'FORGOTTEN HOW TO TALK

Evening Star, Issue 19552, 10 May 1927, Page 1

'FORGOTTEN HOW TO TALK

CRAZE FOR “ORGANISED " TARTY, During the last few weeks a Hocks have been launched against Uio game of bridge. In particular an eminent surgeon has said that it is morally and physically harmful. However that may be, it is becoming a great social nuisance (writes John P a trie.;, .c the London ‘Daily Mirror'). Almost as soon as yon arrive to stay or cine somewhere your hostess, with a. hungry look in her eyes, asks you if you play bridge. If you. don't, your shares drop several points. • I stayed somewhere the other-Jay in a partv of seven. Four of us played bridge; the other three, including myself, did not. Every evening after dinner the four, wbo included the hostess, skulked off, shut themselves behind closed doors, and did. not emerge from their so’f-imposed imprisonment until the early hours of the morning The party was thus completely broken up. The rest of us who happened to be most ill-assorted, sat forlorn and lonely, trying to amuse each other. But e\en tliis was better than being forced, as ao often happens, to play some game we oishked. The tendency of- modern social I’fc is towards active occupation People are never happy unless they are “doing something, i SOMETHING TO DO. In former days conversation was considered sufficient entertainment.- It became an art. But it is an art which is fast dying out. In Edwardian memoirs and Maurice Baring’s novels we, read of brilliant dinner par. tics at which conversation sparkled. After dinner there would perhaps be a little music (not jazz music!), but talk was the order of the. evening. - Communion with its fellows doe-, nosatisfy modern vont.b. It must have 01 panned entertainment. A dinner pa~ty, a? such, bores it lo extinction. It eats us dinner as a concession ro physical neeo-o but afterwards it must “do” things. In fact, no modem hostess would have the face to. ask the young to dinner av all unless “for the theatre,” ‘ to go on ■to a dance,” or “we shall have some bridge afterwards.” . , At her country house she would cerlaimy be expected to provide outdoor spor»s shooting, fishing, croquet. lint her guests, when they returned in the evening, .would not be content to exorcise their minds in talk. . Nowadays sbo'bas to provide indoor sports as well. The modern house paring if it■ is not playing bridge or dancing, is indulging jn wild, childish games, parlor tricks, paper games. It. never sits down quietly to talk unless to devise some'practical plot for its tost-or a,-midnight raid on a, neighboring cauntrv house. At tliifj rate we shall soon lose the power of coherent speech. Our -conversalion will consist entirely of mechanical formula?, such, as "Two no-trumps,” "Are you dancing this?”. “’Vanlage out.” . . For the rest we-shall communicate witheach other by means of cat calk, yodelling, and hunting noises. The art ; of' conversation is being rapidly extinguished in a whirlwind of hectic entertainment.'