion, set at liberty the usually forbidden talk of "shop," on condition that such intimate conversation is to one"s dinner-companion alone and is not dragged into the general flights of the table-talk. While one talks to one"s dinner-companion in a low voice, however, it needs nice discrimination not to seem to talk under one"s breath, or to say anything to a left-hand neighbor which would not be appropriate for a right-hand neighbor to hear. When in general talk, the habit some supposedly well-bred persons have of glancing furtively at any one guest to interrogate telepathically another"s opinion of some remark is bad taste beyond the power of censure or the possibility of forgiveness.
At large, formal dinners, on the order of banquets, it would be impossible for all guests to include a host or hostess in their conversational groups from any and every part of the table; only those guests seated near them can do this. But at small, informal dinners all guests should, whenever possible, consider it their duty to direct much of their conversation to their host and hostess. I have seen guests at small dinners of no more than six or eight covers go through the various courses of a three hours" dining, ignoring their host and hostess in the entire table-talk, while conversing volubly with others.
There is something more due a host and hostess than mere greetings on entering and leave-takings on departing. If the dinner-party is so large that all guests cannot show them at the table the attention due them, the delinquent ones can at least seek an opportunity in the drawing-room, after guests have left the dining-room, to pay their host and hostess the proper courtesy. Hosts should never be made to feel that it is to their cook they owe their distinction, and to their table alone that guests pay visits.
To say that the dominant note in table-talk should be light and humorous is going too far; but conversation between dinner-companions should tend strongly to the humorous, to the light, to the small change of ideas.
There should be an adroit intermixing of light and serious talk. I noted once with keen interest a shrewd mingling of serious talk and small talk at a dinner given to a distinguished German scientist.
A clever woman of my acquaintance found herself the one selected to entertain at table this foreigner and scholar. When she was presented in the drawing-room to the eminent man who was to take her in to dinner, her hostess opened the conversation by informing the noted guest that his new acquaintance, just that morning, had had conferred upon her the degree of doctor of philosophy, which was the reason she had been a.s.signed as dinner-companion to so profound a man. The foreigner followed the conversational cue, recounting to his companion his observations on the number of American women seeking higher education, _et cetera_. Such a conversational situation was little conducive to small talk; but on the way from the drawing-room to the dining-table, this clever woman directed the talk into light vein by a.s.suring the scholar and diplomat that there was nothing dangerous about her even if she did possess a university degree; that she would neither bite nor philosophize on all occasions; that she was quite as full of life and frolic as if she had never seen a university. You can imagine the effect of this vivacity upon the profoundest of men, and you can see how this clever woman"s ability at small talk made a comrade of a notable academician. As the dinner progressed the talk between these two wavered from jest to earnest in a most charming manner. Apropos of a late book on some serious subject not expurgated for babes and sucklings, but written for thinking men and women, the German scientist asked if he might present his companion with a copy, provided he promised to glue carefully together the pages unfit for frolicking feminine minds. Two days later she received the book with some of the margins pasted--which pages, of course, were the first ones she read.
When making an attempt to sparkle in small talk, dinner-guests should remember that the line of demarcation between light talk and buffoonery may become dangerously delicate. One can talk lightly, but nicely; while buffoonery is just what the lexicographers define it to be: "Amusing others by clownish tricks and by commonplace pleasantries." Gentle dulness ever loved a joke; and the fact that very often humorists, paid so highly in literature to perform, will not play a single conversational trick, is the best proof that they have the good sense to vote their hosts and companions capable of being entertained by something n.o.bler than mere pleasantry. "When wit," says Sydney Smith, "is combined with sense and information; when it is in the hands of one who can use it and not abuse it (and one who can despise it); who can be witty and something more than witty; who loves decency and good nature ten thousand times better than wit,--wit is then a beautiful and delightful part of conversation."
Opinions as to what good nature is would perhaps vary. "You may be good-natured, sir," said Boswell to Doctor Johnson, "but you are not good-humored." The speech of men and women is diverse and variously characteristic. All people say "good morning," but no two of G.o.d"s creatures say it alike. Their words range from a grunt to gushing exuberance; and one is as objectionable as the other. Even weighty subjects can be talked about in tones of badinage and good breeding.
