St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-07-13
TALK.

Snakspearean handling
When people use this taking sentence it is
to signify the kinship of nobility. The real
meaning and original placing of it were the
very contrary.
Ulysses in Troilus and Cressida is speaking
to Achilles of the ingratitude of the Grecians
who forgot him for Ajax, and he says with
bitter consolation:
0, let not virtue seek
Remuneration for the thing it was,
For beauty, wit,
High birth, vigor of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
10 envious and eliminating time.
one touch Of nature makes the achoEe aUorld Kin
That all with one consent praise newborn
gawds
Surely the touch of nature here meant is
not complimentary but who ever knew the
line to be used in any derogatory sense!
1t never will be applied now to intimate
aught save the innate goodness lurking
everywhere subject to this mysterious cue of
discovery. heard it used in the most So
norous peryersion of its meaning yesterday
and by some curious association / instantly
thought of Byron's electric chain wherewrith
we are darkly bound. Dark enough surely
in the brotherhood Of badness, but was go
ing to say so and rob that confiding and
snowy gentleman of the beautiful imitation
of sentiment, that misunderstood quotation
gave hms
OF course not. am 40 such cold-blooded
stickler for correctness. The world is not
oil ro6i hou
believer in sublimated human nature fys
this incongruous inspiration at me by
way of intrenching himself in the ennobllng
enhancement, how vain would it be to dis
turb him. You've known persons witha alb
normally developed bent for setting people
right. They are the settlers of conversations
on the scent for every stray, unguarded,
and inconsequent utterance. They always
know best, and it is pleasanter to let them
think they do. 1t saves argument and bag
Cling over non-essentials. The most sue
cessful persons in the social routine are said
to be those who listen with intermniable pa
tience and receptivity.
There is record of an introductory letter
once given by Sir William Cell to friend
in England announcing the bearer to be the
most "disputatious brute in existence" and
asking him to find another to meet him
by way of civility.
The disputatious people are bad enough,
but the set with mission for righting the
crowd, who are born with conviction OF
their own omniscence are the worst disturb
ers of conyers ational peace. Next to them
are the literalists to whom quip and crank
and fantastic personiication of things are sc
many challenges which must be answered in
the strictest of matter-of-fact explanation
Joke and illustration and story must be
made as plain as the nose on your face OF
they'll none of it. No play of the magma
ton, and no airy investment of fun or fac
ever passes muster with them, until reduced
to pitiful badness of presentment which
impoverishes your well-meant attempt an(
makes you rather ashamed of it after all
probably what these prosaic torturers mean
you should be. When they say, as they Otter
do, II really don't see the fun il
that" you have an impulse toward assault
ing them for their stupidity Not long age
L
inimitable conciseness of the late Abraham
Hayward's wit which he carried to absolut,
genius and celebrity in London society.
told his stage coach story to illustrate it, O
two young women travelling in one, wheI
sudden faintness overcomes one, and tn,
other says.'it's the heart" ''Aneurism ~
asks fellow-traveller. s'No a cornet O
hussars," is. the reply. Now if you will be
lieve me l had to explain that word for word
and by that time the fun was very dead.
But such episodes are curative of the ten
dency to repeat similar things indiscrimin
ately. My mind to me kingdom is-and
am not going to squander its revenues il
every idle expedition of my neigh
boris IMMERSED or unprepared in
telligence. Neither is any intimation o
misapplied quotation called for, when thu
commonly accepted Interpretation gives 81
much swelling satisfaction, and such visi
BILE sense of superiority to the speaker.
There is no more thankless task than thi.
setting of people right in anything, particu
larry where tbs question of information
and you put your mental competence agains
their restitution.
Possibly their very restitution, as you re
| gard it., affords them more genuine pleasure
than you ever derived from your attain
ments, because the prophet was right wheI
he said, she who increases knowledge in
creases sorrow.n They know nothing of tn
dissatisfaction attendant upon Unconscious
Of bn Enn
which is paradoxical way of stating de
pressing truth patent to every student.
But all this side of the matter is unknown
to the persons who are well up in matt
samples of their reading and observation
The display is well enough in talking. but i
is limited. There never will be much adde,
to the first outfit, because it answered so we
that continual additions were deemed un
necessary.
There are people quite intelligent, too
who cannot appreciate why any one read
the great master pieces of fiction a second o
third time.
It isn't perceptible to them that each read
ing finds appreciation more keen, and til
Judgment ripper to enjoy the perfect merit G
the work-that ore comes to It with a well
remembered zest and fingers over its page
in a spell of perennial thrall.
With them IT would not count for so mucl
in the scale of personal satisfaction, as th
effect such extensive reading would have OF
their 'sworld.'' 1t would be "a matter of shor
like their toilets. They do a rushing bust
ness now ON the slenderest reading capita
know one woman here who is the Phenom
enon of ShaIlowness, and yet Julia War
Howe never carried herself with such i'm
posing cleverness.
Ny Lady Katharine is i'll at ease in tn
same room with her.
No wonder. If you can imagine the fl
ed. muggy, uncomfortable atmosphere of