The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1893-05-11
THE GOOD DINNER WOMAN,
She Aims to Listen Well and Avoids the
Mistake of Being Smart.

She Aims to Listen Well and Avoids the
Mistake of Being Smart
Helen Bridgeman has analyzed the
'goOu dinner woman" as one who
must be neither too young nor too
old; she must not be unpleasant to
look upon, neithes must she be
beautiful automaton; she must be
quick, responsive, interesting and vi
vaclous, but she must not monopo-
lze the conversation and cause
others to fight for their rights; she
must have in her the spirit of the
bonhommie. yet she must be the epit-
ONE of good breeding and refine
ment; in fine, she must be the most
fascinating flower of complex civil
lization. One could spell all this,
with four letters, tact, and tact in
its highest form amounts to genius.
It is probably the hardest grace to
cultivate in the catalogue of viz
tues, for it embraces all the others.
1t is really the spirit and the letter
of the golden rule, and it's corner
SGOIlO 10 lluS01llSIueSS.
The popular woman knows that
every human being is happier to tell
agood story than to hear one. 1t be-
longs to the general principle of be
ing more blessed to give than to re
ceive, and the good dinner woman,
if one may be pardoned for using the
numbering phrase again, has this
written as the first law in her deca-
logue. One of the few really gifted
women in this particular said in a
sudden burst of confidence the other
day:
Nobody knows what downright
1ard work do to earn my success.
keep notebook at hand, and every
quaint expression, every good story,
every amusing thing / see OF read or
hear which think will work up into
telling sentence, down it goes in
classified order. Then l Just sit down
and cram for dinner as a school
girl does for examination. Want to
know who I learned that from2 Why,
from the famous Chauncey. They
say he has scrapbooks galore, full of
all manner of jokes and good things.
But with a woman it is different.
You have to think of other people
more than yourself when the dinner
begins. My mind is just like my
gown, after it is once ready | think
no more about it. try to find out
the people | am to meet, what they
are interested in, and then l lead up
to appropriate topics, introducing
them as adroitly as possible, fill in
the gaps with my nonsense and get
people to talking. That is the way to
entertain them.
1 once went down to dinner with
a famous man talker, and when we
were seated a horrible faintness came
over me from the closeness of the
room, the perfume of the flowers.
felt that / must keep that man talk
ing to keep people from noticing my
silence and illness, and / did. The
next day he told everybody was the
brightest woman he ever saw. That
was my cue. l have never forgotten
it. l don't think" she added visit
fully, that the machinery ever
shows, but l usually go home from a
dinner as weary as a ballet girl after
the performance. 1t is much easier
to say the bright thing than to make
some one else say it, but a smart
woman is the worst kind of mis-
take. If she isn't married, married
men all think that is the.reason why
she is too smart. If she has hus
band, every one feels sorry for him. >
New York Sun.