St. Paul daily globe., 1894-07-15
"NEW TYPE CT OPPRESSION"

lamations of late has become the frus.
traiiOn of public business and
peace. The inference from debates
and speeches in Washington is
either "a rank egetism asserting itself
in utter useiessness, callous to the
exigent needs of the country--or else
the persistent talker is the hired bravo
who kills benefcent public measures
by endless speecnifying until he has at
least succeeded in muddling matters to
The satisfaction of the interests he
serves by indirectness.
1t is queer change, this volubiity
that has cverrun the land. The genuine
American antitype was grave. slow,
deliberate, and not prone to diffusive-
ness. LII fact, reserve was perhaps the
most noticeable characteristic in theNew
| England training of former time, a
reserve which overlad family inter-
course and seldom was betrayed into an
expression of affection, and schooner
still into cOmmendation. The men and
women of that stock had plenty of
stored power as the result, and, in stu-
ations requiring energy, action and
decisive speech they had an indis-
putable natural commission to speak
and to act. We say to each other in
speaking of President Cleveland's curt
authoritative answer to Gov. Altgeld's
Dear Sir" circumlocution, That's the
American of it," but then the president
is exceptional even among Americans
OF this era, and Altgeld is the figure of
what we have come to in Kansas.
Colorado and Illinois, and who
knows where else in the future?
That dear" seems to be indica-
tive of revolutlonists. Carlyle re-
lates of Mazzini that an undertaken
came to his rooms in London one dark
winter morning to inquire for a corpse.
Mazzini, who answered the bell him
self. said, But, my dear' Can Italian
would say My dear" to hangman),
there is not here dead" Altgeld.
too, in the thick of chaos and impend-
ing carnage becomes voluble AMI en-
dearing
Perhaps it is the assimilation of for
eign blood that is imperceptibly as yet.
though surely changing the distinctively
American characteristic of taciturnity
into an alien volubilIty, which in time
may take on the WastefuI redundancy
of gesticulation as we'll. Some one
writes: ut is a physical necessity for
me to repair by fast OF words, an alb
stinence from talk. the frightful eXpend-
iture of his whole being which is an
Italians or Frenchman's life.''
Nothing is truer in human observa-
tion than the deduction that the lower
the degree of culture the greater the
amount of talk. In fact. the absence OF
presence of reserve shows social grada-
tions tacitly recognized by every think
ing human being.
There is no evaporation more fret
ting than the punishment of listening
to talk which must be endured from
policy, politeness or some consideration
that is of no earthly account
when compared with the nervous sacri-
flee. The penances of the saints de-
vised by themselves always favored
silence and quiet. 1t is doubtful If
sanctification could have been SO easily
compassed in world of talk
ers, talking for talks sake. to
kill time. Agassiz wondered when
people he met In society sometimes
complained of being bored with life.
/ Every contrivance ''to kill time" was
. incomprehensible to him. "Time!'' he
would eXciaim: My only trouble is
that l have not enough time for my
work. Please give to me the hours you
say are bore to You, and | will receive
them as the most precious of presents"
~ have no small talk" said the Duke
Of Wellington, land Peel has no man
ners," but the assertion was scarcely
necessary from the Iron Duke. His ca
reer precluded such an accomplishment,
but his talk as it is recorded has the di-
rectness of bayonet charge. For in
stance. when George ". .belieyed that his
''honor" forbade him to accept Can
ming as minister, declaring to Yelling.
ton: 81 can't, Arthur; can't as gen
tleman. can I?'' "Your majesty is not
gentleman" replied the duke to the
startled king, and his majesty gave
way. While temperament largely ill.,
fuences the reserve of persons
high and low, environments seem
to have the dominating touch
that affects many. There is a we'll
known family in town, consisting
of five persons of whom it is said that
the English language would vanish
from the world if it rested with them,
so chary are they of exercising it in
speech. They are all of one turn in the
matter, and the reserve being under.
stood, there is no agreement nor con-
f1ict of opinion possible. Environment
protects them for goodly share of their
time from the inroads of gabblers whose
one indefatigable industry is talk.
Rank has one delightful privilege,
that it can be hedged from the takers
it does not want to hear. Or, coming
where talk might abound, it is the pre-
rogative of woman like the queen of
England to limit it to answering such
questions as she may condescend to ask,
and nothing more. unless the respond
ent were Thomas Carlyle, who not alone
answered, but actually contradicted her
majesty, as Robert Browning narrated,
he being present. In leaving the room
the queen fingered near the poet long
enough to ask if that was Carlyle's
habitual manner, and Browning had to
answer affirmatively. The straightfor-
ward Scotchman always dealt sum-
mariiy with commonplace takers. Dick
ems mentions dinner where pompous
man disposed of a question of some
moment sin his usual style, made it
into a small iparcel, and laid it away on
shelf, not to be moved thence any
more" Thereafter came dead silence,
with Carlyle gazing blankly at the inn
portant parsonage opposite to him, and
saying in truly absent manner, but
perfectly andible, ''Eh, but yon're a
puir creatur-puir wratched, meeser-
able creatur," and then proceeded with
mis- dinner.
In everyday life takers are the spire
of us. il we see the world at all. No
matter how restless we may be under
the lpf1ictiOn eseapa in tho p,ost