The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-12-13
THE ART OF CONVERSATION.

L
iority of people the art of conversation
has scarcely risen beyond the point of
making signs like "A savage or grunts
like an animal. They are ungracious
and rude even when their intentions
are best, simply because they do not
know what to say. Who has not had
the pleasure of having a gift spoiled
or been made to feel that a really gen.
erous deed was an affront, rather than
a kindness, simply because of the UNI
fortunate words that accompanied it?
Who has not felt like smuggling with
their own ungraciousness the hospitable
man or woman who always prefaces
an invitation by saying: Il have been
telling my husband, or wife. we must
invite YOU to dinner?" Who has es-
caped being cut to the quick by hav-
ing something presented to them ac-
conpanied by the words, II saw you
needed this" One of the choicest
stories of a brilliant newspaper man I
know is about an occasion upon which
he did a great personal service to a
very rich man. Soon thereafter they
CHANGED to meet, and the local Croesus,
who was really as Warm-hearted and
generous as he was rich, surveyed the
newspaperman over-critically, with an
appraising eye that took in every de-
tail of the well-worn clothes, and then,
with an idea of making some return
for the others courtesy, he said: Say,
go to my tailor's and have him make
YOU a decent suit of clothes" And
ia this day the rich man doesn't know
what it was that insulted the news
paperman.
As for paying people who do not
know how to talk a compliment, it is
something so hazardous and so like
" to prove a boomerang that none
save the foolhardy would dare venture
on so reckless an undertaking. Very
likely they may be accomplished in
every art save the art of conversation.
You are charmed with the song they
have sung, or the picture they have
painted, or the artistic beauty of their
house. Being appreciative, you make
some little honeyed speech expressing
your understanding and pleasure. Do
they receive it in the spirit in which
it is offered graciously and graceful
"? Never! They turn brusquely on
you and accuse you of being fatterer.
l have even had woman ask me
what do you want?" when 1 have
praised her. Just think of the coarse
and gratuitous insult conveyed in such
an expression! 1t is no excuse that
no offense was intended, and that such
q speech is the mere result of not
knowing what to say. The exigencies
of life demand that we shall find out
and commit to memory, many things
that we did not originally know.
When it comes to these cOnVerSa-
tional Uarbarians paying you a COM
pliment, it is an amenity from which
the vainest may well pray to be de-
lvered. These are they who invariably
tell a middle-aged woman that nobody
would believe she was forty-five I'M
less they knew it, and cheer up fat
one with the pleasing intelligence that
she is getting so stout. For every
achievement they have two adjectives,
pretty" and sweet" and they APP
ply them with equal impartiality.
Show them a painting, statue, in
which the artist has tried to show all
that was terrible and passion driven
in the soul, and they will exclaim
"How pretty" Write something on
which you have spent your very hearts
blood lashing folly, and trying to
puncture some bubble of pretense,
and they will say What a sweet
piece!" and they go away wondering
why on earth you weren't tickled to
death at the nice compliment they paid
you. They never know-God help
them-that they have offered the most
scathing criticism it was possible to
devise where they meant to fiatter.
Chief among those in need of the
missionary services of a teacher OF
the art of conversation are those who
always say the wrong thing. There are
times whei a blunder is worse than
d crime. They are those who ask the
divorced woman when she last saw
her husband and who may always be
safely trusted to bring up cheerful lit
tie topics like hereditary insanity, en-
bezzlement and other unp1easantness,
and who can never be happy unless
they are rafting the bones of some
body's family skeleton. Whether peo-
pie possessed of this mania can ever
be laugh to leave personalities alone
is doubtful. Probably total amputa
ton of the tongue is the only remedy
that will stop them, or protect society.
Then there are those whose words
are bludgeons with which they brutal
ly asSail their friends. You show such
a one your new diamond brooch, and
she says, How pretty and how sem
sible it was of you to get small, mex
pensive stones instead of big costly
ones like l did" Such a one tells you
that your new dress is handsome, but
you are too sallow to wear that color,
and praises you for making over your
last winters hat which you thought
you had changed beyond recognition.
such speeches are generally set down
TO malice, but in most cases it is SIM
ply Grass, laundering, ignorance of the
right thing to say. Not every one
who wounds us intends it, but "a tact
less woman with double action, rap
id-ire tongue, can shut her eyes and
blaze away, and hit every single ten
der spot in your feelings.
The lack of any knowledge of even
the elements of conversation is con-
spicuous among young girls. OF course,
they can reel off miles of jargon, pune
tured with giggles about Il said" and
he said" and Name said" but this
is not conversation. 1t is gibberish,
with no more intelligence than the chat
tering of apes. Polite conversation is
game of shuttlecook, of quick give
and take of airy nothings, and when
1t comes to this the young girl of the
period, in her own phrase, lis not in
it, She is as clumsy when it comes to
replying to anything that is a mere
politeness-a facon de parler-as hob
hall-shod clown in "a ballroom. The
other day a middle-aged lady in my
hearing invited a young girl to come
to see her, saying: my dear, l have
no daughters, but you must come to
see me-" To which the girl graceful
ly replied: "Oh thank you! l will;
l love old people, and I think it is
young peoples duty to pay them some
attention" And the funny part was
she seemed to think that her reply
would throw anyone into ecstasies of
delight. Think of the idiocy of any
body telling a woman to her face that
she was old. If that girl had been my