TALKING
WHEN you are in company, talk often, but never long; in that case, if you do not please, at least you are sure not to tire your hearers.
LEARN THE CHARACTERS OF THE COMPANY BEFORE YOU TALK MUCH
INFORM yourself of the characters and situations of the company, before you give way to what your imagination may prompt you to say. There are, in all companies, more wrong heads than right ones; and many more who deserve, than who like, censure. Should you therefore expatiate in the praise of some virtue, which some in company notoriously want; or declaim against any vice, with which others are notoriously infected; your reflections, however general and unapplied, will, by being applicable, be thought personal and leveled at those people. This consideration points out to you sufficiently, not to be suspicious and captious yourself, nor to suppose that things, because they may, are therefore meant at you.
TELLING STORIES, AND DIGRESSIONS.
TELL stories very seldom, and absolutely never but where they are very apt and very short. Omit every circumstance that is not material, and beware of digressions. To have frequent recourse to narrative betrays great want of imagination.
SEIZING PEOPLE BY THE BUTTON
NEVER hold any body by the button, or the hand, in order to be heard out; for if people are not willing to hear you, you had much better hold your tongue than them.
LONG TALKERS AND WHISPERERS
LONG talkers generally single out some unfortunate man in company to whisper to, or at least in a half voice to convey to him a continuity of words. This is excessively ill-bred, and in some degree a fraud; conversation-stock being a joint and common property. But, if one of these unmerciful talkers lay hold of you, hear him with patience, (and at least seeming attention,) if he is worth obliging; for nothing will oblige him more than a patient hearing, as nothing would hurt him more than either to leave him in the midst of his discourse, or to discover your impatience under your affliction.
INATTENTION TO PERSONS SPEAKING.
THERE is nothing so brutally shocking, nor so little forgiven, as a seeming attention to the person who is speaking to you: and I have known many a man knocked down for a much slighter provocation than that inattention which I mean. I have seen many people, who, while you are speaking to them, instead of looking at and attending to you, fix their eyes upon the ceiling or some other part of the room, look out of the window, play with a dog, twirl their snuff-box, or pick their nose. Nothing discovers a little, futile, frivolous mind more than this, and nothing is so offensively ill-bred. It is an explicit declaration on your part, that every the most trifling object deserves your attention more than all that can be said by the person who is speaking to you. Judge of the sentiments of hatred and resentment which such treatment must excite, in every breast where any degree of self-love dwells. I repeat it again and again, that sort of vanity and self-love is inseparable from human nature, whatever may be its rank or condition: even your footman will sooner forget and forgive a beating than any manifest mark of slight and contempt. Be, therefore, not only really, but seemingly and manifestly, attentive to whoever speaks to you.
NEVER INTERRUPT ANY SPEAKER.
IT is considered as the height of ill manners to interrupt any persons while speaking, by speaking yourself, or calling off the attention of the company to any new subject. This, however, every child knows.
ADOPT RATHER THAN GIVE THE SUBJECT.
TAKE, rather than give, the subject of the company you are in. If you have parts, you will show them, more or less, upon every subject; and, if you have not, you had better talk sillily upon a subject of other people's than of your own choosing.
CONCEAL YOUR LEARNING FROM THE COMPANY
NEVER display your learning, but on particular occasions. Reserve it for learned men; and let even these rather extort it from you, than appear forward to display it. Hence you will be deemed modest, and reputed to possess more knowledge than you really have. Never seem wiser or more learned than your company. The man who affects to display his learning, will be frequently questioned; and, if found superficial, will be ridiculed and despised; if otherwise, he will be deemed a pedant. Nothing can lessen real merit (which will always show itself) in the opinion of the world, but an ostentatious display of it by its possessor.
CONTRADICT WITH POLITENESS
WHEN you oppose or contradict any person’s assertion or opinion, let your manner, your air, your terms, and your tone of voice, be soft and gentle, and that easy and naturally, not affectedly. Use palliatives when you contradict; such as, “I may be deceived,” “I am not sure, but I believe,” “I should rather think,” etc. Finish any argument or dispute with some little good-humoured pleasantry, to show that you are neither hurt yourself, nor mean to hurt your antagonist; for an argument, kept up a good while, often occasions a temporary alienation on each side.
AVOID ARGUMENT, IF POSSIBLE
AVOID, as much as you can in mixed companies, argumentative, polemical conversations; which certainly indispose, for a time, the contending parties towards each other; and if the controversy grows warm and noisy, endeavor to put an end to it by some genteel levity or joke.
ALWAYS DEBATE WITH TEMPER
ARGUMENTS should never be maintained with heat and clamour, though we believe or know ourselves to be in the right. We should give our opinions modestly and coolly; and, if that will not do, endeavour to change the conversation, by saying, "We shall not be able to convince one another; nor is it necessary that we should; so let us talk of something else."