Plato in his wonderful conversations always gave his subject a fringe of graceful wit, but beneath the delicate sh.e.l.l there was invariably a hard nut to be cracked. If good nature above all is sincere, it will escape being gushing. The hypocrisy which says, "My dear Mrs. So-and-so, I"m perfectly delighted to see you; do sit right down on this bent pin!" is not good nature; it is pure balderdash.
Thoughtful dinner-guests take pains not to monopolize the conversation.
They bring others of the company into their talk, giving them opportunities of talking in their turn, and listening themselves while they do so: "You, Mr. Brown, will agree with me in this"; or, "Mr.
Black, you have had more experience in such cases than I have; what is your opinion?" The perfection of this quality of conversational charm consists in that rare gift, the art of drawing others out, and is as valuable and graceful in guests as in hosts.
The French have some dinner-table conventions which to us seem strange.
At any small dining of eight or ten people the talk is always supposed to be general. The person who would try to begin a _tete-a-tete_ conversation with the guest sitting next to him at table would soon find out his mistake. General conversation is as much a part of the repast as the viands; and wo to the unwary mortals who, tempted by short distances, start to chatter among themselves. A diner-out must be able to hold his own in a conversation in which all sorts of distant, as well as near, contributors take part. Of course, this implies small dinners; but English-speaking people, even in small gatherings, do not attempt general conversation to such an extent. They consider it a difficult matter to accomplish the diagonal feat of addressing guests at too great a distance.
Dinner-companions, however, should be alert to others of the conversational group. A guest can as easily lead the talk into general paths as can a host or hostess. Indeed, it is gracious for him to do this, tho it is not his duty. The duty lies entirely with a host or hostess. At any time through the dinner a guest can help to make conversation general: If some one has just told in a low voice, to a right-hand or left-hand neighbor alone, some clever impersonal thing, or a good anecdote, or some interesting happening suitable to general table-talk, the guest can get the attention of all present by addressing some one at the furthest point of the table from him: "Mr. Snow, Miss Frost has just told me something which will interest you, I know, and perhaps all of us: Miss Frost, please tell Mr. Snow about," _et cetera_.
Miss Frost, then, speaking a little louder in order that Mr. Snow may hear, engages the attention of the entire table. The moment any one round the table thus invites the attention of the whole dinner-group, dinner-companions should drop instantly their private chats and join in whatever general talk may ensue on the topic generally introduced. The thread of their _tete-a-tete_ conversation can be taken up later as the general table-talk is suspended.
A narration or an anecdote should not be long drawn out. A dinner-guest, or a host, or a hostess, is for the time being a conversationalist, not a lecturer. It is the unwritten law of successful dinner-talk that no one person round the table should keep the floor for more than a few short sentences. The point in anecdotes should be brought out quickly, and no happening of long duration should be recounted. A guest in telling any experience can break his own narration up into conversation by drawing into his talk, or recital, others who are interested in his hobby or in his experience. Responses to toasts at banquets may be somewhat longer than the individual speeches of a single person in general table-talk; but any dinner-speaker knows that even his response runs the risk of being spoiled if extended beyond a few minutes.
There are never-failing topics of interest and untold material out of which to weave suitable dinner-talk, provided it is woven in the right way. And this weaving of talk is an art in which one may become proficient by giving it attention, just as one becomes the master of any other art by taking thought and probing into underlying principles.
So in the art of talking well, even naturally fluent talkers need by faithful pains to get beyond the point where they only happen to talk.
They need to attain that conscious power over conversational situations which gives them precision and grace in adapting means to ends and a fine discrimination in choosing among their resources.
A one-sided conversation between companions is deadly unless discrimination is used in the matter of listening as well as talking.
For instance:
_Mr. Cook_: "Don"t you think the plan of building a great riverside drive a splendid one?"
_Miss Brown_: "Yes."
_Mr. Cook_: "The New York drive is one of the joys of life; it gives more unalloyed pleasure than anything I know of."
_Miss Brown_: "Yes."
Unless under conditions suitable to listening and not to talking, Mr.
