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Serving New Thought is pleased to present
Mince Pie
"Evolution is better than Revolution. New Thought Library's New Thought Archives encompass a full range of New Thought from Abrahamic to Vedic. New Thought literature reflects the ongoing evolution of human thought. New Thought's unique inclusion of science, art and philosophy presents a dramatic contrast with the magical thinking of decadent religions that promulgate supersticions standing in the way of progress to shared peace and prosperity." ~ Avalon de Rossett
Contents - Instructions - On Filling an Ink Well - Old Thoughts for Christmas - Christmas Cards - On Unanswering Letters - A Letter to Father Time - What Men Live By - The Unnatural Naturalist - Sitting in the Barber's Chair - Brown Eyes and Equinoxes - 163 Innocent Old Men - A Tragic Smell in Marathon - Bullied by the Birds - A Message for Boonville - Making Marathon Safe for the Urchin - The Smell of Smells - A Japanese Bachelor - Two Days We Celebrate - The Urchin at the Zoo - Fellow Craftsmen - The Key Ring - "Owd Bob" - The Apple That No One Ate - As to Rumors - Our Mothers - Greeting to American Anglers - Mrs. Izaak Walton Writers a Letter to Her Mother - Truth - The Tragedy of Washington Square - If Mr. Wilson Were the Weather Man - The Truth at Last - Fixed Ideas - Trials of a President Travelling Abroad - Diary of a Publisher's Office Boy - The Dog's Commandments - The Value of Criticism - A Marriage Service for Commuters - The Sunny Side of Grub Street - Burial Service for a Newspaper Joke - Advice to Those Visiting a Baby - Abou Ben Woodrow - My Magnificent System - Letters to Cynthia: I. In Praise of Boobs - Letters to Cynthia: II. Simplification - To an Unknown Damsel - Thoughts on Setting an Alarm Clock - Songs in a Shower Bath - On Dedicating a New Teapot - The Unforgivable Syntax - Visiting Poets - A Good Home in the Suburbs - Walt Whitman Miniatures - On Doors -
What a delicate and rare and gracious art is the art of conversation! With what a dexterity and skill the bubble of speech must be maneuvered if mind is to meet and mingle with mind.
There is no sadder disappointment than to realize that a conversation has been a complete failure. By which we mean that it has failed in blending or isolating for contrast the ideas, opinions and surmises of two eager minds. So often a conversation is shipwrecked by the very eagerness of one member to contribute. There must be give and take, parry and thrust, patience to hear and judgment to utter. How uneasy is the qualm as one looks back on an hour's talk and sees that the opportunity was wasted; the precious instant of intercourse gone forever: the secrets of the heart still incommunicate! Perhaps we were too anxious to hurry the moment, to enforce our own theory, to adduce instance from our own experience. Perhaps we were not patient enough to wait until our friend could express himself with ease and happiness. Perhaps we squandered the dialogue in tangent topics, in a multitude of irrelevances.
How few, how few are those gifted for real talk! There are fine merry fellows, full of mirth and shrewdly minted observation, who will not abide by one topic, who must always be lashing out upon some new byroad, snatching at every bush they pass. They are too excitable, too ungoverned for the joys of patient intercourse. Talk is so solemn a rite it should be approached with prayer and must be conducted with nicety and forbearance. What steadiness and sympathy are needed if the thread of thought is to be unwound without tangles or snapping! What forbearance, while each of the pair, after tentative gropings here and yonder, feels his way toward truth as he sees it. So often two in talk are like men standing back to back, each trying to describe to the other what he sees and disputing because their visions do not tally. It takes a little time for minds to turn face to face.
Very often conversations are better among three than between two, for the reason that then one of the trio is always, unconsciously, acting as umpire, interposing fair play, recalling wandering wits to the nub of the argument, seeing that the aggressiveness of one does no foul to the reticence of another. Talk in twos may, alas! fall into speaker and listener: talk in threes rarely does so.
It is little realized how slowly, how painfully, we approach the expression of truth. We are so variable, so anxious to be polite, and alternately swayed by caution or anger. Our mind oscillates like a pendulum: it takes some time for it to come to rest. And then, the proper allowance and correction has to be made for our individual vibrations that prevent accuracy. Even the compass needle doesn't point the true north, but only the magnetic north. Similarly our minds at best can but indicate magnetic truth, and are distorted by many things that act as iron filings do on the compass. The necessity of holding one's job: what an iron filing that is on the compass card of a man's brain!
We are all afraid of truth: we keep a battalion of our pet prejudices and precautions ready to throw into the argument as shock troops, rather than let our fortress of Truth be stormed. We have smoke bombs and decoy ships and all manner of cunning colorizations by which we conceal our innards from our friends, and even from ourselves. How we fume and fidget, how we bustle and dodge rather than commit ourselves.
In days of hurry and complication, in the incessant pressure of human problems that thrust our days behind us, does one never dream of a way of life in which talk would be honored and exalted to its proper place in the sun? What a zest there is in that intimate unreserved exchange of thought, in the pursuit of the magical blue bird of joy and human satisfaction that may be seen flitting distantly through the branches of life. It was a sad thing for the world when it grew so busy that men had no time to talk. There are such treasures of knowledge and compassion in the minds of our friends, could we only have time to talk them out of their shy quarries. If we had our way, we would set aside one day a week for talking. In fact, we would reorganize the week altogether. We would have one day for Worship (let each man devote it to worship of whatever he holds dearest); one day for Work; one day for Play (probably fishing); one day for Talking; one day for Reading, and one day for Smoking and Thinking. That would leave one day for Resting, and (incidentally) interviewing employers.
The best week of our life was one in which we did nothing but talk. We spent it with a delightful gentleman who has a little bungalow on the shore of a lake in Pike County. He had a great many books and cigars, both of which are conversational stimulants. We used to lie out on the edge of the lake, in our oldest trousers, and talk. We discussed ever so many subjects; in all of them he knew immensely more than we did. We built up a complete philosophy of indolence and good will, according to Food and Sleep and Swimming their proper share of homage. We rose at 10 in the morning and began talking; we talked all day and until 3 o'clock at night. Then we went to bed and regained strength and combativeness for the coming day. Never was a week better spent. We committed no crimes, planned no secret treaties, devised no annexations or indemnities. We envied no one. We examined the entire world and found it worth while. Meanwhile our wives, who were watching (perhaps with a little quiet indignation) from the veranda, kept on asking us, "What on earth do you talk about?"
Bless their hearts, men don't have to have anything to talk about. They just talk.
And there is only one rule for being a good talker: learn how to listen.
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