LOCAL PROPRIETY TO BE OBSERVED
REMEMBER that there is a local propriety to be observed in all companies; and that what is extremely proper in one company may be, and often is, highly improper in another.
JOKES, BON MOTS, &C.
THE jokes, bon mots, the little adventures, which may do very well in one company, will seem flat and tedious when related in another. The particular characters, the habits, the cant, of one company may give merit to a word, or a gesture, which would have none at all if divested of those accidental circumstances. Here people very commonly err; and, fond of something that has entertained them in one company, and in certain circumstances, repeat it with emphasis in another, where it is either insipid, or, it may be, offensive, by being ill-timed or misplaced. Nay, they often do it with this silly preamble: "I will tell you an excellent thing"; or, "I will tell you the best thing in the world." This raises expectations, which, when absolutely disappointed, make the relater of “this excellent thing” look, very deservedly, like a fool.
EGOTISM
UPON all occasions avoid speaking of yourself, if it be possible. Some, abruptly, speak advantageously of themselves, without either pretence or provocation. This is downright impudence. Others proceed more artfully, as they imagine; forging accusations against themselves, and complaining of calumnies which they never heard, in order to justify themselves, and exhibit a catalogue of their many virtues: — “they acknowledge, indeed, it may appear odd, that they should talk thus of themselves; it is what they have a great aversion to, and what they could not have done, if they had not been thus unjustly and scandalously abused.” This thin veil of modesty, drawn before vanity, is much too transparent to conceal it, even from those who have but a moderate share of penetration.
Others go to work more modestly and more slyly still: they confess themselves guilty of all the Cardinal Virtues, by first degrading them into weaknesses, and then acknowledging their misfortune in being made up of those weaknesses. “They cannot see people labouring under misfortunes, without sympathizing with, and endeavoring to help, them. They cannot see their fellow-creatures in distress without relieving them; though, truly, their circumstances cannot very well afford it. They cannot avoid speaking the truth, though they acknowledge it to be sometimes imprudent. In short, they confess that, with all these weaknesses, they are not fit to live in the world, much less to prosper in it. But they are now too old to pursue a contrary conduct, and therefore they must rub on as well as they can.”
Though this may appear too ridiculous and outré even for the stage, yet it is frequently met with upon the common stage of the world. This principle of vanity and pride is so strong in human nature, that it descends even to the lowest objects; and we often see people fishing for praise, where, admitting all they say to be true, no just praise is to be caught. One perhaps affirms that he has ridden post a hundred miles in six hours. Probably this is a falsehood; but, even supposing it to be true, what then? Why, it must be admitted that he is a very good post-boy; that is all. Another asserts, perhaps not without a few oaths, that he has drunk six or eight bottles of wine at a sitting. It would be charitable to believe such a man a liar; for, if we do not, we must certainly pronounce him a beast.
There are a thousand such follies and extravagances into which vanity draws people, and which always defeat their own purpose. The only method of avoiding these evils, is never to speak of ourselves. But when, in a narrative, we are obliged to mention ourselves, we should take care not to drop a single word that can directly or indirectly be construed as fishing for applause. Be our characters what they will, they will be known; and nobody will take them upon our own words. Nothing that we can say ourselves will varnish our defects, or add lustre to our perfections; but, on the contrary, it will often make the former more glaring, and the latter obscure. If we are silent upon our own merits, neither envy, indignation, nor ridicule, will obstruct or allay the applause which we may really deserve. But, if we are our own panegyrists upon any occasion, however artfully dressed or disguised, every one will conspire against us, and we shall be disappointed of the very end we aim at.
BE NOT DARK NOR MYSTERIOUS
TAKE care never to seem dark and mysterious; which is not only a very unamiable character, but a very suspicious one too; if you seem mysterious with others, they will be really so with you, and you will know nothing. The height of abilities is, to have a frank, open, and ingenuous exterior, with a prudent and reserved interior; to be upon your own guard, and yet, by a seeming natural openness, to put people off theirs. The majority of every company will avail themselves of every indiscreet and unguarded expression of yours, if they can turn it to their own advantage.
LOOK PEOPLE IN THE FACE WHEN SPEAKING
ALWAYS look people in the face when you speak to them: the not doing it, is thought to imply conscious guilt; besides that, you lose the advantage of observing, by their countenances, what impression your discourse makes upon them. In order to know people's real sentiments, I trust much more to my eyes than to my ears; for they can say whatever they have a mind I should hear; but they can seldom help looking what they have no intention that I should know.
SCANDAL
PRIVATE scandal should never be received nor retailed willingly; for though defamation of others may, for the present, gratify the malignity or the pride of our hearts, yet cool reflection will draw very disadvantageous conclusions from such a disposition. In scandal, as in robbery, the receiver is always thought as bad as the thief.
