A FALSE PLATITUDE

Evening Star, Issue 19546, 3 May 1927, Page 8

A FALSE PLATITUDE

9 0 STRONG MEN ARE NOT SILENT It was surely a liverish cave-man who invented that lying platitude “Silence is golden.” Himself inarticulate from mental vacuity, he had watched with | jaundiced eye the triumphs of some pre-1 historic orator, and, goaded by envy,uttered his splenetic nonsense. How the quaint belief arose that the silent man is the strong man passes understanding (writes Neil Bell in the ‘ Daily Mail’). By speech we rose from the j beasts, and by speech we shall reach the angels. Speech follows thought, and the more keenly a man thinks the more he is urged to voice his thought. But your silent fellow, your_ frowning mumper, sits mute in the void of sheer mental blankness. Wordsworth put it very prettily once in ‘Peter Bell.’ and then (being Wordsworth) excised it from subsequent editions : Some sipping punch, some sipping tea, But, as you by their faces see, All silent and all damned. In our wiser and clearer momenta we know the truth, and relegate silence to its proper place, where it_ may brood among the worms of mortality. Speech is for laughter and joy and happiness; silence is for tears. Some leering joker once said “Silence gives consent.” I wonder how many sad Benedicts have rued that pestiferous sophistry! The pages of history are packed and loaded with the names of great talkers, but .where has your strong, silent man written his name upon them ? The only time that Samson was constrained to silence bv the tinkling tongue of Delilah he was shorn of both locks and strength. More power to Mussolini’s tongue; if he stops talking he will fall. Speech, as Diogenes showed, makes even a tub a desirable dwelling. Talkers are not only the salt of the earth—they are the very joy of life; they lend savor to the vilest dinner, while the pleasant rattle of clever tongues will make of plain, ordinary faro' a. very feast for gourmets. It is true that wine is the relaxing agent. Can it he that strong silent men are milk-bibbers? This would explain why l-,nbi“s don't talk until they are off the bottle.