By Elizabeth Stennett

A Good Habit to Cultivate - The Gentle Art of Good Conversation - A Study in Good Humour Sulks and Silences think it was Robert Louis Stevenson who I said that marriage is "one long conversation, tempered by disputes," and every married couple knows how much truth there is in the remark.

Indeed, conversation is the keynote of marriage; and so long as two people enjoy talking to each other, one of the essentials of married happiness exists. There is not very much the matter in a house where husband and wife can keep up pleasant, agreeable talk for an hour at a time.

A Fond Delusion

At the beginning of things the happily married man and wife feel that they can never possibly "get through" with all the things they have to say. Apart from the fascinating interchange of ideas of two congenial souls, there are new plans, new interests, to discuss. Conversation never flags for a moment. Even the "disputes" are but piquant differences of opinion which leave no bitterness behind. It seems impossible that conversation can ever degenerate into a dull interchange of necessary information, relieved by petty bickering or long silences.

Alas! the situation is common enough. How many men won't trouble to talk to their wives, perhaps with the idea that women's affairs are bounded by the nursery and the dressmaker! It is often the woman's fault. She gives up her interests of pre-matrimonial days and stands still intellectually at twenty-five. Husband and wife drift apart, and conversation becomes an impossibility.

The loss is on both sides, but the woman suffers more, as her horizon is more limited, her interests more curtailed. So it is she who should make the effort. One of the greatest mistakes the domesticated woman can make is to let go the habit of cheerful conversation in the home.

Englishwomen are not supposed to. be good conversationalists. The Frenchwoman takes more trouble to charm and entertain. Americans are more amusing and conversational, more vivacious, than we are. But in most cases conversational power, especially in married life, comes not from lack of ability or ideas, but lack of effort. It may not occur to married people that they ought to try to talk unless they happen to be overwhelmed with physical or mental fatigue. Lack of brilliancy is excusable in the business man who has had a harassing day, or the doctor who has just had a difference of opinion with his best-paying patient, whilst nobody but a woman who works faithfully in the domestic sphere knows how bereft of ideas she can be in the evening.

But the mere fact of trying brings its reward. We all have to make the effort for strangers, and think of "something to say," whether we want to or not.

What a difference the right spirit of conversation can make in a home! Who has not suffered from family jars and disagreements which might have been avoided by a tactful turn to the conversation! The woman who knows how to talk and how to listen will keep her husband's interest years after the merely affectionate wife is regarded as a nonentity.

A Valuable Asset

The cultivation of interesting talk is worth while for one's own sake. Every woman wants to be popular at home and in her social world; and the gift of talking interestingly, and, better still, of making other people converse, is a bigger social asset than money or good looks.

Talleyrand once said that language was given us to conceal our thoughts. But it is in silence that misunderstanding grows; and a cheery word, a good laugh, and a vivid story of the day's doings serve to keep married people congenial. Somebody ought to start a Society for Promoting Agreeable Conversation in the Home. There should be a system of awards and punishments. Grumbling would become a penal offence; certain subjects so prevalent in married life would be " taboo." Most women fail conversationally because of their inherent desire to discuss domestic difficulties and home worries. Men are not saints, and irritability is too often displayed in married life because wives "converse" on topics with their husbands which they would not bore an acquaintance with.

There is too little brightness in most matrimonial conversations. The average wife takes herself unnecessarily seriously; and one of the best preservatives of the spirit of comradeship is to cultivate mutual interests and talk about them. There is nothing like a hobby shared, a game which both enjoy, a book read together and discussed, to encourage conversation of the right sort between husband and wife. The habit of pleasant talk grows and can be cultivated. Dulness in married life is a poisonous plant, which spreads rapidly if it is allowed a hold. It thrives in sulks and silences.

"Pass the Salt"

It grows apace when two people who have to live together make no effort to interest each other, confine their conversation to "pass the salt," and discussions about their next-door neighbour. There are two subjects the well-bred hostess is supposed to keep out of the conversation - politics and religion - perhaps because they are controversial and induce difference and argument, but a little argument will stimulate the mental process. Life is a contest all the time. So long as bitter feeling does not enter a discussion, a difference of opinion is nothing.

The average woman talks, according to the masculine standard, always of people - not of things or events. Often she does not read the newspaper; she takes little interest in public affairs. She "only gossips."

Well, the woman who is ambitious to make married life a success will avoid the pitfalls which her lack of wider interests has provided for her sex in the past. She will talk, and talk well, cultivate her intelligence, her interests, her sympathies, so that even her "gossip" will strike the right human note and will display no pettiness of spirit. It is the mind that counts, after all. It is personality that holds a man's interest and love when the charms of youth and beauty fade with the years.

And how women also appreciate kindly conversation in the home! When a wife is tied with children and home affairs, temporarily cut off from outside interests, it means so much to her not to "lose touch." The best medicine in home life for man and wife alike is cheery and cheering talk. It costs nothing, it takes nothing from us. And it confers so much. Let those who have not formed the habit of talking over the events of the day, the news in the papers, what is being said and done in the world, try what "conversation in married life" will do for them.

Instead of dreary, silent meal-times, they might have an intellectual treat. In place of long, dull evenings, they might discuss the hobby they are both devoted to. Even if their interests differ, the conversation can ebb and flow from one topic to another. The important thing is to talk, not to allow themselves to be engulfed by silence or indifference, but to keep enthusiastic, interested, young. So many people get hold of the idea that it is not worth while to bother. Everything is worth while, most of all in the home. It is the little things in life that count - the little courtesies of speech, the unselfishness which makes one thoughtful for other people.

The Tactful Wife

Tact is the one quality that makes for married happiness. And tact is but another name for unselfishness. The successful conversationalist, man or woman, must have tact - the tact that avoids controversial subjects calculated to introduce discord; the tact that draws out the ideas and stimulates the interest of the person talked with, whether husband or stranger.

There is tact in listening with an agreeable expression to a story one has heard twice already. It signifies, better still, real unselfishness, and that is essential to agreeable conversation in married life. The wife with tact very soon learns when to talk, and when to maintain the understanding silence that is more eloquent than speech. We hear a good deal about the over-tired breadwinner who must scarcely be addressed before he has consumed his dinner. But women are just as liable to be over-strained and tired out as men. It is a bad thing for men to be encouraged in the idea that they need never exert themselves to be agreeable to their own wives. Conversation in married life is an art which both husband and wife should cultivate. It is like mercy - twice blessed and mutually helpful. It is good to excel in talk - happy, cheering, helpful talk. It is good also to listen, to stimulate, encourage, appreciate conversation that is unselfish in its motive. Try the prescription in married life when you are feeling bored.