The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-05-07
LISTEN NJ"


an amiable virtue.
It is an art and an education at the
same time.
Withal, it is one of the hardest
things to do well, and, to the novice,
one of the most magnanimous. we
are apt both to overrate the value OF
our own utterances and to make them
the less valuable intrinsically owing to
the fretful habit of chafing at the leash
of some one else's speech.
Having something to say ourselves,
we suffer during discourse with live
Iy dread of losing our inning at the
bat, while we lose anything of worth
that may be in process of being nand-
ed out by him with whom we are sup
posed, enormously for the most part,
to be in converse. A good listener is
at once a hero and a philanthropist.
Conversation is almost always a one
sided game The battle is ever to the
strong, but it is a barren victory The
cudgelings of speech which we inflict
on our neighbor serve merely to make
him desperate to talk himself So does
the world breed and educate wind
bags and perpetuate vacuities because
the individual will not listen himself
except to his own greedy utterances
poured forth unthinkingly lest he him.
self be bored with platitude.
We all talk; few listen.
Hence even the rapier touch of cpl
gram and repartee fails doubly in its
purpose: checked in the mad rush of
his words, the victim of the dart
brushes aside the prick of wit as
bull f1icks a fly from its steaming
TANKS, and continues undeterred and
with head down on the set course of
his attack; and the father of the shaft.
seeing it strike fair and full upon the
unheeding hide, grieves to have robbed
his CULVER of the dart.
But to listen to talk is the least of
what the ears may learn by virtue of
the immobile mouth. 1t is not to man
that one must look for the gems that
wait for silence to see, for the truth
full melodies that wait for ears to
hear Silence is made up of Mono
tones: that is to say, the word itself
is concession to popular belief in
a condition that does not exist. There
is no such thing as silence. And in
the vastest quiet. the most tranquil
moods of nature, lie the greatest va
riety, the softest and most harmonious
strains of sound. Sweep the strings of
sleeping night with the careless fingers
of a mind flung to repose and there
flows to the receptive ear a minStrelSy
beyond the cadenceS of Pan himself
The earth speaks in a thousand voices,
chants in midget dignity from the
grass, love songs whisper through the
leaves, insect fiddlers play the dance
music of the singing gnomes of the
dark, the breeze that you cannot feel
covers all in blanket of an half sus-
pected choruS-the whole is music of
the gods bought at an admission price
of lying still, of putting ones tongue
to bed. And to hear these things, one
must not even forget ones self. al
though it were better thus. For the
voices speak to you alone. They sym
pathize and soothe and rest. Sad are
they. as mystery is always sad be-
cause it hints its promise and bids
realisation wait on hope. But the
voices are there, and, family as they
speak, we know they tell the truth of
restl
ed; and strangely enough, therein was
she remarkable. Never was such a
talkerl Music art, the latest books
the poetry of Swinburne, the Muse of
Dante, the art of Goethe or the in
tricacies of Kant were one and the
same to her. She reveled in what she
thought one wanted. She knew sports,
the latest scandals of the great actress
es, the gossip of the town, the jokes
to fling at college boys, the newest
ragtime songs, the up-to-datest non
sense rhymes, the theory of free trade
and protection. She had opinions on
tap. She was quite sure as to the
relative value of Buddhism on Chris
tianity. Spiritualism was no vague
country to her per-lucid mind. Psychic
phenomena made an easy dish for her
perceptions. Even at times she could
be volubly coy. She could handy COM
pliments, make cOquettish srejoinders.
Gissipate the rocket of a sentence in Il
cloud of girliSh eXclamationSl But
npUpT did nauCa for mora "a he.
instant necessary for one to start her
anew upon another path. The trouble
was all paths were known to her and
each path bore it's particular sugges-
ton. Utterly did one fail to strike a
chord which did not awake it's re-
Sponsive note. One battled for a time
and then gave UP and Smirked and suf-
fered silently. as he must. Nor even
did the whirl of her talk have the
sleepy drone of machinery which
makes some word artists endurabIe If
not attractive. Nerved to the need
of catching the conversation by the
neck before it could get away, her
voice was of challenging quality; It
was indomitable and not to be evaded !;
1t sounded through a ball room like
the clatter of loom, it rose shri,
and staccato above the roar of a re-
ception; it enlightened the neighbor-
hood on summer nights and broke up
the tender nuanceS of the waves on
lovers ears at seaside resorts; it was
a rangy voice, good for a mornings
canter of twenty miles and back with
out a fleck of foam about the bit. She
was the goddess of that amorous
brand of swain whose heart impels
him to the sex and whose sex keeps his
tongue to the roof of his mouth and
his feet under the chair. AS an en-
tertainer she was a prime success; and
no young man, judging results by the
sprightliness of the maid, could ever
return from a social call in her direc-
ton and truthfully say that he had
not had a good Time" although he
might have to wet throat dried
through sympathy. with drink.
And there was a man who loved
the woman. An amiabe man he was
with a pretty conceit. honorable If
well considered intentions, with a
touch of poetry beneath his intellec-
tual hide. And he loved the woman
for many things. for her accomplish
ments which fitted into the scheme OF
his work, for the money which had
created the said arpOponlieb rnpnfc fc~