Page:Book of Etiquette, Volume 2, by Lilian Eichler.djvu/170

146 Try it the next time you meet some friends and you find that conversation lags. Talk about something, any thing, until you get started. Talk about the sunset you saw last night, or the little crippled boy who was selling newspapers. As long as it is something with a touch of human interest in it, and if you tell it with the desire to please rather than impress, your audience will be interested in your conversation. But to remain quiet, answering only when you are spoken to, and allowing conversation to die each time it reaches you, is a feature of conduct belonging only to the ignorant and dull. There are many pleasant and agreeable things to talk about—argument and discussion have no place in the social drawing-room—and there is no reason why you cannot find them and make use of them.

If you are forgetful, and somewhat shy in the company of others, it might be well to jot down and commit to memory any interesting bit of information or news that you feel would be worthy of repetition. It may be an interesting little story, or a clever repartee, or some amusing incident — but whatever it is, make the appeal general. It is a mistake to talk only about those things that interest you; when Matthew Arnold was once asked what his favorite topic for conversation was, he answered, "That in which my companion is most interested."

Make that your ideal, and you can hardly help becoming an agreeable and pleasing conversationalist.