Weather and other conversation topics

[Joel S. Berson]

Enjoyable excerpts, and good advice about topics.  My personal rule
is negative:  I tell people I never talk about three topics --
politics, religion, and [whatever is the current topic of the boring
person who's currently talking to me].

The New York essayist of February 1826 is also quite up to date on
current events:  Cooper published "The Last of the Mohicans" in
January; and 1825 marked Edmund Kean's second visit to America.  (How
new and interesting an American topic coal was in 1826 I have no idea
-- perhaps "the Oldest Inhabitant", in addition to the weather, can
be consulted about that.)

Joel

At 1/29/2010 09:58 PM, George Thompson wrote:
>Second:
>The following is from an earnest essay of self-help, a precursor to
>the limitless shelf of self-help books we benefit from today:
>         Conversation Hints for a bashful or shallow man, adapted
> for the present time.
>   ... .
>          . . . I repeat it, there are a few words which, properly
> used, will relieve him of all difficulty, and make an evening call
> pass off so agreeably that he will think of himself with the more
> complacency forever after.  ***  The principal of these are: the
> weather -- health -- distant friends -- coal -- different kinds,
> compared, a most copious topic and capable of infinite agreeable
> digressions -- opera -- influenza -- David's picture -- Kean --
> last No. of the New-York Rev. __ North American, &c. &c. --
> Cooper's new Novel, &c. &c.: discreetly handled, these, or half of
> them even, will hold out for a full fifteen or twenty minutes visit.  ***
>...
>        ***
>         I subscribe myself                      A SUFFERER.
>         N-Y American, February 22, 1826, p. 2, col. 4

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