Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 77, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 March 1910 — BE A GOOD LISTENER. [ARTICLE]

BE A GOOD LISTENER.

Oneit Who Wilt Be Silent la In Demand by Clever Hoetese. Be a good listener. It you can’t talk, listen. Don’t chatter, says the '* North American. Guests have been “bidden forth” to dine for their listening propensities alone. The cautious hostess is a veritable Charles Lamb In her appreciation of ears. They are valuable appendages indeed, and should be strenuously cultivated by those who only jabber when they talk. We can’t all talk; to some of us it is almost a physical impossibility to get out a sensible word in company. We may be entertaining enough to ourselves, but let something definite in the way of conversation be expected of us in an assemblage and we throw up our hands. It’s only a form of stage fright, this. We could perfectly well enter into the argument that’s going round the festive board if something would only let us, but fear, the monster, holds us in his grip. Enforced silence draws one inward and the tongue cleaves to the roof of the mouth; the very lips are sealed. All the air about one seems a pained witness to one’s discomfort. Everything has got alive and taken on a critical attitude, but is ominously silent while it thinks of you—only you—and not another living, breathing soul. But if you keep on letting the quiet thicken round you it’s going to get very dense, indeed. Break the spell always, but, better still, prevent it from settling over you. Learn the interested listener part and you won’t be In the center of the stage enough to fluster you.