Part 23 (1/2)

This will never be drawn from any man whose talk is continuous, no matter if he is an encyclopedia of information and a battery of brilliancy. A man may be as comprehensive and profound as the oceans; the point is, that other men will not easily be made to believe it.

His continued sparkle suggests a champagne bottle with its limitations, rather than the illimitable deep. A good deal of this is unjust, and comes from the universal egotism of mankind. Most men like to feel themselves both brilliant and copious; and they want _you_ to listen to _them_. Very well--_you_ do it; _you_ listen to them.

There is a suggestion of wisdom in reserve of speech which may be altogether out of proportion to the facts. Are we not all continually quoting with approval Sir Walter Raleigh's line:

”The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb.”

Many a silent man is as shallow as he is silent--but he _may_ be as deep also; and because he gives no sign as to whether he is deep or shallow, and because his silence offends no one and is not in the way of those who want to talk, he is given credit for profundity.

We all know the story of the worn-out, world-tired club-man who said he was looking for a man who was really wise, really experienced, and really deep. At last he felt that he had found him in another club-man--very handsome, especially full of forehead and broad between the eyes, perfectly groomed, and silent to the point of stillness. The Searcher for a Wise Man tried to engage him in conversation on a hundred different subjects. His attempts met with failure; which made a still deeper impression.

But at a certain dinner one night, where both of these men were guests, the club-man arranged to have the silent one sit next to him.

Every attempt was still a failure. Nothing more than ”Yes” or ”No”

could be gotten from the deep one. But when shrimps were brought on, the supposedly great man colored with pleasure, and said: ”Hey, shrimps! Them's the dandies!” The illusion dissolved.

I do not know whose story this is, but it ill.u.s.trates my point so well that I appropriate it. In other words, your permanent att.i.tude, your continuous impression on the world, is one of your a.s.sets, just as your ability is, just as your character is; and discretion in speech is a matter of great moment as affecting this impression. I use the term continuous att.i.tude and impression, because it is a small matter what your temporary and transient impression is. If it becomes necessary, talk to any extent required, no matter what the immediate impression may be. But it is the stream and continuity of your life of which I am now speaking.

The three distinguished successes cited a moment ago in financial and political life do not drink, smoke, or swear. Mark that latter fact--they do not swear. I repeat again that this is no Sunday-school lecture, but the plainest kind of a talk on practical methods of success. The money you will lay aside in bank, or the property you will acc.u.mulate, is one kind of an a.s.set; but the respect of men, the confidence of a community, is an a.s.set also, and a more valuable one.

Very well. An oath never yet created respect for any man who used it.

Even men who are habitually profane always feel a contemptuous yet pitying regret when they hear a foul word fall from a mouth they expected to be clean. You want people you live among to believe in you. They are not going to believe in you spontaneously. You are on trial every day of your first few years among them. As you go in and out among them they acquire a confidence in you which finally grows into an unquestioning faith. Beware how you start, in the minds of men whose good-will you must have, a question as to whether their good opinion of you is justified or not. Profanity will create such a question.

I remember having heard the most promising young lawyer in a certain town swear in the presence of a conservative old banker who had begun to ”take the young man up” and was giving him some business. The gray-bearded man of money made no comment, but I noted a slight lifting of the eyebrows. That young man had unconsciously started a question of himself in the mind of the man whose business friends.h.i.+p he was seeking. How did that question run?

”What's this? An oath! I'm surprised. How does this young fellow happen to swear? Perhaps I do not know as much of him as I ought to. I must look into his antecedents more closely. What kind of training has he had? What other bad habits has he had, and has he now? Yes, certainly I must look into this young man a little more before I trust him further.”

That is how the question ran in the old man's mind. And n.o.body can tell whether he ever did completely trust the young fellow again or not. A subconscious inquiry was doubtless always present whenever that young man's work was mentioned. No matter whether the old banker's caution was justified; no matter whether this sensitiveness to the language which the young man used is reasonable or not--the young man needs all the respect and confidence he can possibly get. It is a good thing for him to have the admiration of those among whom he dwells, but their respect and confidence he must have. He cannot get along without that. Let him be clean of speech, therefore.

This growing prejudice against profanity is not unreasonable. Oaths indicate a poverty of language--of ideas. The thief, the burglar, the low-cla.s.s criminal everywhere, expresses all his emotions by oaths.

Are they angry? They swear. Surprised? They swear. Delighted? They swear. Every conception of the mind, every impulse of the blood, is expressed in the narrow and base vocabulary of profanity. So that the first thing an oath indicates is that he who uses it has limited intellectual resources, otherwise he would not employ so commonplace a method of expressing himself.

Then, too, we quite unconsciously connect the swearing man with the cla.s.s which habitually employs profanity as the staple of its talk; and so he who uses an oath in our presence automatically sinks to a little lower level in our esteem. We cannot help it. We do not reason out the why and wherefore of it, but we know it is so.

Do not justify yourself by talking about Was.h.i.+ngton raging at Monmouth, or Paul Jones boarding the _Serapis_, or Erskine climaxing his greatest effort for justice with an appeal to the Father of the universe. These men all swore, and swore mightily on those occasions, but their oaths were oaths indeed.

Liberty or tyranny, life or death, justice or infamy, hung in the balance, and their oaths were prayers as earnest as ever ascended to the Throne. But that is no example for you, young man. If you will agree never to use an oath until you have the provocation of treason, and your country thereby endangered, as Was.h.i.+ngton had at Monmouth, there are a million chances to one that the Sacred Name will never pa.s.s your lips in vain.

I knew a man in the logging-camps twenty-eight years ago. He there acquired that lurid speech which was the language by which oxen, horses, and men themselves were in those times driven in those rude camps of rugged industry. My friend did not remain a logger. He became a lawyer and achieved some distinction and success, but he could not shake off the habit of swearing. He would find himself ”ripping out an oath,” as the saying is, on the most surprising occasions--and they were brilliant oaths, splendid, flas.h.i.+ng, coruscating oaths. His talk was a very tropic jungle of profanity.

So great were his abilities, so unceasing and intense his energies, and so upright his life, that he succeeded in spite of this defect.

But this strong, fine man told me that this low habit of speech delayed his progress constantly. A few years ago, in a great crisis in his life, he was suddenly able to break the spell, and I think he is now prouder of his clean words and that mastery of himself which their use indicates than he is of any single success he has achieved or of any single honor he has won.

But the newspaper correspondent said the truest thing of all when he suggested that the really capable and apparently successful lawyer and politician, observed in the pa.s.sing throng, had made a mistake in not having had the influence of woman in his life. There is positively nothing of such value to young men--yes, and to old men, too--as the chastening and powerful influence for good which women bring into their lives.

This is the universal opinion, too. All literature voices it. Wilhelm Meister and The Old Cattleman alike declare it. ”There is no doubt about it,” exclaims the sage of Wolfville, ”woman is a refinin', an enn.o.blin' influence. * * * She subdooes the reckless, subjoogates the rebellious, sobers the friv'lous, burns the ground from onder the indolent moccasins of that male she's roped up in holy wedlock's bonds an' pints the way to a higher and happier life. And that's whatever!”

And The Old Cattleman even includes the raucous ”Missis Rucker--as troo a lady as ever baked a biscuit.”