But this even does not account for the failure of so
many promising dinners. The secret of this failure always is that the
conversation is not general. The sole object of the dinner is talk--at
least in the United States, where "good eating" is pretty common, however
it may be in England, whence come rumors occasionally of accomplished men
who decline to be interrupted by the frivolity of talk upon the
appearance of favorite dishes. And private talk at a table is not the
sort that saves a dinner; however good it is, it always kills it. The
chance of arrangement is that the people who would like to talk together
are not neighbors; and if they are, they exhaust each other to weariness
in an hour, at least of topics which can be talked about with the risk of
being overheard. A duet to be agreeable must be to a certain extent
confidential, and the dinner-table duet admits of little except
generalities, and generalities between two have their limits of
entertainment. Then there is the awful possibility that the neighbors at
table may have nothing to say to each other; and in the best-selected
company one may sit beside a stupid man--that is, stupid for the purpose
of a 'tete-a-tete'.
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