XXVIII. THE AGREEABLE MAN.

“Come and dine on Tuesday; I want you to meet such an agreeable man,” said my friend, and I went.

But the agreeable man was not at all to my taste, although he seemed to fancy himself immensely. He was fluent and flowery of speech, and he had seen almost everything under the sun in every corner of the world, but for that very reason he was fatiguing. One could speak of nothing without eliciting such a flood of information that one was nearly drowned in it, and seized upon any straw to reach land again, only to be submerged afresh before one had done gasping after the first deluge. And this was what I said to my friend and hostess when she unwisely insisted upon an opinion. Of course, she didn’t like it; we never do like to have our friends refuse to look out of our eyes, although we are constantly declining to look out of theirs.

“Well, what kind of a man do you call an agreeable man if he is not?” demanded she, rather pettishly.

“What kind of man?” repeated I, musing over the question. “Why, a man who pleases me is to me an agreeable man.”

“That is to say,” retorted she, laughing, “if you liked that kind of a man, that is just the kind of man that would please you?”

The entrance of a visitor broke off the conversation; but, as is my habit when a social question has been raised in society, I unconsciously carry it home, and sometimes ponder it in the weary hours of sleepless nights.

What is an agreeable man, and where have I most frequently found him? demanded I of myself that afternoon as I drove around the park and exchanged salutations with a hundred or so of my acquaintances. Is it this horseman? Is it this pedestrian? Is it either of these two with the tandem team, or is that dear old man in the barouche? But still the voice within said “No!” The horseman is silly and fatuous; the pedestrian is buried in abstruse studies, and is at this moment walking off a surfeit of Semitic roots before undertaking a light collation of Dead Sea fruits. The two boys with the tandem team will bring it with them to whatever reception they attend to-night, and tell everybody just what time Xerxes and Artaxerxes made last week on the trotting course, and how they are capable of beating Cyrus and Darius “into fits” at any moment.

As for the old gentleman, he is very dear and very sweet, and I make a point of talking to him for three minutes whenever we meet, but after three minutes he has told me all about his health, and where his wife is, and how warm and crowded the room is, and that is the end of our subjects of mutual interest, for he is too deaf to hear any remarks I might offer, and too self-engrossed to care to listen if he could hear.

So collating the egotistical traveler, and the vain exquisite, and the bookworm, and the horsey pair, and the self-absorbed old gentleman, one sees that they have one fault in common, and that is selfishness, and it becomes evident that the agreeable man must not be selfish, or at least that he must, by education and good breeding, have learned so to disguise that “original sin” common to every child of Adam that it shall not offend other people. As for eliminating it, I do not suppose that is ever done, and perhaps it would not be well if it could be, for if self-preservation is the first law of nature a certain amount of selfishness is as necessary to the protection of every man as claws are to a cat; the thing is to keep those same claws sheathed in a velvet paw.

But an agreeable man must not make self his perpetual topic, especially in society or with mere acquaintances. There are, to be sure, occasions and companies when he can do nothing better than talk of himself, but he must have that divine gift of tact to know when those occasions present themselves. Between man and man I doubt if these occasions ever do present themselves, or if a man is ever interested in getting an interior view of another man’s character unless in the way of business, or for legal investigation, or some other practical result.

But a woman, that is to say, an intelligent woman, is generally keenly interested in studying the “true inwardness” of masculine human nature. She loves to point out the faults she discovers and to bestow much sage advice, exhortation and warning; she loves to exclaim in pretty wonder at modes of thought and action so different from her own, to argue which method is better, and to ask explanations of what is contrary to her own experience. In fact, there are appropriate occasions when a man can establish himself as an agreeable man in no way so surely as to talk about himself; but, as I said before, he has to know how and when.

But there is one topic perfectly safe for a man to choose if a woman is his sole auditor, and that is herself. It is an infallible rule for being agreeable, that is to say, of course, if he knows how to treat the topic; a stranger must not plunge at once into personalities, unless, indeed, his auditor is one of those women with whom an inordinate love of flattery outruns self-respect; such women there are to whom a man in the first half hour of their acquaintance may praise her face, her figure, her dancing or her clothes, and meet with complacent acceptance, but there are other women who would meet such audacity with freezing rebuke, so that a man has need to be very careful in the beginning of an acquaintance, although he may be pretty sure that if he knows my sweet Lady Disdain long enough he will come to the same point in the end. And, then, there are so many ways of talking to a woman about herself; personal appearance is the very crudest and most elementary part of the subject, but it is capable of treatment in infinite variety.

