The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1875-04-02
The Art of Conversation.

The secret of a great talker is in his
courage and presence of mind. The
god of gable helps those who help
themselves to our ears and time. o
tongue-tied friend what fool you are,
with your stammering and your rush OF
blood to the cheeks, your mistimed
modesty and miserable struggles to be
accurate! Shall we tell you little an
ecdote? The scene is library. The
subject is an edition of the Greek tes-
lament just put out. The interlocutors
are two gentlemen who have written
for newspapers until they have forgot
| ten all their Greek, snd another gentle
man just from Oxford and dreadfully
! fresh in his Alpha Beta- Gamma. He
at once points out an error in the text
"a wrong particle and not of the least
consequence, so far as the salvation OF
the world is concerned. He wakes in
| dignant at the criminal carelessness OF
proof-readers. The two also wax indig-
nant. GOOD heavens ~ they cry,
"what are we coming too" So the Ok
ford man goes away, with great re-
spect for their exegetical powers, and
then-they look into each others faces
and laugh. lawful carelessness, they
say as they smoke over it-"B asker-
vile would never have rlade a typo
like that ;,zaRd then they smoke and
laugh again.SThere is nothing like
assuming erudition, though you have
it not. Besides. it is usually safe,
especially in this country, to take the
ignorance of the other party for
granted, unless you happen to know
your man too well to try it on. If you
are a fool, you will sometimes get
caught; but, being fool, you will not
feel it. Accurate knowledge of any
thing is the rarest acquisition of this
superficial time. Don't be scared !
When we are exceedingly dignified
and moral, we express great contempt
for mere praters, ami speak as if gem
eral massacre of the whole crowd of
them would shove us several thousand
leagues toward the millennium. Can
anything be more embarrassing than
the awful silence which sometimes falls
down like an enormous wet blanket
upon a company, left to look idiotically
in each others face, and horribly to
hem and haw? Your part of the work
is but small-only a "Ye-e-es" dropped
here and there to keep things bobbing.
sweet the tinkling cymboll Is it at
dinner? Is not any noise better than
a clatter of knives and forks? Or, if
it be at tea, iingle-iangle of the spoon?
Or in the evening circle, better by far
than the thrums of the piano and the
chirp of the family soprano? So
that when we are sometimes forewarned
that Miss Multiglott is coming" and
that she "wiA talk US to death. we are
not in the least frightened, but rather
consoled. We like her simple, honest
chat. She will tell US about our neigh
bors. And we like dearly to know all
about our neighbors. She will make
matters lively. She will sprinkle Wor-
cestershire sauce upon the funeral
baked meats, and put little taste into
the cold tea of young lady-lisping. It
is so pleasant to loll back in ones chair
and be all receptivity! And the best of
it is that We shall really be told some
thing which we did not know before :;
for 1t is astonishing what queer, odd
things these petticoAted fetchers and
carriers pick up in their constant trots.