I really do feel sorry for dyspeptics when I read a thing like that.  I am not heartless.  It must be a sad thing not to be able to eat lobster and ice-cream together, and to have to say “No” to broiled mushrooms, and not to dare to eat Welsh-rarebits after the theatre, and to have to lock up your chafing-dish.  But I do say this:  unless a man can talk of his trouble as cleverly as Carlyle—­and some of the choice dyspeptics I know can almost do that—­I want them not to talk at all.  If they suffer, let them do it in silence.  If they die, let them die entertainingly, or else, I say, don’t die in public.

I never see a dyspeptic with his little pair of silver scales on the table, weighing out two ounces of meat, or one ounce of bread, and looking like a death’s-head at a feast, and talking like a grave-digger with Yorick’s skull for a theme, that I do not think of this: 

“Fantastic tricks enough man has played in his time; has fancied himself to be most things, even down to an animated heap of glass; but to fancy himself a dead iron balance for weighing pains and pleasures on was reserved for this, his latter era.”

THE TOO-ACCURATE MAN

Women often complain that men in society will not return measure for measure in conversation, but stalk about dumb and unanswering, leaving women gasping from the fatigue of entertaining them.

But I am on the side of the men.  I always am.  They are a misjudged and maligned set.  I approve of men keeping silence when they have nothing to say.  It shows that they recognize their limitations and refuse to rush in where angels fear to tread.

Is not a wise silence sometimes to be preferred to the wisest speech?  Is there not often a finer eloquence in an answering silence than the cleverest words could express?

A man who talks constantly has a thousand ways always at hand in which to make a fool of himself.  A silent man has but one, and even then there are always those who insist upon thinking that he is silent because of his wisdom, and not from lack of it, although Eliza Leslie says, “We cannot help thinking that when a head is full of ideas some of them must involuntarily ooze out.”

But as a stimulus to conversation, an intelligently silent man is as instantaneous in his effect as music or eating.  Men have become famous as conversationists who only sat and looked admiringly at vivacious women.  It is a rare accomplishment, that of wise silence.  It is more of a delicate compliment, more condensed and boiled-down flattery, more scent of incense than the most fulsome speech.  And if one’s victim is rather a voluble talker, with a reputation for wit, a man need never rack his brains beforehand, wondering what to say, or how he can keep up with her.  Let him listen to her, with his metaphorical mouth open in wrapt admiration, and she is his.

Silence is a weapon.  It is a powerful corrective when used against a silent person, who then sees himself as others see him.  It is a defence, used against the indiscreet, and in the hands of wise men it is a suit of armor.  Silence is never dangerous, unless, like a gun, in the hands of a fool.  How, then, can women complain of silent men, unless they mean fools, and if they do, why not say so, and fortify their drawing-rooms with music-boxes or magic lanterns?