CHAPTER IV
WHAT SHOULD GUESTS TALK ABOUT AT DINNER?
"Good talk is not to be had for the asking. Humors must first be accorded in a kind of overture for prolog; hour, company, and circumstances be suited; and then at a fit juncture, the subject, the quarry of two heated minds, spring up like a deer out of the wood." Stevenson knew as well as Alice in Wonderland that something has to open the conversation. "You can't even drink a bottle of wine without opening it," argued Alice; and every dinner guest, during the quarter of an hour before dinner, has felt the sententiousness of her remark. Someone in writing about this critical period so conversationally difficult has contended that no person in his senses would think of wasting good talk in the drawing-room before dinner, but Professor Mahaffy thinks otherwise: "In the very forefront there stares us in the face that awkward period which even the gentle Menander notes as the worst possible for conversation, the short time during which people are assembling, and waiting for the announcement of dinner. If the witty man were not usually a selfish person, who will not exhibit his talent without the reward of full and leisurely appreciation, this is the real moment to show his powers. A brilliant thing said at the very start which sets people laughing, and makes them forget that they are waiting, may alter the whole complexion of the party, may make the silent and distant people feel themselves drawn into the sympathy of common merriment, and thaw the iciness which so often fetters Anglo-Saxon society. But as this faculty is not given to many, so the average man may content himself with having something ready to tell, and this, if possible, in answer to the usual question exprest or implied: Is there any news this afternoon? There are few days that the daily paper will not afford to the intelligent critic something ridiculous either in style or matter which has escaped the ordinary public; some local event, nay, even some local tragedy, may suggest a topic not worth more than a few moments of attention, which will secure the interest of minds vacant, and perhaps more hungry to be fed than their bodies. Here then, if anywhere in the whole range of conversation, the man or woman who desires to be agreeable may venture to think beforehand, and bring with them something ready, merely as the first kick or starting point to make the evening run smoothly." However this may be, it is only with that communicative feeling which comes after eating and drinking that talkers warm up to discriminating discussion; and in the drawing-room just before dinner, one can scarcely expect the conversation to turn on anything but trifles.
At the moment a man presents his arm to the woman he is to take in to dinner, he must have something ready in the way of a remark, for if he goes in in silence, he is lost. There are a thousand and one nothings he may say at this time. I know a clever man who talks interestingly for fifteen minutes about the old-fashioned practice of offering a woman the hand to lead her in to dinner, and whether or not that custom was more courteous and graceful than our modern way of proceeding.
The question is often asked, "What should guests talk about at a dinner?" I restrict my interrogation to guests, because there is a distinction between the directing of a dinner-guest's conversation and the guiding of the talk by host or hostess into necessary or interesting channels. Dinners, especially in diplomatic circles, are as often given to bring about dexterously certain ends in view as they are given for mere pleasure; and when this is the case it is necessary as well as gracious to steer conversation along the paths that it should go. A guest's first duty is to his dinner-companion, the person with whom, according to the prearranged plan of the hostess, he enters the dining-room and by whom he finds himself seated at table. His next duty is to his hosts. He has also an abstract conversational duty to his next nearest neighbor at table. It is every guest's duty, too, to keep his ears open and be ready to join in general talk should the host or hostess attempt to draw all their guests into any general discussion.
The best answer to the question, "What should guests at dinner talk about?" is, anything and everything, provided the talk is tinctured with tact, discretion, and discrimination. To one's dinner-companion, if he happens to be a familiar acquaintance, one can even forget to taboo dress, disease, and domestics. One might likewise, with discretion, set at liberty the usually forbidden talk of "shop," on condition that such intimate conversation is to one's dinner-companion alone and is not dragged into the general flights of the table-talk. While one talks to one's dinner-companion in a low voice, however, it needs nice discrimination not to seem to talk under one's breath, or to say anything to a left-hand neighbor which would not be appropriate for a right-hand neighbor to hear. When in general talk, the habit some supposedly well-bred persons have of glancing furtively at any one guest to interrogate telepathically another's opinion of some remark is bad taste beyond the power of censure or the possibility of forgiveness.
At large, formal dinners, on the order of banquets, it would be impossible for all guests to include a host or hostess in their conversational groups from any and every part of the table; only those guests seated near them can do this. But at small, informal dinners all guests should, whenever possible, consider it their duty to direct much of their conversation to their host and hostess. I have seen guests at small dinners of no more than six or eight covers go through the various courses of a three hours' dining, ignoring their host and hostess in the entire table-talk, while conversing volubly with others. There is something more due a host and hostess than mere greetings on entering and leave-takings on departing. If the dinner-party is so large that all guests cannot show them at the table the attention due them, the delinquent ones can at least seek an opportunity in the drawing-room, after guests have left the dining-room, to pay their host and hostess the proper courtesy. Hosts should never be made to feel that it is to their cook they owe their distinction, and to their table alone that guests pay visits.
To say that the dominant note in table-talk should be light and humorous is going too far; but conversation between dinner-companions should tend strongly to the humorous, to the light, to the small change of ideas. There should be an adroit intermixing of light and serious talk. I noted once with keen interest a shrewd mingling of serious talk and small talk at a dinner given to a distinguished German scientist.