LOQUACITY.
IS loquacity an inborn quality or is it acquired P We are inclined to think that talkative women are born with an irrepressible tendency to talk, but that in men a" determination of words to the mouth" is sometimes merely the result of environment. The greater number of talkative women belong to one single type, but talkative men belong to a hundred different ones. There can be no doubt that taciturnity was considered at one time to be something of a virtue, especially in women. To be sparing in words was a side-aim of the ascetic ideal. Talking was regulated in all monasteries and nunneries, and ideals change slowly. Indeed, until quite lately much talking was not considered to become a woman. .All sorts of rough old jokes testify to the fact that silent women were admired. Children were to be seen and not heard, and women were to be beard less than men. We wonder why this notion about the virtue of silence lasted longer in the case of women than men; in fact, why it has never wholly died out. Is it because women gossip ? They do not gossip more than men, or if they do it is only because they have more time to do it. Their talk taken in quantity must lack some agreeable quality which is found in the talk of men. Is it perhaps less varied? Is there any truth in the rooted idea that a talkative woman is inclined to nag? We think there may be. All women who talk much are detailed talkers, and inclined to be reitera- tive. Their talk tends to narrative and to contention. When they bore their listeners it is by detail or by contradiction. When men bore their listeners it is by egotism.
But there are plenty of valuable and even ceaseless talkers of both sexes who never bore their listeners at all. The long string of ill-arranged detail which a dull talkative woman will pour forth may be well-nigh unendurable to her listener ; but give her a keen sense of humour and some measure of the dramatic sense, and she may be the most entertaining person in the world, especially if she has the good sense to avoid ill. nature and to regulate her gift for mimicry. The odd thing is that she and her dull sister have something in common, though the talk of the one may be sparkling and the talk of the other indescribably fiat. They set about talking on the same plan. The talk of these entertaining women holds an audience even now, when long conversational innings are allowed to few ; but to bold is not precisely the same thing as to charm. The really charming woman does not talk so very much. Flirtation is quenched by soliloquy, and though age and circumstance constantly banish that element from conversation, it probably nee at the root of the fact that women are most charming in crisp talk or as listeners. They excel in perception and in the expression of intuition. Any man can be logical, but few men have the sympathy or the in- sight of a quiet intelligent woman. Nevertheless, the loquacious woman often appears to cast a wider spell, always believes herself pleasing, and has the success which comes of assur- ance. Yet people go away and speak against the talkative woman. It is difficult to say why. The humour of a humorous women is, as a rule, exceedingly delectable ; but when we get it through the medium of a douche of talk we do not altogether like it.
So far we have been speaking of clever loquacious rather than of able !capacious women. Not many able women are loquacious. For one thing, able women are ai a role inveterate learners. They want to pick the brains of those they are with. Oral teaching suits them. They enjoy the double interest of their interlocutor's personality and his or her words. No one can ask questions with as much trenchancy and as little offence as an able woman. On the other hand, there are able women to be found among the exceedingly talkative, and it is they who are for the most part contentions. Those who are accustomed to meet such women upon committees will, we feel sere, agree with us. An able and educated woman is not in the least less capable of reasoned argument than a man, but if she is loquacious she presses home her points rather differently. She sees the moral side of every situation. It is part of her natural equip- ment for the training of the young. People who stand upon moral ground stand very firmly indeed. They think, and think rightly, that they have something besides argument to back them. They have sometimes almost a sense of inspira- tion, and they determine to make their hearers "mind." as we say about children. But when the hearers of the able talkative woman are not children at all, but middle-aged women and men, they do not like being made to "mind," though (and here we shall again, we think, have the support of the majority of members of mixed committees) they are frequently made to do so, and that to the public advantage. But they do not like the great talker who overruled them for their good. If they say something about "naggem " when they get home, it is very unfair and ungrateful of them; but the feminine portion of the audience will he very apt to do it. According to many novelists, a noticeable habit of silence often accompanies great beauty. We are inclined to think that this is true. Is this one reason for the old-world admira- tion for silence? Beauty is not often found with stupidity, but it does very often exist without vivacity, especially in men. This, we suppose, is why ugly men are sometimes credited with $ fascination for the opposite sex. They are so often lively. There is frequently something of calm about physical beauty not consonant with eagerness, gaiety, or fervour. Again, good-looking people tend to be self-conscious, and are perhaps more often shy than is suspected.
The great majority of loquacious men are loquacious from sheer eagerness, and neither humour nor contention necessarily bears much part in the stream of their talk, though either may well be there. The quality of inconsequence is absent from it—the quality which makes the talk of a clever woman so witty and the talk of a stupid one so idiotic. The talk of a talkative man is often enthralling, not very often surprising. If both elements are to be found in the stream, then to listen to it is perhaps the most interesting of sedentary occupations—better than reading, better even than talking oneself. It is, of course, true that the voluble egotist among men is almost as great a bore as Mrs. Nickleby among women. He never knows it, because he can always get some woman to listen to him, whereas a feminine egotistic talker can get no one at all. She leads a miser- able life seeking who will hear her. To do them justice, however, the greater number of loquacious men are not egotists at all. Keats feared he should die before hia pen could unburden his "teeming brain." A great talker is often in the same position. About half these eager speakers take notice of what is said to them. There are many great talkers who do not quash their interlocutors. Their talk seems to be suggested by the man they are talking to, consequently he is not aware that he has not bad his full share of time.
We all make mental pictures of the great men of the past, and it has often occurred to the present writer to wonder which of them were great talkers and which were silent. It is not easy to judge by a man's writings. Take the greatest man of all—was Shakespeare a great talker P In the fancy of the writer, he talked eagerly and at length. Genital is not often taciturn. Not many great men would seem to have been noticeably silent, but there is, of course, a mean between loquacity and taciturnity. There are also intermittent talkers who have periods of overwhelming loquacity and periods of gloomy silence. These latter are men of moods; and though men of moods have occasionally more fascination than those of more even disposition, they are as a rule capricious and not -popular. Often the intermittent talker has the faults of both the loquacious and the taciturn. When he wants to talk he listens to no one else, and when he wants to be silent he does not listen either. A perfectly just-minded conversationalist will never take more than his share of the time at the disposal a the company, but juat-minded persons are sometimes dull.
A man of real conversational talent will take all the time he wants, and leave his hearers satisfied with the momenta he has left to them. A woman who is a really good talker will leave her hearers conscious that she has not said a great deal, wishing she had said more, and determined to give her anothm opportunity to have her say out.
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