Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 January 1906 — SIGNIFICANCE OF SMALL TALK. [ARTICLE]

SIGNIFICANCE OF SMALL TALK.

It Is the Small Change of Everyday Life in Society. It may be that the philosopher who wrote “silence is golden” was justified of his writing, but in society speech is the only currency. Small talk is the small change of everyday existence. It smooths one’s walk through life* makes Introductions easy, bespeaks the confidence of men, opens the way to the hearts of women, says the Smart Set It buys the interest of those who otherwise would remaih apart. Just as the chance shilling judiciously applied will secure for the man the reputation for generosity, so the proper phrase glibly inserted will gain for the mediocre mind the merit of intelligence. No man can afford to travel without a pocketful of bakshish —small coin to lubricate the joints of listless servants. No man may dare to enter society without a store of ready conversation—topical observations which insure the attention of laggard listeners. Neither title nor wealth nor genius will avail aught if tbp possessor has not the ability to speak easily upon those subjects that most interest society. Talk is the trinkgeld of social intercourse. But, just as the copper coin of one’s desultory charity must bear the stamp of the country in which it is dispensed, so must one’s table talk be suited to the society in which it is passed. The same remark will be accounted witty In Paris which In London would be deemed banal, in Berlin frivolous, in New York Irrelevant. One must fit "one’s conversation to one’s company as one would adapt one’s clothes or one’s language. The provincial speaks to interest himself, the cosmopolitan, talks to interest his neighbor. The more perfect the culture of any society the wider will be the range of topics Included in Its small talk. It is an unfailing standard whereby to measure the refinement of a people. Society is known by its small talk. The man of the village shrinks from the table talk of the rural community, its petty details of cows and”graß3 and harvests. The man of the town shuns the chatter of the village, the gossip of the parson and the judge. The citizen shrugs his shoulders at the municipal politics of the townsman and the metropolitan abhors the business Interests of the man of the city of factories. The wider the horizon, the more general the conversation.