Daily camera., 1897-08-02
WOMAN'S TALK.
A Philosophical Discussion Of Lin
II gual Ability.
The Fair Sex Possesses the Advan'
taee Over the Men When IL
Comes to q Game of Tongue
WaGRinE.

Conversation is one thing; talk is
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 q 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 pos
session of ideas not infrequently inter-
feres with his speech, never with hers.
| The fewer she has the more voluble she
is. Unburdened with single idea. To-
quacity never tires her, be its 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 strife of tongues,
the victory being to the nimblest, the
least capable of fatigue. Has anyone
ever heard of a 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
fluency is something that must be ac-
lcepted. 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-she
is forced to stop. When one of her own
! StN anu hlllu Vi VI pllS Olll0l SCA
her she dilates on vacuity for half an
hour, for an hour, for two hours. Hsr
| speech is but words, words, words. The
richness, the verbal superfuity of the
| English language contributes to her
weakness. Not few of our so-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 ineficiency. 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 sh e
talks a great deal, and that she is very
| fond of talking. AS to talking well or
i'll, 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 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 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
particularization 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.