THE CHARM OF CHATTINESS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 67, 18 March 1908, Page 6

THE CHARM OF CHATTINESS.

(By "Rangatira.")

To one born, like myself, lieavy _{ speech and sparing of word, how delight, ful and altogether unattainable does the graceful, easy talker appear. Would that I could say, with the Brook: "I chatter, chatter as I flow To join the brimn_D_ river. For men may come and men may go But I so on for erer." ' ' Sometimes I try, and the mobbed human, ity who listens, sighs as it sees mc, groaning, "He will talk—good gcds, how lie will talk!" No one is quite so rest, ful and soothing and channin" as the easy, chatty talker, who, with light touch and ready sympathy, calms*one's rasped feelings by—pleasant conversation. Chat! the very word is redolent of firelit evenings, and summer saunters in shady pathways. To be chatty, one cannot be a gossip or a busybody or a bore. 'Tis so difficult to be chatty, so lofty an attainment if one is accustomed to harangue in big guns, to fire off ton-loads of leaden-footed ideas in volleys, when one's listener prefers the fairy-footed graces of nimble-witted speech. Alas, the gentle art of how good and rare you are! Some converse like the dancing of an elephant. Picture asking John Bull, or several sober members of our local Boards and Councils, to be chatty! But, fair readers, harder still is it, to the cumbrous anchor-dragging driven of the quill, to be "chatty" on a piece of paper. Chatty, when your pen comes up and hits you for poverty of thought, chatty when the air is blue, chatty when you're out of pocket, loose of belt, chatty in face of your bills! ' ' Ah, dear charming, chatty, chatelaine, who has tasted sufficiently of life to touch it gracefully with delicacy of discernment and wit r sufficient to interpret without intrusion things mundane and celestial. To be chatty bespeaks tne wisdom of a certain age in women, that charming and beautiful second summer with touch of mellow autumn, lying between forty years and fifty; that second blooming of the rose of yesterday, sweeter ever than youth's first flush. The chatty woman eases a difficult situation, waives a wise wand of sympathy over rasp and discord. Even when annoyed by contradiction, she does not cry with Shaiespeare, "Thou liest, thou thread, thou thimble!, Away, thou rag, thou quantity,, then remnant!" No, the chatty woman who governs her tongue is melodious as a i chime of bells. Friends, good chums and true, who understand each other's genial grunt and | eye-flicker, don't need to chat. I merely grunt in friendly converse, and my friends prefer it to the chat that I'can give them; heavy chat on science and wonders, and the organisms of wonnst Yet I have tried to chat. "I have ventured. Like little wanton boys that 6wtm on blafc ders. This many summers in a sea of glory, But far beyond my snnength." The chatty woman does not wears men's ears with gossip cr slang, or servants' and husband's shortcomings. She* is a master hand at making the passing moment a pleasant one, and will discuss the year's picture or novel as easily; as the last new thing in baby-foods. Also, she has an intuitive knowledge: of the borderland of "come no nearer.*' How do they do it? I cannot. If I want to use a light and easy touch, pure, shyness makes mc launch a converse tional bomb on naval estimates or na* tional complications. When I want to please my liege lady* I speak upon engine construction, instead*-] | of a word to the rose in her blouse, or-j the prettier things about which ona I does not write. No, one must be boraj I chatty; born with a T.ght touch, toucM ing things like the "Gardener's Daught : ter,"' whose feet have touched the meaI lows, and left the daisies rosy. No, you charming, chatty speakers and writers, |we cannot follow you; we cannot he I artists with fairy pencils, or poets with wonderful insight, to daintily deal with I mass and with matter, and turn thejn j from weight into light. ,