The Weather and the Words in Passing - part 1

Articles In This Section:

· The Weather and the Words in Passing - part 1

· The Weather and the Words in Passing - part 2

· The Weather and the Words in Passing - part 3

· The Weather and the Words in Passing - part 4

· The Weather and the Words in Passing - part 5

JUST as in the matter of conversation generally our rule was to talk to please others more than self, so in life's daily routine or casual encounters the special watchword is that, in pleasing the other, one say nothing which will hurt a third, an absent one. Talking is divinely intended to pull isolated human beings into the human family, to draw mankind together into a brotherhood. It was not intended to split it into cliques or into conspiracies. A friendship must not be aimed at keeping others out, but to help those in it groom themselves for a still wider circle of friends. A club must not be thought of as divisive, but as pulling likely persons together and fitting them for a still wider association or brotherhood. Each unit of social contact should prepare its members for a next larger, more comprehensive unit.

That means, whenever two or three persons meet and talk, for a minute or for an hour, they should not only lift their own morale and strengthen their own friendship, but each should also be an advocate, as it were, of his other friends. In this way my friends, for example, who were but acquaintances to you will become your friends, too, and yours will become mine. When I see John, I should, if he is a good conversationalist, walk away liking his buddy, Tom, better than before, or his sister or his wife or his neighbor. Just as in a personal letter a person writes about his mutual acquaintances, so in a casual or short meeting each brings the other up to date, as it were, on their mutual friends and acquaintances.

Talking about the weather has been the subject of many jokes — good and bad. Despite this, however, the weather is a perfectly proper topic of exchange during the first moments after two or three or a whole company of people meet. In such a situation something has to be said. And if they haven't met previously that day or if they do not meet every day, you cannot say, "Good morning, Mr. Black. Isn't the new tax bill a terror?" In such casual encounters, then, it is quite in line to exchange a few comments about the weather. Only two things are wrong in talking about this subject. One is to keep talking about it. Virginia Woolf condemning certain literary types says, "The literary convention of the time is so artificial — you have to talk about the weather and nothing but the weather throughout the entire visit." One must somehow use the weather as a bridge to something better. You may say, "From cloudy it turned rather nice." He says, "Yes, it's almost warm." You say, "Makes one feel like going for a drive. How is your new car behaving?" And so the conversation has been steered to something better. The second fault in talking about the weather is to wax profound or philosophical about it. If you say, "It is surely hot today," and I say, "Oh, it isn't the heat, but the humidity," and if while saying it I do not smile mockingly, I should not be forgiven unless when someone comments on the first snow fall, I reply, "Oh, it's not really snow, it's just frozen vapor"!

Nowhere does a superior personality more quickly reveal itself than by what he manages to say during a casual meeting, lasting perhaps only a few minutes. Such meetings are like extempore speeches. Being unexpected, unprepared, a good, cultivated talker will manage to say the right things, whereas an uncultivated one will say the worst. After the first exchange about the weather, which gives a sort of chance to collect one's self, the next moments are properly spent in bringing one another up to date on self and family. You ask, "How are you? How are your folks?"