The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1879-10-09
Good Takers. +,


The first requisite of good talker is
genuine social sympathy. man may
not say out of some selfish motive, or
some motive of personal policy, Go to!
l will become good tafker. He must
enjoy society, and havea genuine desire
to serve and please. We have all seen
the talker who talks for his own pur-
poses, or talks to please himself. He is
the welfknown -cnaracter-the talking
bore. The talker who gets himself up
for show, who plans his conversations for
an evening, and Grams for them, becomes
intolerable. He lectures; he does not
converse; for there is no power of
talker so delightful as that of exciting
others to talk, and listening to what his
own inspiring and suggestive utterances
have called FORTH Genuine social SYM
pathy and a hearty desire to please
others are necessary to produce such
taker as this, and no other is toierable.
Social sympathy il q natural gift, and
there is combination of other gifts
which constitute what might be called
esprit, that are very essential to good
talker. This combination includes in
dividuality, tact and wit-the talents,
aptitudes, and peculiar characteristic
charm which enables man to use the
materials of conversation in an engaging
way, entirely his own; for every. good
talker has his own way of saying good
things, as well as of managing converse
tion based on his esprit.
x Yet it Is true that there are no good
takers who depend upon their natural
gifts and such material as they get in
the usual interchanges of society. For
the materials OF conversation, we must
draw upon knowledge. No man can be
n thoroughly good talker who does not
know great deal. Social sympathy
and the gift of gabp 60 but q short
way toward producing good conversation,
though We hear great deal of this kind
of talk among the young. Sound and
exact know ledge is the very basis of
good conversation. To know a great
many things we'll is to have, in hand the
best and most reliable materials of good
conversation. There is nothing like
abundance and .ekactness acknowledge
with which to furnish, a talker. Next
to this, perhaps, is familiarity with
polite literature. The faculty of quot
ng from the best authors is very de-
sirable one. Facts are valuable, and
tnou8nts perhaps are quite as yaMaDie,
especially as they are more stimulating
to the conversation of group. The
talker who deals alone in facts is quite
likely to have the talk all to himself,
while the man who is familiar with
thoughts and ideas, as he has found
hem embodied in literature, becomes a
stimulator of thought and conversation
in those around him Familiarity with
knowledge and with the products of
literary art cannot be too much insisted
on as. the furniture of good converse
ton. t'. Z" s-'I3ah
Beyond this, the good talker must be
familiar with the current thought and
events of his time There should be no
movement in politics, religion and So
ciety that the good talker is not familiar
with. Indeed, the man who undertakes
to talk at all must know what is upper
most in mems minds, and be able to add
/ to the general fund of thought and
knowledge, and respond to the popular
inquiry and the popular disposition for
discussion. The man who undertakes to
be good talker should never bo caught
mapping concerning any current topic
of immediate public interest