t even his response
runs the risk of being spoiled if extended beyond a few minutes.

There are never-failing topics of interest and untold material out of
which to weave suitable dinner-talk, provided it is woven in the right
way. And this weaving of talk is an art in which one may become
proficient by giving it attention, just as one becomes the master of
any other art by taking thought and probing into underlying principles.
So in the art of talking well, even naturally fluent talkers need by
faithful pains to get beyond the point where they only happen to talk.
They need to attain that conscious power over conversational situations
which gives them precision and grace in adapting means to ends and a
fine discrimination in choosing among their resources.

A one-sided conversation between companions is deadly unless
discrimination is used in the matter of listening as well as talking.
For instance:

_Mr. Cook_: "Don't you think the plan of building a great riverside
drive a splendid one?"

_Miss Brown_: "Yes."

_Mr. Cook_: "The New York drive is one of the joys of life; it
gives more unalloyed pleasure than anything I know of."

_Miss Brown_: "Yes."

Unless under conditions suitable to listening and not to talking, Mr.
Cook might feel like saying to Miss Brown, as a bright young man once
said to a quiet, beautiful girl: "For heaven's sake, Miss Mary, say
something, even if you have to take it back." While it is true that
listening attentively is as valuable and necessary to thoroughly good
conversation as is talking one's self, good listening demands the same
discretion and discrimination that good talking requires. It is the
business of any supposedly good conversationalist to discern when and
why one must give one's companion over to soliloquy, and when and why
one must not do so.

The dining-room is both an arena in which talkers fight with words upon
a field of white damask, and a love-feast of discussion. If guests are
neither hatefully disputatious, nor hypocritically humble, if they are
generous, frank, natural, and wholly honest in word and mind, the
impression they make cannot help being agreeable.

CHAPTER V

TALK OF HOST AND HOSTESS AT DINNER

_The Amalgam for Combining Guests--Hosts' Talk During the Quarter
of an Hour before Dinner--Seating Guests to Enhance
Conversation--Number of Guests for the Best Conversation--Directing
the Convers