But as a rule the man who has been led to believe that he is a brilliant and interesting talker has been led to make himself a rapacious pest.  No conversation is possible between others whose ears are within reach of his ponderous voice; anecdotes, long-winded stories, dramatic and pathetic, stock his repertoire; but worst of all are his humorous yarns at which he laughs uproariously though every one else grows solemn and more solemn.

There is a simple rule, by which if one is a voluble chatterer (to be a good talker necessitates a good mind) one can at least refrain from being a pest or a bore.  And the rule is merely, to stop and think.

="THINK BEFORE YOU SPEAK"=

Nearly all the faults or mistakes in conversation are caused by not thinking.  For instance, a first rule for behavior in society is:  “Try to do and say those things only which will be agreeable to others.”  Yet how many people, who really know better, people who are perfectly capable of intelligent understanding if they didn’t let their brains remain asleep or locked tight, go night after night to dinner parties, day after day to other social gatherings, and absent-mindedly prate about this or that without ever taking the trouble to think what they are saying and to whom they are saying it!  Would a young mother describe twenty or thirty cunning tricks and sayings of the baby to a bachelor who has been helplessly put beside her at dinner if she thought?  She would know very well, alas! that not even a very dear friend would really care for more than a hors d’oeuvre of the subject, at the board of general conversation.

The older woman is even worse, unless something occurs (often when it is too late) to make her wake up and realize that she not only bores her hearers but prejudices everyone against her children by the unrestraint of her own praise.  The daughter who is continually lauded as the most captivating and beautiful girl in the world, seems to the wearied perceptions of enforced listeners annoying and plain.  In the same way the “magnificent” son is handicapped by his mother’s—­or his father’s—­overweening pride and love in exact proportion to its displayed intensity.  On the other hand, the neglected wife, the unappreciated husband, the misunderstood child, takes on a glamor in the eyes of others equally out of proportion.  That great love has seldom perfect wisdom is one of the great tragedies in the drama of life.  In the case of the overloving wife or mother, some one should love her enough to make her stop and think that her loving praise is not merely a question of boring her hearers but of handicapping unfairly those for whom she would gladly lay down her life—­and yet few would have the courage to point out to her that she would far better lay down her tongue.