Kissing is a custom which the code of English and American etiquette relegates as much as possible to the privacy of home. A kiss, the outward expression of our closest affection and our warmest love, should never be made a public show whereat the outside world may smile. Hence, the effusive kissing between girls and women at their meeting and their parting, is to be regretted as a specimen, to say the least, of very bad taste on their part. Indiscriminate kissing of children and infants is also objectionable on the score of health. Happily, kisses and embraces among men are never seen in this country, though, in some parts of Europe they are constantly to be observed, both in public and private.
[Illustration: CHICAGO’S WELCOME TO PRESIDENT MCKINLEY—ETIQUETTE OF THE BANQUETING ROOM]
“Talk often,” says Lord Chesterfield, “but never long; in that case if you do not please, at least you are sure not to tire your hearers. Pay your own reckoning, but do not treat the entire company: this being one of the very few cases in which people do not care to be treated, every one being fully convinced that he has the wherewithal to pay.”
All other arts pale before the art of conversation as a source of popularity, and no other accomplishment tends so much toward social success. The contact of many minds is a constant stimulus to mental activity and its outward expression in animated conversation. It lends new power to brilliancy of talent, and quickens, to a certain extent, even then the lowest and dullest of intellects.
Everyone has been surprised and delighted at times by some unexpectedly brilliant remark that has flashed from his lips during the course of some animated exchange of badinage and repartee, and there is no one but realizes how the mind acquires breadth and the opinions grow tolerant as one converses with persons of intelligence and culture.
Since, however, according to Cicero, “Silence is one of the greatest arts of conversation,” there may be added, with equal wisdom, to the above counsel, “Listen often and well.” Be not an impatient listener, nor yet an impassive one, but pay the compliment of attention and interest to the subject in hand, and your company will be sought as an acquisition.