Cook might feel like saying to Miss Brown, as a bright young man once said to a quiet, beautiful girl: "For heaven"s sake, Miss Mary, say something, even if you have to take it back." While it is true that listening attentively is as valuable and necessary to thoroughly good conversation as is talking one"s self, good listening demands the same discretion and discrimination that good talking requires. It is the business of any supposedly good conversationalist to discern when and why one must give one"s companion over to soliloquy, and when and why one must not do so.
The dining-room is both an arena in which talkers fight with words upon a field of white damask, and a love-feast of discussion. If guests are neither hatefully disputatious, nor hypocritically humble, if they are generous, frank, natural, and wholly honest in word and mind, the impression they make cannot help being agreeable.
CHAPTER V
TALK OF HOST AND HOSTESS AT DINNER
_The Amalgam for Combining Guests--Hosts" Talk During the Quarter of an Hour before Dinner--Seating Guests to Enhance Conversation--Number of Guests for the Best Conversation--Directing the Conversation at Dinner--Drawing Guests Out--Signaling for Conversation--General and_ Tete-a-tete _Conversation--Putting Strangers at Ease--Steering Talk Away from Offensive Topics--The Gracious Host and Hostess--An Ideal Dinner Party._
CHAPTER V
THE TALK OF HOST AND HOSTESS AT DINNER
Sydney Smith, by all accounts a great master of the social art, said of himself: "There is one talent I think I have to a remarkable degree: there are substances in nature called amalgams, whose property it is to combine incongruous materials. Now I am a moral amalgam, and have a peculiar talent for mixing up human materials in society, however repellent their natures." "And certainly," adds his biographer, "I have seen a party composed of materials as ill-sorted as could possibly be imagined, drawn out and attracted together, till at last you would believe they had been born for each other."
But this role of moral amalgam is such a difficult one, it must be performed with such tact and delicacy, that hostesses are justified in employing whatever mechanical aids are at their command. In dinner-giving, the first process of amalgamation is to select congenial people. Dinners are very often flat failures conversationally because guests are invited at random. Choosing the lesser of two evils, it is better to run the risk of offending than to jeopardize the flow of talk by inviting uncongenial people. When dinners are given to return obligations it is not always easy to arrange profitably the inviting and seating of guests. But the judgment displayed just here makes or mars a dinner. A good way out of the difficulty, where hosts have obligations to people of different tastes and interests, is to give a series of dinners, and to send the invitations out at the same time. If Mrs. X. is asked to dine with Mrs. Z. the evening following the dinner to which Mrs. Z. has invited Mrs. Y., Mrs. X. is not offended.
To see that there is no failure of tact in seating guests should be the next process of amalgamation. To get the best results a great deal of care should be bestowed upon the mixture of this human salad. Guests should be seated in such a way that neighbors at table will interest each other; a brilliant guest should be placed where he may at least s.n.a.t.c.h crumbs of intellectual comfort if his near companions, tho talkative, are not conversationalists of the highest order; the loquacious guest should be put next to the usually taciturn, provided he is one who can be roused to conversation when thrown with talkable people. Otherwise one of the hosts should devote himself to the business of promoting talk with the uncommunicative but no less interesting person. A wise hostess will consider this matter of seating guests in connection with selecting and inviting them. It is, therefore, one of the subordinate and purely mechanical processes of the real art of amalgamation.
If hosts forget nothing that will tempt a guest to his comfort, they will remember above all the quarter of an hour before dinner, and will begin the actual conquest of amalgamation while their friends are a.s.sembling. By animation and cordiality they will put congenial guests in conversation with each other, and will bring forth their mines of things old and new, coining the ore into various sums, large and small, as may be needed.
In some highly cultured circles, men and women are supposed to be sufficiently educated and entertaining to require no literary or childish aids to conversation. Every dinner-giver, however, knows the device of suitable quotations, or original sayings, or clever limericks, on place-cards, and the impetus they give to conversation between dinner-companions as the guests are seated. But the responsibility of host and hostess does not end when they thus furnish dinner-companions a conversational cue. "This is why," as has been well said by Canon Ainger, "a dinner party to be good for anything, beyond the mere enjoyment of the menu, should be neither too large nor too small. Some forgotten genius laid it down that the number should never be less than that of the Graces, nor more than that of the Muses, and the latter half of the epigram may be safely accepted. Ten as a maximum, eight for perfection; for then conversation can be either dialog, or may spread and become general, and the host or hostess has to direct no more than can profitably be watched over. It is the dinner party of sixteen to twenty that is so terrible a risk.... Good general conversation at table among a few is now rather the exception, from the common habit of crowding our rooms or our tables and getting rid of social obligations as if they were commercial debts. Indeed many of our young people have so seldom heard a general conversation that they grow up in the belief that their only duty in society will be to talk to one man or woman at a time. So serious are the results of the fashion of large dinner parties.
