Page:Side talks with girls (1895).djvu/160

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148
Side Talks with Girls

much, for then you do better work. Rest for you may mean reading a pretty story, while for me it may be leaving books and looking out at the green trees for a while. Find out that rest which is best suited to you and permit yourself to have it.

REST IN TALK

That is a pleasant rest. To sit still and listen to the quiet talk of somebody else, somebody who will not require an answer from you—a charitable somebody who will not mind if gradually, as the talk drifts into a monotone, your eyes close and a refreshing sleep of ten minutes comes to you. Generally, talk is work with a nervous girl. She is so eager to show that she is up in everything, so anxious to be considered intelligent and cultured that she forgets that listening is part of conversation, and she degenerates into what is called a great talker. And that means one who absorbs the conversation. But she who is wise, and who finds rest in talk, will listen with intelligence, and once in a while say something worth hearing. But she will not determine to tell all she knows at once, or to drive all other talkers out of the field of conversation. Who has not been tired out by the restless talker—by the one who answers the question you did not ask her while she gives information to someone else who has forgotten more than she ever knew?