VALUE OF A CHATTERBOX.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 53, 8 April 1914, Page 4

VALUE OF A CHATTERBOX.

SOCIAL SUCCESSES OF THE TALKATIVE.

'' She's such a talker.'' That is what people say about Mrs X. It is her most immediately noticeable characteristic. Her stream of talk is nearly unceasing. As a girl she was the chatterbox of her family circle. Now that she is married, the said family circle is left in peace; and to tell the truth, the household is a somewhat silent one. They sit round their hearth and wonder why there is nothing to talk about, ih the evenings, now that Ethel has gone. Her tongue was never 'still. And it at least had this merit, that it started other tongueisi , ■ ■ Ethel has taken her tongue to her husband's house. She is no longer chatterbox Ethel, she i is "that talkative Mrs X." i ; ■ A USEFUL GIFT. Her husband, perhaps, smiles rather ruefully sometimes. Nevertheless her capacity for producing without effort an easy flow of conversation has made his house a socially successful one. As a hostess Mrs X. is never for one moment at a loss for subjects. At the dinner-tables of less quickwitted hostesses she is a boon. No gathering remains "glum, no party is ''stiff" if Mrs X. is present. Her gift is not a profound, one, but it is very useful. The very sound- of her voice puts courage into the listeners. There are individuals who dare not break

a silence, but they can be quite fluent once that silence has been broken. In spite of Her own family's lack of appreciation, in spite of her husband's covert but not unafifectionate smile, Mrs X. is a favourite. Her neighbour, Mrs Z., the authoress, who is ten times as clever and who has far more brains, is not nearly so popular. She is shy; it is dreadfully hard to get her to say anything, ai*d those people who have heard that she writes are apt to put her down as too superior for ordinary society chat. It is not true; but Mrs X., who would never dream of being clever or intellectual even if she could compass these feats, produces far more effect of brightness, if not of brilliancy, than Mrs Z. SECRET OF HER CHARM. The truth is that Ethel, the married woman, has never ceased to possess the merry, inquisitive, appreciative mind of Ethel the schoolgirl. The reason she talks so much about anything and everything is because she is interested in any tiling, and every thing, and i 3 childlike enough to takei it for granted' that you are equally interested. That is the secret of her charm. For you soon find that, as she is interested, you are interested likewise. *Her own enthusiasm fires a whole roomful to enthusiasm. Some"" women . of this type are accused of mere '' gushing.'' They

"gush"-'on any and every occasion, and on any and every subject. But their gush has a peculiar property: it puts people in a good humour. It is always "praise gush," not, "blame gush" or a sneer. You never hear Mrs X. sneer or say anything unkind or blase. She is never bored with her own reflections and she instinctively lets the world have the benefit of those reflections. She thinks aloud. And her thoughts, if not very deep thoughts, are nice thoughts. Por all her shallowness, people are pieased to hear her. She infects them. They begin to think aloud, too. And that is much the easiest and most smooth-running form of social conversation. ~ . No one can "argue"—-"that unforgivable social vice!—in Mrs X.'s presence. She is herself not consecutive enough to argue; and she tides the talk past all kinds of rocks and shoals of possible disagreement and strife, quite unconscious of what a service she is rendering to the harfaiony of her hearers. It is because she is so absolutely simple-minded that she achieves successes which the most adroitly tactful hostess might envy. She is liked by everyone—because she has never seenany reason to dislike anyone, and consequently never says that she dislikes anyone.

A FATAL MISTAKE. Hers is a healthy, rapidly-working mind; the mind of a child with all the. deliglitfuhiess of a child. She never thinks of 1 effect. She says what comes into her head- \ She is enjoying the world and tells everybody all about it. has been decried as babble. What cultured or weary dinner-tables have not had cause to bless that babble!

Mr X. has married a woman who probably never gives him a moment's, quietness. But I wonder whether he envies the husband of the sad, silent, introspective, and self-absorbed Mrs Z., who is'so celebrated for her writings but who makes the fatal'mistake of supposing' that no woman should open her mouth unless she has something- to say which is really worth saying?—" Daily Mail."