Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1878-05-31
Selected Misfellamy,
QUIET PEOPLE.

The misgovernment Of the world is
carried on with such an amount of talk
that one has seldom time to think how
little would suffice. Half-a-dozen we'll
chosen words would generally be better
than whole conferences and debates. But
since people must speak first aud choose
their words afterwards, everybody's time
is taken up in saying that something was
said, in saying that something quite diff
fernt was meant, and in saying some
thing fresh, which has to be explained
in its turn. 1t naturally results that both
wise and foolish people have broken
much silence in praising it i; and that, like
abstract virture, it is admired but sell
dom practised. 1t is in vain to point out
that the silent fool often passes for man
of wit, because the fool who has wit
enough to know this and act accordingly
is not properly fool. Were he a fool
be would not keep silence. The negroes
attribute this wisdom to the chimpanzee,
who, they say is man, but will not speak
lest he should be made to work. Silent
people get through the world as we'll as
their laxative neighbors every one
talks for them their nod is interpreted
where another man would have to make
speech and every one is willing to
excuse them, as the sailor excused his
parrot, for if they do not speak they
think the more. Foote, the actor, boast
ed of his horse that it could stand still
faster than some horses could trot; and
the silent man is often enabled by the
value attached to his rare utterances TO say
more by his silence than a voluble talk
er by u string of phrases. No doubt
there is kind of silence which is the re-
verse of talk, and is in itself eloquent.
A prisoner who reserves his defence, a
witness who refuses to answer q ques-
ton, a man who holds his tongue when
his character is assailed-in fact, all the
cases in which "silence gives consent"
are rather silence as the negation Of
speech than as a positive quantity. The
old apothegm Of the Silent Club is not
in point either. When the secretary
presented the rejected candidate with a
glass of water so full that it would not
hold another drop. he went to great trou-
BILE TO do in roundabout way what he
might have done in moment by saying
one word and so have avoided the retort.
The candidate, when he laid the rose
leaf on the water, answered in the Ian
guage employed by the secretary; but it
was language, and not silence. 1t is
quite easy to imagine loquacity in a deaf
mute. He may have not power enough
to utter sound, yet, 10 the strict sense,
he is not perhaps silent person. And
silence kept on purpose to express by its
very existence an emotion Of the mind
is only substitution Of signs for speech
Such is the roticence displayed by the
well-known epitaph on tombstone in
Fulham churchyard, where, after the
name, age, and date Of death of the lady
buried below, three words only are added
by way Of apitaph-'Sience is best" -
The estimation of the deceased by her
surviving relatives could not be moro fully
expressed had the whole stone been COW
cred. When a character is TO be given
TO drunken or dishonest servant, the
omission Of the words honest and sober
is sufficient But this is not the silence
of quiet people. Too often they resem-
BILE rather the chimpanzee than the par
rot, and are not laxative because talk
may involve them in further exertion.
But it is not easy TO pry into their mo-
tivos Of action, or rather inaction. The
Ulster folk have a proycrb. Nobody
can tell what is in the pot when the lid
is on" IL is not the most unseliih peo-
pie who talk least about themselves. To
some the facts which relate TO their per-
sonal history are too serious for words.
When Queen Elizabeth visited West
minister School, it is said that the future
Lord Burleigh, in answer TO her ques-
ton as to the number Of his Aoggings,
replied 10 the words Of Kneas:
LcfaHdaa, regina, jubes renoy4re aolofem.