produces good Talk.

A woman Macaulay, even with brilliant flashes of silence, is not loved:
you do not want a hostess who "holds forth," but one who sets her guests
talking; and every woman is the hostess when she is talking to a man, or
to any one younger or shyer than herself. You should make people go away
with a regretful feeling that they missed a great deal by having talked so
much themselves that they heard very little from you.

Do you think it is easy to listen--that it means mere silence? I assure
you it means nothing of the sort; it means listening with all your heart
and soul and mind, and making the speaker feel, by your way of listening,
that you _have_ a heart and a soul and a mind. There could not well be
anything further from the person who makes him feel that there is a mere
dead wall of silence before him _at_ which he is talking.

Listening is a fine art and requires great tact and a peculiar delicate
perception of the shades that are passing over the speaker's mind, and
dictating (often unconsciously) the words he says--words which in
themselves do not convey his mind, unless you are of the family of the
Interpreter in Bunyan, and know by instinct what he feels.

Only a large heart of quick understanding has this gift; but we help our
heart wonderfully by keeping our mind keen. The heart is apt to be very
blundering and stupid by itself; just as the mind is very apt to go off on
a wrong scent about people, unless you have a warm heart to throw true
light on their motives.

A _quick-witted heart_ is what I should put as the first requisite for a
good talker; and next a _noble heart_--a heart that cares for the best