To be able to make your guests better pleased with themselves is the greatest of all social accomplishments.
"An ideal dinner party," says a famous London hostess, "resembles nothing so much as a masterpiece of the jeweler's art in the center of which is some crystalline gem in the form of a sparkling and sympathetic hostess round whom the guests are arranged in an effective setting." It would seem quite as necessary that a host prove a crystalline gem in this masterpiece of the jeweler's art. To be signally successful at dinner-giving, care to make the talk interesting is as necessary as care in the preparation of viands. Really successful hosts and hostesses take as much precaution against fatalities in conversation as against those which offend the palate. While attending carefully to the polishing of the crystal and to the preparing of the menu which will make their table a delight, they remember that the intellect of their guests must be satisfied no less than their eyes and their stomachs.
CHAPTER VI
INTERRUPTION IN CONVERSATION
Its Deadening Effect on Conversation—Habitual Interruption—Nervous Interruption—Glib Talkers—Interrupting by Over-Accuracy—Interruptions Outside the Conversation-Circle—Children and Their Interruption—Good Talk at Table—Anecdotes of Children's Appreciation of Good Conversation—The Hostess Who Is "Mistress of Herself Tho China Fall."