The Listener

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Conversation is the daughter of reasoning, the mother of knowledge, the breath of the soul, the commerce of hearts, the bond of friendship, the nourishment of contentment, and the occupation of men of wit. 'OLD your tongue, Miss Julia; little girls should be seen and t heard, said Mrs. B.'s nursery 1 governess to a little sprite of seven years old, who was essaying to take a turn in. the chatter of the breakfast-table. For I would not have ray readers suppose that a nursery breakfast passes without chatter. I who traverse houses from corner to corner, and listen from behind the doors, know better. From the nursery to the kitchen, from the school-room to the parlour, all is chatter, and one might conclude the power of talking increases in inverse ratio with the information possessed. But be it not thence concluded that I am no friend to talking. We listeners are considerably interested in the furtherance of the custom: and it may even appear, ere the end of my tale, that I have a very different object in view than that of putting my young friends to silence. It is objected by some, that young people talk too much, and by others, that they talk too little; and each remark is just?for they do both. But here, be it observed, I speak only of persons under twenty; far be it from me to supposethat any lady above that age can be charged with the habit I presume to censure. When young people are alone, freed from the constraints of society and the presence of those who are older and wiser than themselves, their ceaseless volubility, the idleness, uselessness, and folly of their conversation is all too much; not a pause to reflect upon their words?not a moment to weigh the sentiments they hear?not a care for the time they waste, or for the habits of trifling and exaggeration the...