The pronunciation of the best scholars in every
part of our country is very similar, while the difference becomes more
and more strongly marked between the inhabitants of the various States
of the Union as we descend in the scale of education.
Finally, do not fear to be silent when you have nothing to say. Do not
talk for the mere sake of talking. To sit silently and abstractedly, as
if one were among but not of the company in which one may chance to be,
is discourteous; because it implies a fancied superiority, or an unkind
indifference. Good manners require that in company one should be alive
to what is going on, but this does not imply the necessity of always
talking. There is, almost always, in a mixed company, some Conversation
to which a third person may listen without intrusion; but if this should
not happen to be the case, it is far better to wait until something
occurs that gives one an opportunity of talking to some rational
purpose, than to insist that one's tongue shall incessantly utter
articulate sounds whether the brain give it anything to say or no. This
sort of purposeless talking exerts a positively injurious influence upon
the mind, by leading it into the too common error of mistaking sound for
sense, words for ideas.
Before quitting this important subject, there is a general view to be
taken of it in its universal bearings upon Character, which places it
among the most important branches of a wise education.
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