Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1925-01-08
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.
Don't talk too much.

Don't talk too much.
| RMS is the tenth-and last-in our
| series of LIES hardest lessons. Most
or us ought to give it consideration
hrst, for truly out of the mouth come
the issues of life, as the Bible says.
This thing of shooting off the mouth
all the time was a big problem when
solomon was a boy. He 1abored long
and faithfully, writing many proverbs
In his attempt to inculcate the wis
dom of a closed trap among the He
| brews.
| Silence! Silence,
1 Eminent philosophers since his day
nave written in praise Of holding the
tongue. Down through the ages the
cry has been ever the same: do not
talk too much. Think before you
speak. Never say anything until you
nave something to say"
Do you. think 1t has done much
good?
| My illustrous predecessor has
! ialled miserably, as I Will do in my
| humple turn, If reformation was ex-
pected from mere statements of the
| truth.
NO, solomon was too wise to imag-
Inc that merely because he said hold
ing the tongue was worth while the
| chlIofen OF men would automatically
refrain from talking on the slightest
provocation.
Nor does this writer-as the politi-
cal scribes modestly say-haye the
| slightest idea that because this arti-
Gle starts off with the undoubted
GOOD advice, Don't talk too much. -
you, gentle reader, will suddenly turn
into paragon of wisdom and silence.
X X
NO, IN this world we do what we want
| 10 DO, not what we should II Goes no
| good for my friend to loudly protest
| that he has been meaning to come
around and see me. but just somehow
couldn't get around to it."
Politely L smile and accept the ex-
planatlon' but l know that he could have
gotten around to it had he really wanted
to, and so does he, but for the sake of
anlcaole relations we mutually agree to
pass 1t up I will be offering him the
same lame excuse before long
1t does little good for one to think I'D
many excuses for continuing smoking
after his doctor has ordered him
orusquely to "cut it out" But, doctor, 1
never could see that II hurts me. Now
II 1t had ever hurt me I would have
stopped it, but 1t simply doesn't hurt
me bit How do know? oh, l would
know all right
We do more or less what we want to
do, as far as we are able. That is how
we can know-when one does not do
something-that did not want to do
1t. This is generalization, Of course.
There are many exceptions. But, in the
main, the maxim stands:
Show me what a man does and does
not do, l will tell you what he likes and
does not like.
So most IF ne 1iIxa
Who would deny it, Since mankind
managed to turn his cultural sounds
into syllables, combine the smooth yowels
with his harsher utterances and give
meanings to the whole, he has been
proud of his ability to talk
Surely, talk is one of the most mar
Vicious inventions of man. We are so
used to talking that we accept it from
others as a matter of course, and in
dulge in IL ourselves without so much as
thought, ordinarily.
But am sure that could we be beings
of another sphere, who had evolved diff
ferent means Of INSTRUMENTATION, say
such as might be involved in the use Of
radio waves, and could come abruptly
upon this world of gesticulating, talking
beings, and see here one making
speech, here another arguing heatedly
upon street corner, here one making
love plea, here viciously haranguing
dumb with wonder at the sight and
sound of it.
OF all created things. as far as we