The Savannah morning news., 1904-07-03
WOMAN'S WORLD

chickens 1854 days in the year and moth
ing would be said of il, but let him
tarry out until midnight on the 365th
and his Maria would never let him hear
the last of it. Everybody gobbles down
little Mrs Housekeeper's good dinners
in silence, month after month, but let
there be occasionally a day when the
bread is heavy and the soup salty and
everybody raises a howl about it. Lit
tie Johnnie may come into the room
like a perfect gentleman hundred
times in succession without exciting a
single word of communication from any
one, but let him come in like a Whrl-
wind "A single time and we all clap our
hands to our ears and cry, Heavens!
that child will never grow up to be
anything but hoodlum. Where did
he learn such manners?" Now fair
play is fair play. If we are going to
speak of peoples faults. for PHYS sake
let's also discourse about their virtues.
1t is no more than justice.
It is undeniable that there ara
friendships that have been killed by
talk. but there are just as many that
have been killed by silence Probably
there is no person who cannot look
back over his life and recall some
friend who was estranged and lost,
who might have been held by a word
If that word had been spoken in time.
They took offense at something. or we
were hurt by some trivial thing-some
fanCied slight, or an imagined lack OF
cOrdiality or a garbled rumOr-Some-
thing that we misunderstood or mis-
took. If either one had asked for an
explanation everything could have
been explained away, but we took ref
uge in the silence that is an arctic wall
that freezes up all approaches to rec
oncilation. If, like little children, we
should drop this insane theory that our
dignity demands silence of us. and we
should go to everyone towards whom
we harbor resentment, or who dislikes
us, and frankly ask them:
What have I done TO offend you
Wherein am I at fault?" Or What
made you do thus and so to me?' be
sure that nine-tenths of the enmities
that embitter life would be explained
away and we should sleep forgiven
and forgiving tonight.
1t also seems to me that there is
much to be said in favor of talk just
for talks sake, and personally l prefer
the woman who chatters as blithely
and as meaninglessly as a canary to
the one who wraps herself in an aw-
full silence, and under whose baneful
influence cheerfulness dies. know that
there are those who hold that all inter
est in your neighbours affairs is vulgar;
that any little chit-chat about what
other people are doing is gossip, and
that you ought not to talk unless you
have something deep and profound to
say Goodness gracious! Who would
want to live with the roar of Niagara
always in their ears? 1t is the little
babbling brook of which we never tire,
and to my mind there is no more
charming woman than she who is an
adept in polite gossip. She knows how
-. - vt Il,
life with interest. She sees the fun
and the pathos of things, and she can
not go down town to buy a spool of
thread without collecting a little bud
get of news with which to regale her
interested auditors across the dinner
table Compare her. if you please, with
the woman who sits up in grim silence
and whose family partake Of the meal
as dumbly as any other animals that
that are being fed and then berate the
talkative woman if you dare!
Finally there must come a time TO
each and everyone of us when the ST.
lence of death shuts down between us
and our best beloved. Cry aloud as we
may we cannot make them hear in
that far land to which they have gone.
God knows, then, whether we shall
most regret the things that we have
said, or the things that we have left
unsaid. The harsh and impatient word
we uttered they forgave us and for
got, but the unuttered love and ten
derness they never knew. 1t would
have joyed them to have known how
we admired them. 1t would have given
them courage so often when their
hearts failed if they had only known
we honored them for the fight they
were making. We might have made
the hard road of life blossom for them
with words of appreciation and praise,
but we never said them, and at the last,
as we murmured passionate words of
love and regret into deaf ears we
knew, beyond all doubling, that there
was a duty of speech that outweighed
all the duties of silence.
Dorothy Dix.