She talks until you do not care whether you are right or wrong. You
only care for the blessed relief of silence, and when she has left
you, she has done all she could in that space of time to injure her
point of view. She has simply buried anything good that she might
have had to say in a cloud of dusty talk.
It is funny to hear such a woman say after a long interview, "Well,
at any rate, I gave him a good talking to. I guess he will go home
and think about it."
Think about it, madam? He will go home with an impression of rattle
and chatter and push that will make him dread the sight of your
face; and still more dread the sound of your voice, lest he be
subjected to further interviews. Women sit at work together. One
woman talks, talks, talks until her companions are so worn with the
constant chatter that they have neither head nor nerve enough to do
their work well. If they know how to let the chatter go on and turn
their attention away from it, so that it makes no impression, they
are fortunate indeed, and the practice is most useful to them. But
that does not relieve the strain of the nervous talker herself; she
is wearing herself out from day to day, and ruining her mind as well
as hurting the nerves and dispositions of those about her who do not
know how to protect themselves from her nervous talk.
Nervous talking is a disease.
Now the question is how to cure it. It can be cured, but the first
necessity is for a woman to know she has the disease.
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