The old Master has developed one quality of late for which I am afraid I
hardly gave him credit. He has turned out to be an excellent listener.
--I love to talk,--he said,--as a goose loves to swim. Sometimes I think
it is because I am a goose. For I never talked much at any one time in
my life without saying something or other I was sorry for.
--You too!--said I--Now that is very odd, for it is an experience I
have habitually. I thought you were rather too much of a philosopher
to trouble yourself about such small matters as to whether you had said
just what you meant to or not; especially as you know that the person
you talk to does not remember a word of what you said the next morning,
but is thinking, it is much more likely, of what she said, or how her
new dress looked, or some other body's new dress which made--hers look
as if it had been patched together from the leaves of last November.
That's what she's probably thinking about.
--She!--said the Master, with a look which it would take at least half a
page to explain to the entire satisfaction of thoughtful readers of both
sexes.
--I paid the respect due to that most significant monosyllable, which,
as the old Rabbi spoke it, with its targum of tone and expression, was
not to be answered flippantly, but soberly, advisedly, and after a pause
long enough for it to unfold its meaning in the listener's mind. For
there are short single words (all the world remembers Rachel's Helas!)
which are like those Japanese toys that look like nothing of any
significance as you throw them on the water, but which after a little
time open out into various strange and unexpected figures, and then you
find that each little shred had a complicated story to tell of itself.
-Yes,--said I, at the close of this silent interval, during which the
monosyllable had been opening out its meanings,--She. When I think of
talking, it is of course with a woman. For talking at its best being an
inspiration, it wants a corresponding divine quality of receptiveness;
and where will you find this but in woman?
The Master laughed a pleasant little laugh,--not a harsh, sarcastic one,
but playful, and tempered by so kind a look that it seemed as if every
wrinkled line about his old eyes repeated, “God bless you,” as the
tracings on the walls of the Alhambra repeat a sentence of the Koran.