"Besides, there is another thing about this talking, which you
forget. It shapes our thoughts for us;--the waves of conversation
roll them as the surf rolls the pebbles on the shore. Let me
modify the image a little. I rough out my thoughts in talk as an
artist models in clay. Spoken language is so plastic,--you can pat
and coax, and spread and shave, and rub out, and fill up, and stick
on so easily when you work that soft material, that there is
nothing like it for modelling. Out of it come the shapes which you
turn into marble or bronze in your immortal books, if you happen to
write such. Or, to use another illustration, writing or printing
is like shooting with a rifle; you may hit your reader's mind, or
miss it;--but talking is like playing at a mark with the pipe of an
engine; if it is within reach, and you have time enough, you can't
help hitting it."

The company agreed that this last illustration was of superior
excellence, or, in the phrase used by them, "Fust-rate." I
acknowledged the compliment, but gently rebuked the expression.
"Fust-rate," "prime," "a prime article," "a superior piece of
goods," "a handsome garment," "a gent in a flowered vest,"--all
such expressions are final. They blast the lineage of him or her
who utters them, for generations up and down. There is one other
phrase which will soon come to be decisive of a man's social
STATUS, if it is not already: "That tells the whole story." It
is an expression which vulgar and conceited people particularly
affect, and which well-meaning ones, who know better, catch from
them. It is intended to stop all debate, like the previous
question in the General Court. Only it doesn't; simply because
"that" does not usually tell the whole, nor one half of the whole