NEVER INDULGE GENERAL REFLECTIONS
NEVER, in conversation, attack whole bodies of any kind; for you may thereby unnecessarily make yourself a great number of enemies. Among women, as among men, there are good as well as bad, and it may be full as many or more good than among men. This rule holds as to lawyers, soldiers, parsons, courtiers, citizens, etc. They are all men, subject to the same passions and sentiments, differing only in the manner, according to their several educations; and it would be as imprudent as unjust to attack any of them by the lump. Individuals forgive sometimes; but bodies and societies never do. Many young people think it very genteel and witty to abuse the clergy; in which they are extremely deceived; since, in my opinion, parsons are very like men, and neither the better nor the worse for wearing a black gown. All general reflections upon nations and societies are the trite, threadbare jokes of those who set up for wit without having any, and so have re- course to common-place. Judge of individuals from your own knowledge of them, and not from their sex, profession, or denomination.
MIMICRY
MIMICRY, which is the common and favorite amusement of little, low minds, is in the utmost contempt with great ones. It is the lowest and most illiberal of all buffoonery. We should neither practice it, nor applaud it in others. Besides that, the person mimicked is insulted; and, as I have often observed to you before, an insult is never forgiven.
SWEARING
WE may frequently hear some people, in good company, interlard their conversation with oaths, by way of embellishment, as they suppose; but we must observe, too, that those who do so are never those who contribute, in any degree, to give that company the denomination of “good company.” They are generally people of low education; for, swearing, without having a single temptation to plead, is as silly, and as illiberal, as it is wicked.
SNEERING
WHATEVER we say in company, if we say it with a supercilious, cynical face, or an embarrassed countenance, or a silly, disconcerted grin, it will be ill received. If we mutter it, or utter it indistinctly and ungracefully, it will be still worse received.
TALK NOT OF YOUR OWN NOR OTHER PERSONS’ PRIVATE AFFAIRS
NEVER talk of your own nor other people's domestic affairs: yours are nothing to them but tedious; theirs are nothing to you. It is a tender subject; and it is a chance if you do not touch somebody or other's sore place. In this case, there is no trusting to specious appearances, which are often so contrary to the real situation of things between men and their wives, parents and their children, seeming friends, etc., that, with the best intentions in the world, we very often make some very disagreeable blunders.
EXPLICITNESS
NOTHING makes a man look sillier, in company, than a joke or pleasantry not relished or not understood: and, if he meets with a profound silence, when he expected a general applause; or, what is still worse, if he is desired to explain the joke, or bon mot; his awkward and embarrassed situation is easier imagined than described.
SECRECY
BE careful how you repeat in one company what you hear in another. Things seemingly indifferent may, by circulation, have much graver consequences than may be imagined. There is a kind of general tacit trust in conversation, by which a man is engaged not to report anything out of it, though he is not immediately enjoined to secrecy. A retailer of this kind draws himself into a thousand scrapes and discussions, and is shyly and indifferently received wherever he goes.
ADAPT YOUR CONVERSATION TO THE COMPANY
ALWAYS adapt your conversation to the people you are conversing with: for, I suppose, you would not talk upon the same subject, and in the same manner, to a bishop, a philosopher, a captain, and a woman.
NEVER SUPPOSE YOURSELF THE SUBJECT OR LAUGH OF THE COMPANY
PEOPLE of an ordinary, low education, when they happen to fall into good company, imagine themselves the only object of its attention: if the company whispers, it is, to be sure, concerning them; if they laugh, it is at them; and if anything ambiguous, that by the most forced interpretation can be applied to them, happens to be said, they are convinced that it was meant for them; upon which they grow out of countenance first, and then angry. This mistake is very well ridiculed in "The Stratagem," where Scrub says, “I am sure they talked of me; for they laughed consumedly.” A well-bred man seldom thinks, but never seems to think, himself slighted, undervalued, or laughed at in company, unless where it is so plainly marked out, that his honor obliges him to resent it in a proper manner. On the contrary, a vulgar man is captious and jealous; eager and impetuous about trifles. He suspects himself to be slighted; thinks everything that is said is meant at him: if the company happen to laugh, he is persuaded they laugh at him; he grows angry and testy, says something very impertinent, and draws himself into a scrape, by showing what he calls “a proper spirit,” and asserting himself. The conversation of a vulgar man also always savors strongly of the lowness of his education and company. It turns chiefly upon his domestic affairs, his servants, the excellent order he keeps in his own family, and the little anecdotes of the neighborhood: all of which he relates with emphasis, as interesting matters. He is a man-gossip.
SERIOUSNESS
A CERTAIN degree of exterior seriousness in looks and motions gives dignity, without excluding wit and decent cheerfulness. A constant smirk upon the face, and a whiffling activity of the body, are strong indications of futility.
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