SILENCE. You will find a tortoise-shell Tom cat, before you THERE is scarcely a subject on which I could say more than on that of silence; for, though silence is a virtue to which I could never attain myself, I admire it not the less in others. You may depend upon it that wise men are generally silent men, and that they who talk the fastest have, in nine cases out of ten, the least share of understanding. My own case is an exception to this rule. If you think because I am talkative that I am not qualified to speak in praise of silence, you commit a great error, for I am on that very account better qualified than another. Who do you suppose is the better qualified to explain the pleasure of eating a good dinner, he who has one every day of his life, or he who procures one but once a month? Who can speak the more feelingly on the advantage of a new suit of clothes, he who has a new suit every three months, or he who can obtain such a prize only once in as many years? The want of a thing makes us estimate it more highly than the possession of it. You were never half so grateful for the comfort of a good warm bed on a winter's night, as you would have been if you had passed a night out of doors, amid the sleet and snow. Nor were you ever so much inclined to think highly of ease, as during a hearty fit of the toothWhere you can give me one reason why you should talk fast, I can give you a score why ache. All the time you should hold your tongue. which you consume in talking fast is lost to you, for you might be listening to that which might be important to you to know. Rely upon it, that silence is a great virtue! There is an old proverb, "Always taking out of the meal-tub, and never putting in, soon comes to the bottom;" and if you talk much when you have very little to talk about, you will get the reputation of being not only a great talker, but also a great blockhead. Great talkers generally like to choose their own subjects, and these subjects are usually what no other person would think of choosing. Great talkers, also, are frequently careless in suiting their subject to the people to whom they talk. One that I know was boring a person, the other night, with a long-winded harangue on law-suits, without considering that the person to whom he was talking had just lost one. He then held forth, as long, on the horrors of hydrophobia, to another, who that very day had met with the misfortune of being bit in the hand by a strange dog. And to crown the whole, he turned to a friend of mine, who had just bought largely in the Three per Cents., and maintained his opinion for an hour and a half, that every man who had property in the funds was no better than a speculating, stock-jobbing swindler. You may fancy how patiently he was listened to, and how very acceptable his conversation must have been. I hardly ever knew a fast talker in my life, myself excepted, who was not considered a disagreeable, chattering, busy, meddling fellow; so that I again say that silence is a great virtue. If you talk fast when alone, you have no one to lis ten to you. If you talk fast in company, unless you are very entertaining, half a dozen people will be sitting on the edge of their chairs, impatient to get in an observation of their own. Your wit, if you have any, will be disregarded by them, and your wisdom thrown away. Very few people are overburdened with wisdom or wit, and the fast talker is not among the number. The probability of a great talker rendering himself agreeable is so little, and that of his becoming disagreeable so great, that a wise man, unless his information be equal to my own, must become foolish before he can indulge in such folly. Take my advice and be silent. Be a great reader if you will, a great listener if you like, and a great thinker if you are so disposed; but on no account in the world venture to be a great talker. |