Conversation: What to say and how to say it

Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Printer errors have been changed, and they are indicated with a mouse-hover and listed at the end of this book . CONVERSATION What to Say and How to Say It BY MARY GREER CONKLIN FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY NEW YORK AND LONDON 1912 Copyright, 1912, by FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY All rights reserved for all countries [ Printed in the United States of America ] Published November, 1912 IN LOVING MEMORY TO A. E. C. WHOSE DELIGHTFUL CONVERSATION STIMULATED MY YOUTH AND IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THEIR SEVERE CRITICISM AND FRIENDLY AID TO CHARLES TOWNSEND COPELAND ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH AT HARVARD COLLEGE AND FRANK WILSON CHENEY HERSEY INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH AT HARVARD COLLEGE PREFACE "The best book that was ever written upon good breeding," said Dr. Johnson to Boswell, "the best book, I tell you, Il Cortegiano by Castiglione, grew up at the little court of Urbino, and you should read it." Il Cortegiano was first published by the Aldine Press at Venice, in 1528. Before the close of the century more than one hundred editions saw the light; French, Spanish, English, and German versions followed each other in rapid succession, and the Cortegiano was universally acclaimed as the most popular prose work of the Italian Renaissance. "Have you read Castiglione's Cortegiano ?" asks the courtier Malpiglio, in Tasso's dialog. "The beauty of the book is such that it deserves to be read in all ages; as long as courts endure, as long as princes reign and knights and ladies meet, as long as valor and courtesy hold a place in our hearts, the name of Castiglione will be held in honor." In his Book of the Courtier , Castiglione said very little about perfection of speech; he discust only the standard of literary language and the prescribed limits of the "vulgar tongue," or the Italian in which Petrarch and Boccaccio had written. What he says about grace, however, applies also to conversation: "I say that in everything it is so hard to know the true perfection as to be well-nigh impossible; and this because of the variety of opinions. Thus there are many who will like a man who speaks much, and will call him pleasing; some will prefer modesty; some others an active and restless man; still others one who shows calmness and deliberation in everything; and so every…