For really good society no dinner-table should be too large to exclude general conversation." At a banquet of thirty or forty, for instance, general talk is impossible. At such banquets toasts and responses take the place of general talk; but at small dinners it is gracious for a host and hostess to lead the conversation often into general paths.
Ignoring a host and hostess through the various courses of a three hours" dining, which I have already mentioned, can as easily be the fault of the host and hostess themselves as it can be due to inattention on the part of guests. A host and hostess should no more ignore any one guest than any one guest should ignore them; and if they sit at their own table, as I have sometimes seen hosts and hostesses do, a.s.suming no different function in the conversation than if they were the most thoughtless guest at the table of another, they cannot expect their own guests to be anything but petrified, however instinctively social.
The conversational duty of a host and hostess is, therefore, to the entire company of people a.s.sembled at their board, as well as especially to their right-hand neighbors, the guests of honor. It is the express function of a host and hostess to see that each guest takes active part in general table-talk. Leading the talk into general paths and drawing guests out thus become identical. It is this promoting of general conversation which is the backbone of all good talk. Many people, however, do not need to be drawn out. Mr. Mahaffy cautions: "Above all, the particular guest of the occasion, or the person best known as a wit or story-teller, should not be pressed or challenged at the outset, as if he were manifestly exploited by the company." Such a guest can safely be left quite to himself, unless he is a stranger. As drawing out the people by whom one finds one"s self surrounded in society will be treated in a forthcoming essay, I shall not deal with it here further than to tell how a famous pun of Charles Lamb"s gave a thoughtful host not only the means of swaying the conversation of the entire table to a subject of universal interest, but as well the means of drawing out a well-informed yet timid girl. Guiding his talk with his near neighbor into a discussion of the _pros_ and _cons_ of punning, he attracted the attention of all his guests by addressing some one at the further end of the table: "Mr. White, we were speaking of punning as a form of wit, and it reminded me that I have heard Miss Black, at your left, repeat a clever pun of Charles Lamb"s--a retort he made when some one accused him of punning. Miss Black, can you give us that pun? I"m afraid I"ve forgotten it." In order that her host and all the table might hear her distinctly, Miss Black pitched her voice a little higher than in talk with her near neighbors and responded quickly: "I"ll try to remember it, yes:
""If I were punish-ed For every pun I"ve shed, I should not have a puny shed Wherein to lay my punished head!""
Thus Miss Black was not only drawn out, she was also drawn _into_ the conversation and became the center of an extended general discussion on the very impersonal and interesting subject of punning. As the talk on punning diverged, the conversation gradually fell back into private chats between dinner-companions.
A host or hostess will know intuitively when the conversation has remained _tete-a-tete_ long enough, and will once more make it general.
When guests pay due attention to their host and hostess, the talk will naturally be carried into general channels, especially where guests are seated a little distance away. Even in general conversation a good story, if short and crisp, is no doubt a good thing; but when either a host or a guest does nothing but "anecdote" from the soup to the coffee, story-telling becomes tiresome. Anecdotes should not be dragged in by the neck, but should come naturally as the talk about many different subjects may suggest them.
It is the duty of the host and hostess, and certainly their pleasure, to make conversational paths easy for any strangers in a strange land. It does not follow that a host and hostess are always well acquainted with all their guests. There are instances where they have never even met some of them. An invitation is extended to the house-guest of a friend; or some person of distinction temporarily in the vicinity is invited, the formality of previous calls being waived for this reason or that.
Unless a hostess can feel perfectly safe in delegating to some one else the entertaining of a stranger, it is wise to seat this guest as near to herself as possible, even tho he is not made a guest of honor. She can thus learn something about her new acquaintance and put the stranger on an equal conversational footing with the guests who know each other well.