The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1897-07-31
WOMAN ANp HER TALK.
tingual Ability of the Fair Sex Phil0>
sophically Discussed.

tinguaI Ability of the Fair Sex Philos
sophically Discussed.
Conversation is one thing; talk il
another. Cultivated women in general
converse better than cultivated men.
Women as a sex talk vastly more than
any kind of men do or possibly can.
| There is no question about that Their
organization, their gregariousness,
| their disposition to be always doing
something, inspires their garrulity.
A man often finds it hard to express
himself; has really nothing to say; pre-
| fers silence, as a rule. Not so the or
binary woman. Whether she has any
thing to say or not makes no difference.
Having nothing in her mind. she has
abundance on her tongue, and the
abundance will never run off. The pos
session of ideas not ipfrequently inter-
feres with his speech, never with hers.
The fewer she has the more voluble she
Is. Unburdened with single idea, To-
guacity never tires her, be it's effect
what it may on others.
Many of the emptiest women are the
noisiest. Indeed, their noise is com.
monty proportioned to their emptiness.
| Every man has observed this SO many
times that it has ceased to impress him.
A woman is seldom struck by wom-
| ans chatter unless it curtails her own.
Then it becomes a strife of tongues,
the victory being to the nimblest, the
least capable of fatigue. Has anyone
ever heard of tongue-tired woman?
She is apt to work very hard, often
harder than man, but limitless exercise
of tongue must give her rest. If so,
who would wish to restrain her inter
minable utterance?
The average woman's excessive oral
fiuency is something that must be ac-
cepted. 1t is phenomenon of her sex,
her inheritance and her privilege. To
reduce it to the normal requires train
ing-much self-discipline. She talks,
talks, talks. Having nothing to say in
the beginning, she ends with saying
nothing. Strictly speaking, she does not
end-she is never ending. She is inter
rupted merely by circumstances-sh
is forced to stop. When one of her own
sex and kind or of the other sex visits
her she dilates on vacuity for half an
hour, for an hour, for two hours. Her
speech is but words, words, words. The
richness, the verbal superiority of the
English language contributes to her
weakness. Not few of our ss-called
orators have taught us that man may
make a long speech without conveying
any definite meaning. The average
woman is, in her talk, still more eff
cient in her inefficiency. But she
seems to be satisfactory to the mass of
her auditors. She may adapt herself to
them, may gauge their understanding,
anticipate their taste. Woman's intui-
ton, whatever her grade, ranks high.
| Hardly any woman will deny that she
talks great deal, and that she is very
fond of talking. AS to talking well or
i'll, she will say that this is matter OF
opinion, and that she is, of course, on
her own side, as she ought to be, and as
everybody is. She will probably main
tain, if she be nettled by criticism, that
many men are stupid, very stupid; that
they cannot talk; that she has therefore
to talk for them; that they must be
helped out in some way, and that it is
base ingratitude for them to make COM
ments on her generous efforts to as
sist them. There may be more than a
| spice of truth in this.
Most men, she will contend, furnish
only a crude outline of anything.
whether important or unimportant.
Their statements and stories lack color,
interest, dramatic point. Above all,
they are defective in details She dotes,
she declares on details, and her doting
is evident, no less than her repetitions.
Her power of expansion of the smallest
circumstance is extraordinary. What
might be said in ten or fifteen words
she will distend into 200 or 300 and re-
iterate her dilutions again and again.
What she has uttered with infinitesimal
REORGANIZATION in her drawing-room
she rehearses in the hallway, in the
vestibule, at the front door, always fol-
lowing her caller or callers, under the
impression that it is impolite to let
them go after they have formally bid.
den her good-afternoon or good-even
ing.-Philadelphia North American.
L