“I am sure you like Browning,” he says, and she, smiling placidly, asks:

“Why? How can you judge?”

“Because I notice you use some of his wonderfully eloquent turns of speech. You express yourself, if I may so say, Browningesquely.”

And she is delighted!

Or he remarks: “One can see at a glance that you have traveled a great deal; that gracious and ready courtesy is only learned in the royal courts of Europe.”

Or, “I notice that you always wear lilies of the valley, and use that scent. How delicate and refined it is!”

Perhaps there is nothing so “fetching” to a woman as to have her favorite perfume and color noticed by a man to whom she has never mentioned them. Or, going deeper, he appeals to some unusual knowledge he declares her to possess upon some abstruse subject, and begs for information, or in most confidential and tentative manner he speaks of her loving nature, her sweetness of disposition, her gentle faith in the goodness of those about her, and he warns her of the danger such an innocent lamb as she incurs by trusting the wolves so fearlessly. Of course he is no wolf, oh, no! But probably the innocent lamb knows the marks of a wolf quite well, and will take care of herself even while she seems implicitly to receive the warnings and revelations of her kind guide and mentor.

A man who can talk judiciously and acceptably to a woman about herself will be voted by that woman an agreeable man, and if he has a pretty large female acquaintance he will have a nucleus of admirers to proclaim this opinion.

But to be a universally agreeable man—a man whom other men will admit to be agreeable, although they won’t use that word—requires something more. A man to be agreeable in general society, at a dinner party, at a reception, at any of those places, and times when a tête-à-tête, is either impossible or in bad taste, must be able to talk to more than one person and upon impersonal topics. He must know something about a great many subjects, and yet not have the air of instructing his hearers. Nothing is much more irritating than the ex cathedra style, when the speaker seems to mount a rostrum and hold up his hand for silence before each utterance. That was the matter with the agreeable man first mentioned, and he annoyed me so much that I resolutely forgot all the valuable information so carefully imparted.

Another rock upon which I have seen a great many men meet shipwreck is unadaptability; they talk and talk well, not too learnedly and not too satirically, but they talk upon subjects which have no interest for their audience. A gentleman once called upon me and a bright little girl who was my guest. He staid nearly two hours, and he talked almost without intermission upon some scheme for irrigating Arizona and establishing mills upon the artificial watercourses. I do not doubt that it was a most brilliant and interesting exposition, if only we had cared anything at all about the irrigation of Arizona, but my entire vitality was absorbed in the effort to keep awake and look politely interested, while my little friend made Punch and Judy puppets out of her handkerchief and some tidies, and at appropriate moments bobbed Mr. Punch’s head in assent or caused Columbine to caper with delight.

Certainly that man did not know how to make himself agreeable!

People sometimes ask me, knowing that I am familiar with most parts of the civilized world, where I have found the most agreeable men and the most acceptable companions.

It is a hard question to answer, for one’s taste changes so much from time to time, and according to the conditions of one’s own life.

In early youth I was thrown much with men of Latin blood, Spaniards and Frenchmen, and naturedly learned to think their modes of thought and speech, their somewhat formal courtesy and stately grace, the most agreeable ensemble in the world. Later I have seen very much of Englishmen, and nothing can be more agreeable than the frank, honest, high-bred courtesy of a true English gentleman, although he cannot claim much of grace, vivacity or versatility.

But to-day I give the palm to my own countrymen, for they combine the splendid strength and honor of the Englishman with the wit and worldly wisdom of the Frenchman, and the Spaniard’s appreciation of and graceful devotion to women; in fact, as the people of these United States are the union of all the races of the earth, where but among their men should we look for specimens of the best qualities of all men? Perhaps this estimate will not hold good in all directions; perhaps not every American combines the romance of the Spaniard with the wit of the Frenchman, and the nobleness of the Englishman or the German ancestor of the Englishman, but the combination is very possible, and in greater or less degree I have seen it among the agreeable Americans of my acquaintance.

I said so the other day and my hearer at once inquired:

“Where most frequently? North, south, east or west?” and I replied after due consideration:

“I have found the agreeable man north, south, east and west.”