The St. Charles herald. [volume] (Hahnville, La.) 1873-1993, 1889-04-20
~sA=aass 49,
NO. 49,.
ABOUT CONVERSATION.
Truth, Good Sense, Humor and Wit Should
Be It's Four Chief Ingredients.

Truth, Good Sense, Humor and Wit Should
Be Its Four Chief Ingredients.
According to Sir William Temple
the four ingredients of conversation
should be truth, good sense, good
humor and wit To this l would add
the knowledge of what not to say, and
the faculty of listening. There is a
story of a great talker who chatted in
cessantly to a man he met at an even
ing party. The next day common
friend asked him how he liked his new
acquaintance. 1.-The most intelligent
person / have met for along time,''
cried the talker. II thought you
would like him." was the dry re-
joinder: "he is deaf and dumb"
Conversation, in the sense in which
l use the word, is not monologue, nor
is it even dialogue. it is the inter-
change of ideas among a number of
people who are assembled together for
social intercourse and amusement
The sparks do not fly until the flint
and steel have been struck together.
The attrition of one mind upon another
whets them both. The best conversa-
tionalist is he who, while contributing
his fair quota to the general entertain
ment, at the same time extracts the
most from other peoples stores OF wit
and knowledge. The man whose mind
bwholly dominated by his own ideas
may be aready speaker, but he will not
DE good talker. or an agreeable COM
panion, nor even a persuasive advo-
seate. A drawing-room full of men
and women is not a debating forum
wherein each is forever seeking to
trip up an unwarys antagonist. He is
but an underlined mitn who turns the
dining-table or the fireside or the
smoking-room into an arena for the
display of his controversial talents.
A self-conceited and lrrepressible
talker viii be as Ineffective from a
conversational point of view as ashy
man or,even stupid one; people will
be bored by his tedious harangues, and
viii breathe more freely when the in
cnbus of his overpowering egotism is
removed. -, !,
All men, and especially young men.
should be modest in conversations It
is very wholesome for asyoung fellow
to associate &c OCCASIONALLY with persons. :
who are older sthan, himself. It will
not latter his vanity to learn--as learn
he will, sooner or later-that the crude
notions which had seemed to him quite
a glorious revelation, are by no means
inspired, or even. roriginal, but. have !,
been all we'll sifted, and for the most
part decisively rejected, bysmen of an
experience a good deal wider:tha his
own; but it will lead him to form a
more lowly estimate of himself and
his abilities-and that will do him no
harm. LET us remember, gentle--
menu said DR.. Whewell once to tines
members, OF his college," that we ares
n OF infallible-not even the youngest
of us. rst.-i,,s --T
Be easy and unconstrained-as mer.
ry and cheerful as your nature will LETT :
you be; but never try to be either inn
pressive or funny. Be what YOU are.
If the mantle of Sydney Smith. have.
descended on you, the wittier and more
humorous you are the better; but do
not joke on solemn or serious subjects,
and do not hold up to ridicule or sar-
casm any member Of the co Inpany in
which you find yourself. But if any
one else so far forgets himself as to
make personal Or 'ill-bred remarks .
about you, keep q tight rein on. your
temper, and laugh it, off, as best you
can. Remember Cowper's ceuplet: 7
A moral, sensible and wellbred man
VIII not alfront me, and no other can.
Notes for Boys