ONE OF the best ways to smooth relations with other people is to be adept at the art of paying a compliment. The sincere, appreciative remark helps the other fellow to realize his own inherent worth. And, what is more, the ability to pay a compliment bolsters our own ego--which is not a bad thing either.

We never forget a compliment that has deeply pleased us, nor do we forget the person who made it. Yet often the luster of praise is needlessly dimmed by awkwardness in the manner of its giving. Like all ventures in human relations, the art of paying a compliment takes thought and practice. We have all experienced the remorse of having our praise fall flat because we chose the wrong time to give it or the wrong language to couch it in.

According to Leonard Lyons, a compliment of the right sort was paid Toscanini by Judith Anderson when she saw him after a concert.

"She didn't say I had conducted well," said the maestro. "Iknew that. She said I looked handsome." It is human nature to enjoy praise for something we are not noted for. When someone calls attention to an unadvertised facet of our personality it makes him forever our friend.

We all pride ourselves on our individual distinctions. It is a gross misconception to think you are complimenting a person by telling him he looks exactly like so-and-so, even if so-and-so is a movie idol. I have noticed that nothing pleases us less than to have a double.

The best compliments are those which reinforce our sense of personal identity. A woman acquaintance of mine who is slender to the point of being skinny was sitting on the beach when a friend remarked, "You certainly have a flat stomach!" After the first shock wore off, she felt pleased by this frank tribute to her appearance.

One of the most satisfying kinds of compliment to give or receive is the double, or relayed, compliment--one passed on to you by someone who heard it. Recently, a correspondent enclosed a letter he had received from a friend who happens to be a man of eminence in his field. This man's opinion of a column I had written puffed me up considerably. Relayed to me by my friend, it was a compliment amplified--far more effective than if it had come direct.

The ingenuous compliment may touch us deeply, but it is probably the hardest to pay, for it depends on pure inspiration. I am reminded of an example that Margery Wilson cites in her book Make Up Your Mind. She once had a butler who knew a great deal about sculpture. His hero was Gutzon Borglum, the man who carved the massive portraits of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt on a mountainside in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Borglum came to tea and the butler, beside himself with excitement, spilled a glass of wine on him. Swabbing the sculptor desperately with a napkin, the butler said, "I could have served a lesser man perfectly."

To his embarrassed worshiper Borglum replied, "I was never so complimented in my life!"

Among the varieties of compliment is one with a particularly pleasing punch; I should call it a "bonus compliment of recall." It is indeed a heart-warming surprise when a person remembers something you said a long time ago that made a lasting impression on him. That it should have been hoarded and served up to you at an appropriate time is an experience bound to smooth out your kinks of self-doubt.

Urging me to go on a trip, a friend once said, "Memories are the best investment you can make." It was just as casual as that, yet it gave me courage to travel as I might not have, thinking I ought not to invest the money or the time. When I later reminded my friend of his remark, I found he had completely forgotten the incident. But my reminding him nourished his ego anew.

Compliments offered in the kidding vein hit home just as surely as those with a serious-minded approach. And they involve no responsibility on the part of the receiver for a minching rejoinder. He can laugh with the crowd and happily accept his accolade.

I overheard a remark of this type in a restaurant recently. A group of businessmen were finishing lunch at the table next to mine. Said one of them, "Harry is the best computing machine here; he's a real mathemagician. So he gets stuck with figuring out the check!" They all chuckled; it was obviously a compliment.

A well-turned compliment is never unmindful of what are regarded as the distinguishing characteristics of the sexes. I think most men feel some measure of annoyance at being praised for individual features. Compliments on complexion or eyes, after all, border on what is most prized as a feminine attribute. But men will bask in the sunshine of being told how well built or how strong they are. Women traditionally have preferred to be saluted for their looks, their intuition, their capacity for understanding and sympathy.

Pushed to the point of flattery, the compliment is distasteful to most of us. We have all known people so vain that no syrup is too sweet for their taste, but they are in the minority. If we have any sense of proportion about ourselves, we are at once aware that we are being overpraised. This can be as painful as criticism.

Sometimes in a group of people we get so caught up in our own good words for a person that we overplay a tribute. When we finally stop, the recipient feels called upon to fill the sudden void in conversation with refutation equal in violence.

A compliment casually worked in, so that the threads of general conversation can easily be retrieved, makes less demands on the recipient--and leaves him with more glow than he would have gained from the spotlight. For example, as simple a thing as a question may become a compliment. If, instead of telling Bill that you think he has a wonderful garden, you ask him for advice about yours, you accomplish a number of things. You have indicated that you admire his gardening skill: you have singled him out from the crowd. He can give you advice without any to-do about acknowledging the compliment. And he's likely to feel you are a discerning guy.

When a man by virtue of success comes in for constant personal kudos, we face a dilemma when we want to get across to him our feelings of admiration. We know he must be tired of hearing the same things, of making the same perfunctory acknowledgement. Here is a place where we can use the indirect compliment to great advantage by telling him how much we admire his children, his house, his garden, a picture that hangs in his living room. In effect we are telling him that we admire what he admires. A man my question the truth of what we say about him, but he will not question a tribute to the things he loves.

One of the choicest indirect compliments I have heard was a husband's anniversary greeting to his wife:"I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you." She prized those words more than the handsome present.

Compliments smooth the paths of social intercourse, help to dispel the current dissatisfaction most of us have with ourselves and encourage us toward new achievement. "Appreciative words," says Dr George W. Crane, "are the most powerful force for good will on earth."(#)