The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1860-07-07
SOCIAL CONVERSATION AND ITS
PESTS

EESTSs
There goes great tact to the keeping up
of agreeable conversation, in small social
circle. The talk should be general. It is
death to all quiet, rational enjoyment, to
have the conversation broken up into two or
three seperate dialogues on different subjects,
crossing and jostling each other. and filling
the room with confusion of sounds
There should be but one topic at time,
and the transactions easy and natural-the
ball going round aud round, so that each
one that chooses, may hit it in turn, each
hitting it in the right direction, to keep it
going as agreeable. 1t is a great nuisance
to have it struck wrongly, by feeble jabs.
bringing it to the ground. when it should
have been kept going on, or by great brute
knocks, sending it off at a tangent, where
nobody cares to go.
Among the most disagreeable persons in
society, is your man of memorable facts
nothing but facts-who is always lying in
wait to spring like tiger from jungle. or
catamount from a tree, upon any trif1ing
and altogether immaterial inaccuracy of fact,
that may happen to be referred to in pass
ing, and pull the whole conversation to the
ground or drag it away into some thorny
thicket of irrelevant debate. I have often
been present where the conversation was
flowing on in full, Deep rich stream of
mingled wit and wisdom, thought and ar
gument, sense and sentimental aglow
with the warmth of imagination and the
brightness Of fancy-when slight mo-
mentary glance. in the merest passing way,
at some fact true enough for all the purpo-
ses of the illustration, would bring up the
memorable fact-man, contradicting or put
ting right his unhappy victim, with an air
as if the least want of exactitude or COM
pleteness of statement about the matter of
fact, destroyed all the force of reasoning,
all business of thought, OF sacredness of
sentiment-though it really did not come
within hundred miles of doing so. To
make a slip on the tongue and speak of the
Poor Widows three mites, would spoil for
him the effect of the most touching dis
course on the peauty of self-sacrifcing ben
eficence. 1t will not do for you to talk to
him about the baseness of treachery, if you
should happen to make mistake as TO the
value of the thirty pieces of silver Judas Is
CARROT sold his Lord for; and lie would in
stantly become irisensible to the horrors of
St. Bartholomew if you should fall into
an error as 20 the precise day of the month
on which tie massacre of the Huguenots
began.
Another social pest is your inveterate
punster, without the gift of knowing how
TO use his talents. An occasional pun, a
great sparkling one, which does not disturb
| the current of discourse. or when. there is
no particular current to be disturbed, is a
very pleasant thing. But who wants to
have an interesting conversation wrested vi
olently out of its course by ruthless pun
no matter how bright and good in itself
There's Oglethrop--he is Philadelphlan-
whatever the subject or the mood of the
company may be-he is perpetualy letting
off volley of puns, without least grace of
discretion, some of them very poor, many
of them execrable, and scarcely one of them
that does not unpleasantly interfere with the
course of the conversation.
But there are few things more wasted and
out of place, than the bright minded man in
the company of the dull; genial, juiceful
man, simple, cordial and kindly, play full and
gleesome, full of fancy and imagination, wit,
humor, fun and pathos, mingled and blend
ed, bubbling up and running over in a
bright flowing stream of grand and itch
thought, noble and sweet sentiment, beau
tiful images, lively description, sparkling
traits-all this wealth of spiritual riches
thrown away upon the green, stagnant dull
ness of the minds and hearts around him,
or worse than thrown away among swine
that trample the pearls, and turn to rend
| the unsuspicious scatter-envious medioc-
rites, imputing all to vanity, and watching
for something to cavil, or to sneer at; or
serious professors of religion, setting him
down for ight-minded triler, altogether
wanting in ''vital piety;'' or conventional
worldly billiards, polished inanities, capa-
BILE themselves of nothing but soft insipid-
tiles, or pompous platitudes, standing much
upon dignity, and supercilious by lifting
their eyebrows, as much as to say, can &C.
centric, improper person.
There is another class of men, who are a
great social nuisance-your Journalists, OF
whom my Lord Bacon somewhere says
| Something to this effect-''that it is rdic
ulous thing and fit for satire, to see what
shifts and contrivances these fo,mslities
have, what prospectives to make euperficies,
that hath only length and breadth, appear a
solid, that hath also depth" Among the
absurdities of these men, the most ridicu-
| lous (if it did not also excite ones spleen
is the way some of them have of imagin
ing they enjoy a monopoly of the gift of
| prcphesYing. Promise any scheme, advo-
cate any plan not of their devising, forecast
any results, they shake their empty heads,
as if nobody's eyes were SO good TO see in
to milestone with as theirs. There is
something very impressive in solemn ST.
lence-to those who are impressed by it
DR.. Oldham.
JAPANESE CLoTIeNG.-The rich are
clothed in silks, and the poor in coarse cot
ton stuffs. l do not remember to have seen