People who never stop talking think their companions very dull.
While tasting the world's diversity on short wave I came across an English church service in the midst of the Dutch comedians and the French North African commentators. So beautiful, until the priest began to speak.
The British do not write aphorisms, only jokes. Since Oscar Wilde they have believed that wit is both cruel and funny, while the profound is dull, and the dull profound. We have come very far since the seventeenth century.
Physical grace is essential for a good after dinner speaker. He must be able to rise to to his feet and sit again in one flowing movement of twenty minutes.
Mixed company is preferable, of course. – One knows what people are up to.