The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-05-29
WOMAN AND HER TALK.
Her Linguai Ability Philosophical,
Discussed.

Discussed.
Conversation Is one thing; talk is an
other. Cultivated women in general
converse better than cultivated men.
Women, as sex, talk vastly more
than any kind of men do or possibly
can. There Is no question about that.
Their organization, their gregarioais-
ness, their disposition to be always do
ing something, insures their garr1ility.
A man often finds It hard to express
himself; has really nothing to say: pre-
fers silence, as a rule. Not so the or
dinary 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
possession of ideas not infrequently in
terferes with his speech, never with
hers. The fewer she has the more
voluble she is. Unburdened with a singel
idea, loquacity 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 empti-
ness. Every man has observed this so
many times that it has ceased to i'm
press him. A woman is seldom struck
by a woman's chatter unless It cur
tails her own. Then 1t becomes a
strife of tongues, the victory being to
the ntmblest, to the least capable of
fatigue. Has any one ever heard of a
tongue-tired woman? She is apt to
work very hard, often harder than
man, but llmitness exercise of tongue
must give her rest. If so, who would
wish to restrain her interminable utter
ance?
The average woman's excessive oral
ftuency Is something that must be ac-
cepted. 1t is a phenomenon of her sex,
her Inheritance and her privilege. To
reduce 1t to the normal requires train
ing--much self-discipHne. 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
interrupted merely by circumstances
she is forced to shop. When one of
her own sex and kind or of the other
sex visit 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 super
fluffy, of the English language contri-
butes to her weakness. Not a few of
our so-called orators have taught us
that man may make a long speech
without conveying any definite mean
ing. The average woman is, in her
talk, still more efficient in her ineffi-
cheney. But she seems to be satisfac-
tory to the mass of her auditors. She
may adapt herself TO them, may gauge
their understanding, anticipate their
taste. Woman's intuition, whatever
her grade, ranks high.
Hardly any woman will deny that
she talks a great deal, and that she is
very fond of ia. lg. AS to talking
WELL or ILL., she will say that this is a
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 maintain, 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 comments on her
generous efforts to assist 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 re-
petitions. Her power of expansion of
the smallest circumstance is extraor-
dinary. What might be said in ten or
fifteen words she will distend into 200
or 300 and reiterate her dilutions again
and again. What has she uttered with
infinitesimal particularization in the
drawing room she rehearses in the
hallway, in the vestibule, at the front
door, always following her caller or
callers, under the impression that it is
impolite to let them go after they have
formally hidden her good afternoon
or good evening.