Do not interlard your conversation with scraps of foreign language. It is an affectation of knowledge in one direction, and a sort of tacit admission of ignorance in another; for it would seem to show that the speaker was not well enough acquainted with his own language to be able to express by its aid that which could really be told as well, perhaps better, by it than any other. There are certain expressions, chiefly French, which have become domesticated in the English language, and which may occasionally be employed, but only when they come in very aptly; the constant or extended use of them is intolerable in good society. Quotations are to be avoided as much as possible. When made, they should be exceedingly short. There can scarcely be a greater annoyance to a company than for one person to take up all the time and attention by reciting a poem, a speech, a passage from a book, especially if it be the speaker's own book, speech or poem. Of course, if the company meet especially for mutual enjoyment in elocution or recitation, this rule does not apply. It is applicable only for general society. Short, pungent, epigrammatic quotations, if suitable to the subject of conversation, may be occasionally introduced, but their use should be the exception, not the rule. Dr. Johnson says that in order to converse well, "there must, in the first place, be knowledge--there must be materials; in the second place, there must be a command of words; in the third place, there must be imagination to place things in such views as they are not commonly seen in; and in the fourth place, there must be a presence of mind, and a resolution that is not to be overcome by failure--this last is an essential requisite; for want of it many people do not excel in conversation." To be known as an inveterate teller of stories, is a great injury to a man in society. A short, brilliant anecdote, that is especially applicable to the conversation, known to be new and never printed, is all that a well-bred man will ever permit himself to inflict. Remarks having, and intended to have, a double meaning--even puns --are utterly to be deprecated. It is a great liberty to appeal to the private sympathies of any one, by which I mean, to those qualities or perceptions which are, as it were, a man's private property, available for the use of his intimate friends, but not for the general public. It seems almost needless to say that under no circumstances whatever are any coarse allusions permissible.