Words are for communication, not for judgment. This is
what every thoughtful man knows for himself, for only fools
and silly schoolmasters push definitions over far into the
domain of conduct; and the majority of women, not learned
in these scholastic refinements, live all-of-a-piece and
unconsciously, as a tree grows, without caring to put a
name upon their acts or motives.
*
The correction of silence is what kills; when you know you
have transgressed, and your friend says nothing and avoids
your eye. If a man were made of gutta-percha, his heart
would quail at such a moment. But when the word is out,
the worst is over; and a fellow with any good-humour at all
may pass through a perfect hail of witty criticism, every
bare place on his soul hit to the quick with a shrewd
missile, and reappear, as if after a dive, tingling with a
fine moral reaction, and ready, with a shrinking readiness,
one-third loath, for a repetition of the discipline.
*
All natural talk is a festival of ostentation; and by the
laws of the game each accepts and fans the vanity of the
other. It is from that reason that we venture to lay
ourselves so open, that we dare to be so warmly eloquent,
and that we swell in each other's eyes to such a vast
proportion. For talkers, once launched, begin to overflow
the limits of their ordinary selves, tower up to the height
of their secret pretensions, and give themselves out for
the heroes, brave, pious, musical, and wise, that in their
most shining moments they aspire to be.
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