o learn its unwritten behests. The
uninitiated suspect little of the insight and care which matures even
the natural conversational ability of a Madame de Stael or a Francisque
Sarcey. The initiated know that the same principles which make the
French prodigious conversationalists make them capable and charming
hosts and hostesses. The talker who can follow in conversation knows
how to lead, and vice versa. Without a leader or "moderator," as the
admirable Scotch word has it, conversation is apt to become either tepid
or demoralized; and often, for the want of proper and sophisticated
leading, discussion that would otherwise be brilliant deteriorates into
pandemonium. As paradoxical as it sounds on first thought, it is
nevertheless true that thoroughly good conversation is impossible where
there is too much talk. Some sort of order must be imperceptibly if not
unconsciously maintained, or the sentences clash in general
conversation. Leading conversation is the adroit speech which checks the
refractory conversationalist and changes imperceptibly the subject when
it is sufficiently threshed or grows over-heated; it is guiding the talk
without palpable break into fresh fields of thought; it is the tact
with which, unperceived, the too slow narration of a guest is hurried by
such courteous interpolations as "So you got to the inn, and what then?"
or, "Did the marriage take place after all?"; it is the art with which
the skilful host or hostess sees that all are drawn into the
conversational group; it is the watchfulness that sends the shuttle of
talk in all directions instead of allowing it to rebound between a few;
it is the interest with which a host or hostess solicits the opinions of
guests, and develops whatever their answers may vaguely suggest; it is
the care with which an accidentally interrupted speech of a guest is
resuscitated; it is the consideration which puts one who arrives late in
touch with the subject which was being discust just before his
appearance. It is this concern for conversational cues which gives any
host or hostess an almost unbounded power in social intercourse; for he
is the best talker who can lead others to talk well.

It goes without saying that a people who have assimilated all the
foregoing tenets of good conversation are never disjointed in their
talk. Their consummate art of listening is responsible for their skill
in following the logical trend of the discourse. This may be considered
a