Surely, if Mr. Flint could not remember to keep his teeth in his mouth, or if any one else was so basely whimsical as to juggle them away from him, it may well teach us to be chary of extravagant hopes for the future.  Even the League of Nations, when one contemplates the sad case of Mr. Flint, becomes a rather anemic safeguard.  We had better keep Mr. Flint in mind through the New Year as a symbol of human error and disappointment.  And the best of it is, my dear Time, that you, too, may be a little careless.  Perhaps one of these days you may doze a little and we shall steal a few hours of timeless bliss.  Shall we see a little ad in the papers: 

    LOST—­Sixty valuable minutes, said to have been stolen by the
    unworthy human race.  If found, please return to Father Time, and no
    questions asked.

Well, my dear Time, we approach the Zero Hour.  I hope you will have a Happy New Year, and conduct yourself with becoming restraint.  So live, my dear fellow, that we may say, “A good Time was enjoyed by all.”  As the hands of the clock go over the top and into the No Man’s Land of the New Year, good luck to you!

Your obedient servant!

WHAT MEN LIVE BY

What a delicate and rare and gracious art is the art of conversation!  With what a dexterity and skill the bubble of speech must be maneuvered if mind is to meet and mingle with mind.

There is no sadder disappointment than to realize that a conversation has been a complete failure.  By which we mean that it has failed in blending or isolating for contrast the ideas, opinions and surmises of two eager minds.  So often a conversation is shipwrecked by the very eagerness of one member to contribute.  There must be give and take, parry and thrust, patience to hear and judgment to utter.  How uneasy is the qualm as one looks back on an hour’s talk and sees that the opportunity was wasted; the precious instant of intercourse gone forever:  the secrets of the heart still incommunicate!  Perhaps we were too anxious to hurry the moment, to enforce our own theory, to adduce instance from our own experience.  Perhaps we were not patient enough to wait until our friend could express himself with ease and happiness.  Perhaps we squandered the dialogue in tangent topics, in a multitude of irrelevances.

[Illustration]

How few, how few are those gifted for real talk!  There are fine merry fellows, full of mirth and shrewdly minted observation, who will not abide by one topic, who must always be lashing out upon some new byroad, snatching at every bush they pass.  They are too excitable, too ungoverned for the joys of patient intercourse.  Talk is so solemn a rite it should be approached with prayer and must be conducted with nicety and forbearance.  What steadiness and sympathy are needed if the thread of thought is to be unwound without tangles or snapping!  What forbearance, while each of the pair, after tentative gropings here and yonder, feels his way toward truth as he sees it.  So often two in talk are like men standing back to back, each trying to describe to the other what he sees and disputing because their visions do not tally.  It takes a little time for minds to turn face to face.