PERSONAL OPINION.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLI, Issue 70, 23 March 1907, Page 6

PERSONAL OPINION.

SILENT GIRL IS ATTRACTIVE

(By Helen Oklfield.) '

There are few negative virtues which conduce more to the comfort of the possessor, and those associated with liim or her, than a talent for holding one's tongue.

To know when to speak, and equally when to be silent, is no small part of the necessary equipment »for life. Many a man passes for wise simply by means of saying nothing and looking intelligent when-others speak; while those, who talk least make fewest enemies. "A man who cannot hold his peace," says Carlyle, • "is no right man." The strong man kee"ps his own counsel; the foolish babble. It is a weakness into which' most people fall without reflection ,and those wlio wish to please, being wise, endeavour to lead others to talk about themselves, to reveal their emotions, their thoughts, their hopes, and their feelings. Some wise man has said that such confidences are " the insanity of conceit and the feeblest species of self-display," which, while severe, is frequently true.

CHARM OF RESERVE

, t A woman, especially, to be attractive must preserve-a sense of reserve; she must, so to speak, keep up a cer-, tain amount of mystery about herself. To many persons this reserve is in itself a compelling charm. In a popular modern novel the imaginative" hero wearies of his bride because he discovers that she is "too transparent, too easily understood." Which, however unreasonable, is not an impossible state of affairs. There is an Arabian proverb, one of the seven sayings of Suleyman the Sage, "Never tell all you may know, since he who tells #11 he may know often tells more than is wise." The precept is one well worth keeping. Ther is a folklore tale of a woman who, finding her married life unhappy, went to a white witch for a charm against the trouble. She recived a flask filled with a colourless liquid, Which she was directed to take and hold in her mouth whenever she felt disposed to quarrel with her husband, fehe obeyed directions and, delighted with the effect of the charm, went back to the witch for a fresh supply /When that was exhausted. "The liquid was merely water," said the wise woman. "The virtue of the remedy consists simply in holding your tongue ln keeping back angry answers." ' All savage nations place high value upon silence, and conversation is undoubtedly one of the arts of civilisation. To/know what to say and how to I say it, when and where, this is the SL ii ense -' the unfailing tact which shall steer its possessor safely over hidden shoals and through breakers with unerring safety and win for him or her the harbour of popularity, of general good will. Fluency and garrulity, these are as different, as distinct, as the flowers which we cultivate with care and the weeds which we ceaselessly struggle to banish from our borders • pity that any should be so misled as to mistake the one for the other

A SUPERFLUITY OF TALK

Undoubtedly a great part of the mischief which lias cursed the world since the beginning has been don© by too much talking. « Where no fuel is the tire > groweth out; where no talebearer is the strife eeaseth." Had our first mother not paused to parley with the serpent paradise had neyer' been lost and henceforth all through history idle words h.ave been among the agencies which have turned the fate of nations. A word once spoken never may be unsaid; alas for the times when men and women bewail themselves in bitterness of spirit over the careless -word, scarce meant to be unkind, which had so much better been left unsaid. There are many cruel battles in- which the weapons are looks like daggers and words like bloodshed, but the wounds of which are not to be healed by any amount of subsequent remorse or repentance, io adopt the rule once given to a world: "Never speak of yourself and never say anything which is uncalled for would at first "seem likely to make Trappists of all the world- yet it js to be questioned whether, after all, the advice was not wise.

THE ART OF LISTENING. There always are people who like to talk, whose favour is to be won by interested listening, and good listeners are rare. It is told of ayThat Hr CV'i c foI haifa day i« a coach yrith a deaf mute, whom he afterward £!2Tki Ced to .ibe a y Sentleman of reSf^J + l aeI) °n one was induced to harangue a wax figure for ?" \ OUr "H der the impression that.it was a gentleman who admired her Si nf£ and had ? sPress.ed a desire to make of the author. Ihese stories may or may not be truecertain is it that both of the great personages m question liked toW themselves, talk and were sufficiently ,£t rVS notiee ' whether -lemarks elicited more than silent acquiescence on the part of others '-p * 1S ,hlShlv probable that the Eastern despots wto cut out the tongues of their household slaves placed l?££ fa Vall ie u P°n, silenci as a viitue of servants. Yet modern usa^P siial not speak until spoken to. "Good children are seen but not heard " h renuired fiS'W^ d°CtHne which required nhal obedience; but in thp days when it was enforced it m St Wadded much to the comfort of Sb families in which it was observed