be put away from you.

Know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary.

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable
in Thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.




THOUGHTS ON TALKING


To make a good talker, genius and learning, even wit and eloquence, are
insufficient; to these, in all or in part, must be added in some degree
the talents of active life. The character has as much to do with
colloquial power as has the intellect; the temperament, feelings, and
animal spirits, even more, perhaps, than the mental gifts. "Napoleon
said things which tell in history like his battles. Luther's Table-Talk
glows with the fire that burnt the Pope's bull." Cæsar, Cicero,
Themistocles, Lord Bacon, Selden, Talleyrand, and, in our own country,
Aaron Burr, Jefferson, Webster, and Choate, were all, more or less, men
of action. Sir Walter Scott tells us that, at a great dinner party, he
thought the lawyers beat the Bishops as talkers, and the Bishops the
wits. Nearly all great orators have been fine talkers. Lord Chatham, who
could electrify the House of Lords by pronouncing the word "Sugar," but
who in private was but commonplace, was an exception; but the
conversation of Pitt and Fox was brilliant and fascinating,--that of
Burke, rambling, but splendid, rich and instructive, beyond description.
The latter was the only man in the famous "Literary Club" who could cope