The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1874-01-11
LAPsUs LINGUE.

Are you, reader, one of those thrice happy
mortals whose mental machinery neither loses
nor gains. but works on with uniform regu-
larityf Can you rise to address an assembly,
or sit down to your desk for more guarded
utterance, with the consciousness that what |
you speak write is sure to come up to q |
certain average, not disgracefully below |
your former performances Do your thoughts |
never come crowding on your brain in
have finished moulding one, another pushes it
out aud the perplexed listener has to inter
pref your meaning from the heads and tails of
incomplete sentoncesf L. your memory clear
and ready, always providing you with, at all
events, familiar names and words in common
usef If so, it is much to be feared that yon
whose minds are less happily constituted than
your own that you characterize their forget
fnlness as carelessness, their abstraction as
| affectation, their incoherence q sure symp-
tom of despicable folly; for it is exceedingly
difficult for an orderly mind to contemplate
anything approaching to confusion or want of
prehend that what comes so instinctively to
| itself, is unattainable by a different organiza-
ton. OF course confused, hesitatng, or
inconsequent style of speaking is n great de-
feet but it is one which often arises from a
redundancy rather than q lack of sentiments
and illustrations, that it should be treated
with lenepcy. Indeed, it is singular to OBJ
serve how often an empty headed man, without
one original ida in his possession, can pour
out well-turned sentences without hesitation,
and upon every subject, by the hour together
while his intellectual superior, who has
thought deeply and earnestly upon the same
| topics, sits by in silence, or stammers, becomes
involved in his sentences, puts one word Tor
another. and makes exhibition of himself
rather than of his opinions.
When man combines power of thought
with tluency of speech and the faculty of ar
ranging his ideas, he is delightful converse
tionalist if. in addition, he has good lungs,
al uvula which does not tickle and sturdy
tonsils, he is born orator; let him add indus
try and capacity for business, and there is
your statesman.
All men who are deficient in tho three first
qualties-namely, thought, 1uency, and order
ARE liable to the lapsus lingaa, and if they
declaim much in public. will sometimes excite
nnintentonal merriment by their biundeTs.
elaborate mistake of Sir Boyle Roche. The
famous "There he stands Mr.. Speaker, like q
crocodile, with his hands in his pockets, shed
slip Of the tongue: he would not have 'orittem
such sentence. He possessed o creative i'm
agination and fuency of speech. but was en-
ideas: comparisons, illustrations, inveotivess
overlooked his brain, and came pouring ont OF
his mouth in q heterogeneous torrent Take.
for instance "Mr. Speaker, sir, smell q rat ;
I see him floating in the dir; but will nip
him in the bud!" Here are three Distinct
inns ges jumbled up into ridiculous sentence.
. A man with equally fluent tongue and a
brain of inferior reproductive energy, would
: have stuck say, to the flower, some poisonous
? plant probably, would have sown it, watered
] it, psmpered it for a quarter of an hour before
q the nipping process, and probably impressed
v his audience with the idea that he had made @
4 very respectable speech.
The more ordinary slips of the tongue are
b caused esther by nervousness or by the mind
: wandering sway while the unruly member i.
left trip uuguarded over some oftrepeated
o words, and the effect produce by snch mis-
8 takes is sometimes very ludicrous. 1t is aston
b ishng how seldom actors stumble in this way
i one would fancy'that men repeating the word,
| of 40 other, night after night, and obliged al
the time to think of their actions, the expires
u sion of their faces and, above all, their cues
}, would be peculiarly liable to blunder but
: though they often forget their parts, and are
d driven to gag" it is most always the author
=, not the actor who suffers. l remember ore
Il very ridiculous Lapsas made by an actor, how
It ever, which may not be familiar to the reader
y The play Lear, and the performer who
II represented the king got on we'll enough til
e he came TO HE lament over the untilial conduc
o of his daughter Goneril: -N
d Turns all her mothers pains, and beuefts
;, To laughter and contempt that she may feel
a To have thankless child
d Which the unhappy man rendered:
Hoy sharper than c sePSnt' thanks tits
It a reading not quite so tragic as the original.
10 A still more terrible thing mnst it be for
n clergymen to make n ludicrous blunder of thi
% description the more solemn the act of on
ii thoughts at any particular moment the NOR
10 comic does any absurdity seem, and he mus
le have been very serious person indeed VIII
g RETAINED from smiling when the officiating
Is clergyman read: " He spake the word, ant
y cathoppers came. and grassipillers innumera
is BILE" The best thing which could happen t
one who made such slip, would be not t
" perceive it that is, if he were man VIII
l. found difficulty in keeping his countenanc
'r upon trying OCCASIONS q task, however, whic
N the majority seem to find simple enough.
IS 1t is singular phenomenon of the human
d mind, that if man makes slip of the tongu
IS without noticing it himself, or being correcte
% by others, in the course of repetition or It
IT ctal, the chances are that the same ldpsus re
n, ours on the next occasion. A friends of ourt
ID who is one of the best ght-weight riders i
Q, the country, ardent fox-hunter, and a mos
rs melodious vocalist, has q frst-rate hunting
SO song in his repertoire, which is always Gale
"a for on cornwall occasions, but in the course
ID singing which he invariably unwittingl
m trolls ont the most fearful heresy that sport
ed man could utter:
=, When hounds are in cover your place is inside
- instead of outside, as, of course, it stands
90 the text, and my friend fAncies he sings i
n These last instances are pure slips of I'll
~ tongue, those first treated of perhal
Mt OF the brain but there is description
in hn If hplfi aud