Golden Rule Number 1.—Avoid unnecessary details.
2.—Do not ask question number two until number one has been answered, nor be too curious nor too disinterested; that is, do not ask too many questions nor too few.
3.—Do not interrupt another while he is speaking.
4.—Do not contradict another, especially when the subject under discussion is of trivial importance.
5.—Do not do all the talking; give your tired listener a chance.
6.—Be not continually the hero of your own story; and, on the other hand, do not leave your story without a hero.
7.—Choose subjects of mutual interest.
8.—Be a good listener.
9.—Make your speech in harmony with your surroundings.
10.—Do not exaggerate—our new rule.
GOLDEN RULE NUMBER XI
Indulge occasionally in a relevant quotation, but do not garble it.
He.—I have just been reading a very interesting article entitled "Learning by Heart," and I have become impressed with the idea that one should occasionally commit to memory inspiring passages in verse and prose. In the language of the author: "They may come to us in our dull moments, to refresh us as with spring flowers; in our selfish musings, to win us by pure delight from the tyranny of foolish castle-building, self-congratulations, and mean anxieties. They may be with us in the workshop, in the crowded streets, by the fireside; sometimes on pleasant hill-sides, or by sounding shores; noble friends and companions—our own! never intrusive, ever at hand, coming at our call."
She.—Some one has said that an apt quotation is as good as an original remark. It is certainly always relevant. We cannot all be Wordsworths or Tennysons; Charles Lambs or Carlyles, but we can make some of their best thoughts our own. A conversation or a letter in which some choice quotation finds a place, is certainly thus improved and lifted above the commonplace. It was Johnson who said that classical quotation was the parole of literary men all over the world.
He.—For a long time, I have been copying in a note-book, extracts that have interested me, but it did not occur to me to commit them to memory. Hereafter, I shall do so, for I am sure that it will add to my resources both in conversation and in letter-writing.
She.—Some of the most delightful letters that I have ever received have been those in which there have been quotations, so relevant, so charming that, for the time being, they seemed to have been written for me alone.
He.—I have always hesitated to interpolate my conversation or letters with quotations, for fear that I might seem to be airing my familiarity with classical literature.