It is good manners to articulate distinctly, and bad manners to neglect to do so. A man need not exactly take lessons in elocution (though they would not be amiss), but he can teach himself to pronounce clearly and use the tone of voice that is best suited to the various occasions when he converses. A breathy voice is extremely disagreeable. The syllables come out enveloped in a sort of windy roar. This is owing to a wrong way of breathing, and it can easily be cured, with advantage to the health as well as the personality. A very confidential tone is always used by some men when they speak to women. If they merely “hope your gown did not get muddy” they look into one’s eyes and murmur like any sucking dove. But if their articulation is indistinct they are quite a nuisance. One has to ask them to repeat themselves, and the nonsense they talk shows up very badly in an encore. But when they enunciate clearly their devoted murmurings sometimes “take” very well. It is not until a woman has seen three or four others besides herself approached in the same afternoon or evening with similar devout and prayer-like whispering that she begins to value this particularity at its true worth.

The word “fellow.”

With reference to the word “fellow” a subtle distinction or two must be drawn. In lowly circles a young man is called “a fellow”; young men “fellows.” So it is in good society, but with a distinct difference. It is not very easy to make this difference clear. Young men of good position refer very commonly to others of their acquaintance as “the fellows,” but they would not use the word to describe young men generally. Women, young and old, of the lower classes speak of young men generally as “fellows,” but gentlewomen never do so. A lady never uses the expression “A girl and a fellow.” At the same time she may frequently speak of “young fellows.” I am aware that there is a want of clearness in all this, but it is a matter among many others that can only be acquired by being accustomed to the usages of good society.

The “Autocrat’s” test-word.

“Tweedledum and tweedledee.”

The Autocrat of the Breakfast-table said in one of his books that if he heard a woman pronounce the word “How,” he learned more about her in an instant than a third person could tell him in an hour. If she called it “haow,” she revealed herself as belonging to the uncultured classes. In the same way, if a girl were to say “I met a fellow yesterday,” she would unconsciously make a similar self-revelation. A young man would make an equal mistake if he were to speak of “my sister’s fellow.” But he would be correct enough if he were to say “the fellow my sister’s engaged to.”

These little nuances of expression remind one of the old rhyme—

“Strange that such difference should be
Twixt tweedledum and tweedledee.”

Small talk alone will not suffice.

“Talking down” really an insult.

Yet polish alone often succeeds.

Though small talk is as indispensable in social life as pennies and half pennies in the transactions of everyday existence, we must also have conversational gold and silver at our command if we wish to be successful. When the preliminaries of acquaintanceship are over there is no necessity to keep up the commonplaces of small talk. To do so is rather insulting to women. To be “talked down to” is always aggravating, especially when one feels a conviction that the person who is thus affably stooping for one’s benefit belongs in reality to a lower intellectual plane than one’s own. At the same time, many young men “with nothing in them” are socially successful, being possessed of those superficial qualities and that outward polish which are, for the purposes of everyday intercourse, more useful than abysmal personal depths. Was it Goethe or Schiller who said that for domestic utility a farthing candle is more useful than all the stars of heaven?